Hogan Reviews

I was cautiously optimistic about ReBirth (yes the B is capitalised for some reason) of Souls going in as the presentation looked spot on and the combat seemed fresh and exciting, but at the same time it was a modern Shonen-anime based fighter released by Bandai Namco, a lot of which has been bare-bones and subpar to say least in the last 10 years. The truth has ended up somewhere in the middle, where it plays better than most of its contemporaries and the presentation is indeed spot on, but it’s far from perfect. Still, it’s a brand new console Bleach game, something I literally assumed would never happen again, so I’m just happy it exists at all! Let’s take a look…

Background:

Humble beginnings as Ichigo takes on his first Hollow.

Bleach: ReBirth of Souls was released for the PS5, XBOX Series and PC on March 21^st 2025 worldwide. The previous Bleach console release was “Soul Resurreccion” on the PS3 back in 2011, so it’s been a long time coming. Well, the Bleach manga ended ages ago and the anime before even that, so it’s really only renewed interest thanks to the Thousand Year Blood War arc anime that’s caused this to happen (which is why it’s funny this game, at least in its base form, doesn’t contain any TYBW stuff in it!) but hey, whatever it takes!

The game has 33 playable characters, Ichigo (x3), Uryu, Chad, Yoruichi and Urahara from the Karakura Town side of things, Genryusai, Byakuya, Kenpachi, Soi Fon, Kyoraku, Hitsugaya, Rukia, Renji, Mayuri, Rangiku, Kira, Shuhei, Ikkaku and Komamura from Soul Society, and Aizen, Gin, Tosen (though based on his Soul Society moveset), Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, Starrk, Harribel, Nnoitra, Szayelaporro, and Nelliel (the adult version) from the Arrancar / Hueco Mundo part of the story. Plus you also have Kaien Shiba from Rukia’s flashbacks who has an alternate costume of Espada #9 Aaroniero, which is good fun. So a good roster to start from, plus some more added later as DLC that come from the Thousand Year Blood War arc, but we don’t (officially) know who they are as of this writing.

Gameplay:

I can assure you this is less visually confusing in motion…. a little bit.

The gameplay is an odd one, to say the least. It’s been mistakenly described as an “Arena Fighter” in some places but that’s not accurate, it’s actually a 2.5D fighter not unlike Soul Calibur or Tekken, where you’re locked into a one-on-one fight but can side-step in any direction in a 3D space. That’s where the comparisons to those two classic series end though! In an attempt to be original they’ve taken some of the classic rules of fighting games and turned them on their head, so instead of a traditional health meter you have a set number of “Konpaku” that act like lives, and the only way to take away a Konpaku or two (or three!) is to hit your opponent with your “Kikkon” move, which can only be done when your opponent’s more traditional health bar is low (to remove two Konpaku) or when it gets to 0, creating a more powerful “Soul Break” which allows your Kikkon move to take away three Konpaku. So there is some strategy there, if your opponent has six Konpaku do you go for three weaker Kikkon moves without doing as much regular damage or do you wait to finish them off with just two of the more powerful Soul Breaks for example, the issue is more that it over-complicates things for no real benefit. If characters just had regular health bars and Kikkon moves were just Supers you built up with a meter then I think the game would play a lot better, even if it would be far more generic.

A battle of Espada… a shame that one of them is really naff to play as…

The thing is that’s only scratching the surface. Every character has essentially the same base moveset comprised of a Quick Attack string, a Flash Attack string (basically heavy attack…) a “signature art” special move, and two “Spiritual Pressure Moves”, which are more powerful signature attacks that use up the Spiritual Power gauge that’s sits at the bottom of the screen. Everyone also gets a transformation of some sort (depending on the character) called “Awakenings” which can be activated when your “Fighting Spirit Gauge” reaches its maximum and can not only change your moveset but also give you other benefits including getting some health back, plus some characters have “Reawakenings” if they have a second transformation or even a few special ones that activate when a character is defeated, like Ichigo turning full hollow when he’s “killed”.  Everyone also has the ability to dash forward, quickly dash behind your opponent (which uses up two Reverse Gauge slots, which is another gauge mixed in with your spiritual power one…), do “Breaker” moves which are essentially throws if this were any other game only if you hold the button down you can potentially “chase” after your opponent to do it, perform “Reverse Actions” which are a powerful buff that come at the cost of your Reverse Gauge and comes in three flavours of “Soul Reverse” (done while standing), “Chain Reverse” (done in the middle of your own attack string) and “Burst Reverse” (done while you’re being attacked, which can hurt the enemy and break their momentum), and finally guard against attacks, which is governed by yet another gauge that will break if you block too much, which is about the only standard fighting game thing found here.

