A Must-Have Game for Any Bleach Fan Out There
For any Bleach fan out there there's not much to dislike about the game. It's fun, it's stylish and attractive, it's got most if not all of the main and even lesser cast, and it has a decent story to boot.
The 3rd Phantom moves away from the usual fighting game style and focuses more and the strategic RPG genre. Instead of simply entering a battle and mashing buttons to beat the snot out of your opponent you will group up with other characters and strategize your attacks via the usual grid-based movement that's standard in strategy RPG type gaming. Than you'll select your character, a nearby enemy, and the character will attack and than receive an attack from the enemy via an animated screen that looks very similar to the Bleach fighting game scenes, but without the player input.
This makes it very different from most of the past Bleach games out there. If you just like fighting games than you'll be in for a surprise here as there is really no feeling of that fighting game that we're so used to seeing. But this is by no means a bad thing.
The game takes place even before the anime series started, which in itself is rather interesting. While I believe Ichigo, Chad, Orihime, Uryū and the other humans make an appearance, they don't do so until later in the game. It's actual quite some time before the series began, where Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihōin are still Soul Reapers of the Soul Society and the Seireitei. Sōsuke Aizen is now a Lieutenant of the 5th Division.
The story primarily focuses on two twins, new characters to the Bleach title, named Fujimaru Kudō and Matsuri Kudō. They are brother and sister. At the start of the game they are attacked by a Hollow calling himself the Mad Eatter and is stopped just before he devours the twins. Fujimaru is badly wounded and isn't expected to live, however the twins are taken in by Seigen Suzunami (former Captain of the 5th Division of the Gotei 13) and his sister Konoka Suzunami. Upon Fujimaru's recovery they are adapted by the Suzunami's and are lovingly raised by the two. They are trained and become Soul Reapers, and, of course, join the 5th Division.
This is where the game truly begins, with Fujimaru and Matsuri now being Soul Reapers. It is their task to fight the sudden outburst of Hollows that have strangely been invading and attacking the Rukon District, and to locate the reason behind the attacks.
The story, while perhaps somewhat basic and not extremely deep, still manages to draw you in. It's got a lot of action, but also contains a healthy dose of the humor we come to expect from Bleach. That, and it tends to be a rather sweet and sometimes touching story at times, showing the deep and trusting love of a brother and sister.
And despite it's RPG mechanics, it still somehow, surprisingly, *feels* like Bleach; perhaps even more so than "Shattered Blade", "Blade of Fate", and "Dark Souls" in some ways.
Simply put, the game is something that would make one amazing Bleach movie. Now that would be great! Get to it Tite Kubo and Studio Pierrot!
With a large cast of characters to choose from to bring with you in your battles, decent story, and interesting origins the game is sure to please the Bleach fans out there.
It will, of course, take some getting used to, and it does have a few flaws of its own. My main complaints with the game are how long you seem to be waiting between turns and attacks. You'll be sitting for a few seconds staring at the "Player's Turn" or "Enemy's Turn" message, as well as when you just enter a battle with an enemy, and some other similar things. While the battle scene can be skipped, the player's turn and enemy's turn messages can not be skipped, nor can similar messages. Though their time on screen is fairly short so this is only a minor annoyance.
Perhaps a larger annoyance is the game's lack of variety outside of combat. While between chapters you will have "free time", there are no stores to shop at, no areas to explore, nothing like that. Instead, it features a line-based event system sort of similar to what's seen in Dark Souls, but with a tiny bit more variety. Instead of simply following a set destination to the next story event, you will be able to ch+oose the next event more than you did in Dark souls.
How does this work? Well, at the start of each free time sequence you are given a number of action points as well as a total number. You will also receive a list of available story elements, some more important than others but all which add to the overall story itself. Each story element has a cost of action points (usually one to four points), and each time you view one of these elements the point cost is added to your total. If the total goes over the set amount your free time ends and you move on to the next chapter. When you select an element you will see Kon move along a bar on the bottom, and each step he takes represents how many points the story you selected cost. If he stops on what looks like an envelope you will be given an item or a piece of equipment; he can also stop on things that give your character more stat points or experience points, a bonus for the next fight, or a debuff for the next fight. And if he stops on a pit it will end your free time outright, whether or not you have points left to spend. This means that you will have to have a strategy for viewing the story elements while collecting items and avoiding the not so desirable effects.
Granted I haven't gotten very far in the game as of yet, but so far it's been a great little game that should be in the collection of any fan of the anime series.