It might not be the best fighting game ever, but Bleach: Heat the Soul is pretty darn good...

User Rating: 8.5 | Bleach: Heat the Soul 4 PSP
Bleach. A type of whitening detergent. It is also one of the most popular anime series in the world. Bleach (the anime) is like a cup of coffee that you have early in the morning. It just hits the spot. But enough with all these words of wisdom. Let's get to the review. First thing that I have to say is this game absolutely rocks!!! Definitely one of the best PSP games in the market.

G.R.A.P.H.I.C.S
Seriously, this game has incredible graphics on the PSP. The characters look like they've been taken straight from the anime and turned into 3-D. The backgrounds aren't too shabby either.

S.O.U.N.D
All the voice actors from the series are all here to deliver their lines with good results. However, since all the audio and most of the words are in Japanese, chances are you'll be lost when in missions since they'll have certain special conditions to win the fight. Of course, there are translations on th net and even right here in gamespot. So, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

G.A.M.E.P.L.A.Y
Now, the controls. The game doesn't have those 16 hit combos that you see in games like Tekken but they're not that simple either. A veteran of the game will definitely have the advantage over a beginner who button mashes his way to victory. You'll learn the controls in about half an hour but you'll master it after a while. The fighting itself is enjoyable enough to make you come back for more.

F.E.A.T.U.R.E.S
The game has Character Master, Mission Mode, Training,Gallery, Ad Hoc, and VS which includes time attack, versus, and survival. You'll be spending most of your time in Character Master where you unlock extra costumes for your characters. The way to unlock the characters is to gain points. You gain points by actually playing the game itself? Sounds simple enough? Wrong. You'll be playing I think for about at least 10-15 hours of game time to unlock everybody in the game. This might not be that bad since you'll be playing the game more although it is a bit frustrating to know that after 3 hours of hard work, you've only unlocked 3 characters. And there are a lot of characters to unlock. A LOT. The mission mode is basically the story mode where it follows the vizard and arrancar arc.

C.O.N.C.L.U.S.I.O.N
All in all, Bleach: Heat the Soul 4 is a good, solid fighter with not too complicated controls and top-notch graphics. With 51 main characters and 26 support characters to unlock, you'll be playing this game for a long time.