Review – Bleach: Rebirth of Souls

Bandai Namco’s latest attempt to adapt to games comes with the launch of, developed by Tamsoft. Promising to occupy a well -deserved place among the games in the pantheon of adaptations, players are taken by a frantic fighting game through the most striking moments in the history of Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Sado, Uryu and all Soul Society Shinigamis.

However, while this release seeks to capture the essence of the iconic anime in an action and combat experience, from certain formulas of other games, various moments and ideas can please greatly, but other developer choices can be negatively surprised, resulting in a fun experience while frustrating because it does not live up to the franchise legacy.

I didn’t visit the other world for wanting

Let’s get down to business, because Bleach: Rebirth of Souls has a game structure with a good variety of modes. History mode is the main attraction, covering the anime events from the initial arch, with the transformation of Ichigo Kurosaki into Ceifeiro de Almas, to the final confrontation against Aizen. There are also secret episodes that explore parallel stories of the characters. In addition, a battle mode offers offline and online combat between players, and mission mode, with specific challenges that reward items and skills.

When it comes to adaptation of the history of anime to the game, Bleach: Rebirth of Souls suffers from some stumbling blocks, especially compared to titles such as the last, one of the main exponents of the genus Arena Fighter. Although the narrative adapts very well the main events of the series and has a competent voice acting, including original voices of the Japanese actors, the visual presentation leaves much to be desired.

Apart from the few animations, many cutscenes look like slides, with stifled and emotionless animations. For nostalgic fans, revisiting these moments may be enough to maintain interest, but new players may not feel captivated by the way the story is told, even though it is not simple as it happened.

The combat system is undoubtedly the highest point of the game. Dynamic and strategic, Bleach: Rebirth of Souls combines mechanics with special attacks based on the spiritual pressure of characters and reversal movements, called Chain Reverse, and Kikon Moves, which allow exciting twisting twists with interesting defense options, counterattack and combo breakage. Most interesting, besides being tiring many times, is the Reishi, which is the life bar, which needs to be reset to destroy the Konpaku, eliminating the characters’ lives of lives.

These mechanics turn the learning curve into something quite challenging and with the lack of reward, especially in history mode, can thwart players’ engagement as much as the game offers intense and interesting fighting. Unlike other struggle titles, the proposal brought by the developers follows the idea of ​​the Anime narrative to provide even greater immersion in adapting the feeling that the original work has.

The best Tite Kubo style to be

Visually, Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a mix of hits and errors. The 3D models of the characters are detailed and respect Tite Kubo’s characteristic artistic style, but the environments are poorly inspired and the general charts seem dated for an exclusive PS5 title. During battles, the animations are fluid and impactful, but outside them the quality drops dramatically. The artistic direction tries to capture the essence of the anime with stylized scenarios and flashy visual effects on special blows, but polishing the execution is lacking.

On the other hand, the soundtrack is one of the biggest highlights of the game and features compositions by Takeharu Ishimoto, famous for his work on The World Ends With You, as well as including original songs such as Die For Love (Miyavi). The trails can perfectly capture the emotional intensity of battles and the dramatic moments of the story, and each character has their own musical theme during the awakened states, a detail that adds even more personality to the fights.

With many options to play, various modes and plenty of extra content to be played, unlocked and collected, Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a title that delivers a lot that fans deserve. Exciting fighting and a memorable soundtrack, even with slips on how the anime narrative is presented, the game is also a nostalgic celebration of the Bleach franchise. However, the proposal of this Fighter Arena may not be enough to win new players or compete with other major titles of the genre in the current market, even rival Bandai Namco itself in the past.