Bleach Rebirth of Souls Review (PS5)

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is much like the anime that inspired it. Packed full of great action scenes, hamstrung by awful pacing thanks to shedloads of filler and pointless exposition.

At its core Bleach is an arena fighter in a similar vein to the Naruto Ninja Storm series that recreates the events of Tito Kubo’s celebrated shonen series as a series of fights interspersed with a lot (read far too many) of lengthy cut scenes.

The basics of each bout follow a simple rock-paper-scissors format with blocks stopping attacks and breaks penetrating a character’s guard. Attacks are formed of simple combo strings that can be extended with a quick dash in the middle.

Successfully landing attacks builds up your Reishi, Reverse, and Evolution meters which allows to unleash special attacks, turn the tide of battle by pushing enemies back during a combo or increasing your attack or defence, and unleash your Bankai, revealing the true form of your weapon and doing a whole lot of damage in the process.

What separates Bleach from most other one-on-one fighters though is that rather than fighting in rounds, instead each character has a set number of Konpaku (lives), the warrior that manages to knock Their opponent down to zero first wins. It’s a clever twist that helps translate the often overwhelming odds some characters face in the series into gameplay in a simple yet effective manner. Managing to beat a foe when they have twice as much Konpaku as you is always satisfying, though this can also lead to some seriously irritating difficulty spikes.

This is augmented by a fun risk Vs reward system that sees you able to land a killing blow (Kikon) to your opponent when they are at 30% health, however this will knock fewer lives off than if you polish them off with no health left. Every new life refills their health meter. This can make all the difference against tougher opponents as you only need to cut them down twice instead of three times.

One problem with Bleach, as a fighting game at least, is that it’s a fairly bare-bones package. Though there is online and offline multiplayer, there’s not a lot to it save for being able to fight others (there aren’t even ranked matches), so most of your time is spent working your way through the campaign. There are several side stories to unlock by performing certain actions (secret missions) during the main fights. This helps to mix things up a little while you brawl. Bonuses are also given for managing to work under certain conditions or within a certain time.

You can also equip and upgrade gems that can further strengthen your fighter granting temporary bonuses to attack and defence or extending your special meters.

The presentation is also a mixed bag. During bouts, it does a fantastic job of recreating the sheer level of destruction that the soul Reapers can wreak upon the environment and as the floor is torn apart, trees topple and walls are reduced to rubble with a simple swing of a sword, however, the cut scenes that bookend ever fight and make up entire episodes of the main campaign, sometimes feel a little off. The voice acting, though it’s mostly done by the original voice cast doesn’t quite land the same, the subtitles don’t always fit properly and cut letters in half. The narrator speaking throughout each recap is also awful – Often mispronouncing basic words and even some of the characters’ names. (I don’t want to accuse the devs of using AI for it, but if this was the case it wouldn’t surprise me.)

This adds up to an experience that feels cheap and rushed at times, and though Bleach isn’t the biggest anime on the planet anymore, it deserves better.

Another problem is Rebirth of Souls pacing. Yes, Bleach does slow to a crawl as soon as Ichigo and Co. Get to the Soul Society, but when you’re adapting an anime into a game it’s a chance to tell the story in a much more efficient manner. Sadly Rebirth of Souls fails on this front by forcing you to sit through endless exposition and cliff hangers from the anime when it doesn’t need to. Made worse by the fact you have to go back to the stage select screen every time you want to move the story on in any way. So you’re just jumping in and out of stages made up entirely of filler and exposition before you can finally unlock the next fight.

Final Thoughts

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is a fairly decent arena fighter and a solid adaptation of the oft-maligned anime for good and ill.

Fans of the source material will certainly find a lot to love about Rebirth of Souls, with the original voice cast reprising roles, and retelling the events of the entire saga this far in an abridged form is a fine way for those with a passing interest in Ichigo’s adventure to at least get a taste of it without having to sit through more than 300 episodes of Shonen. Even if it does inherit all of the anime’s pacing problems and horrible habit of dumping masses of exposition on the audience and explaining the motivations of every character in gruelling detail when it really doesn’t need to.

For fight fans looking for a good scrap Bleach Rebirth of Souls, is a fairly solid fighter with some clever mechanics that don’t quite hit the mark due to a lack of game modes, some obnoxious difficulty spikes in the main campaign, and a block button that lets you get hit far too easily.

As such, I can only recommend Bleach Rebirth of Souls to die hard desperate to take a more hands on trip to the Soul Society.