Confused? Well, guess what? Each character in the game has its own catch, including some having their own exclusive game mechanics complete with yet another gauge somewhere on the screen or will make one of the things I’ve described above work differently, so if you think you’ve mastered the game with Ichigo and then play Aizen you’ll find building up to transformations works completely different thanks to his Hogyoku mechanic, or playing as one of my favourites in Starrk is actually a pain in arse as his moves cost you your health meter and can’t always be activated, which combined with his first form being all distance attacks leaves him something of a nightmare to use, sadly. It does at least make each character feel unique, which given otherwise they only have two hit strings and three special moves to separate them is a good thing, but it doesn’t half make things overly complex. I appreciate trying something new but given a Bleach game is so rare I would’ve been fine with something a bit more derivative, honestly…

Why yes… yes it is. Not the best example though guys, might I suggest Street Fighter?

As for content? Well, you both get a lot and not much at the same time as it has “Story Mode”, “Secret Story”, “Battle Mode” and “Mission Mode”, which your usual tutorial, in-game shop and options thrown in, which may not sound like much but the Story Mode is LOOONG. It covers from the very start of the series through to Aizen’s defeat at the end of the Arrancar Arc and skips little to nothing with loads of cutscenes (some of which went on so long my controller disconnected, not joking!) and even a bunch of comedic “episodes” which play out and feel exactly like the annoying filler episodes from the anime series, which is a bit of authenticity I could’ve done without, honestly. “Secret Story” is just a run of a few missions from the POV of every playable character, and Mission Mode is actually just three ranks of what is essentially an Arcade Mode ladder, so once you’ve managed to make it through the story the latter is all that’s left, as Battle Mode is just your standard exhibition mode against the CPU or of course Online against other players, if such people exist any more, sadly. So like I said for your first week or two (or in my case month or two as I kept taking breaks from the cut-scene heavy story mode to play other things) you’ll have no end of things to play, but once the meaty story mode and extra “Secret Stories” are done then there’s not a lot left to do, so as I said you get a lot and not much at the same time.

It’s a shame because the game looks good, the menus and UI are fantastic, and the soundtrack and voice work are all top notch (well, I can only speak for the Japanese VO, but I’m sure the English is good as well by now!) so if they just toned down the uniqueness of combat and made it a bit more accessible and then added in a different mode or two they would’ve really nailed it.

Graphics and Sound:

Kyoraku takes away two Konpaku with a Soul Destruction, very stylishly to boot (and I’m not just talking about his dress sense!)

Well, as I’ve just said, the graphics are good, it has an odd mix of nearly realistic looking (and very destructible) stages and some decent cell shaded character models that occasionally look a tad blurry in combat and look a bit odd when they’re animated to do things they don’t normally do for the sake of cutscenes. The UI and especially the Menus have a stylish and very Bleach-like look to them, so top marks there.

Sound is good all round, lots of music (including several licensed tracks) that although don’t touch the amazing OST of the anime that’s a high bar I wasn’t expecting, so to get what we did is great, and the voicework is great, which is amazing given just how much bloody talking there is in the epic of a story mode the game has…

Story:

If you know, you know… and I assume anyone with only passing knowledge of the series knows!

I’m not going to recap the entirety of Bleach’s first three story arcs (especially given the Arrancar Arc is so long people tend to split it into three or four chunks just to talk about it) but CLICK HERE to go to the “Shonen Anime” page of the site where I reviewed the canon adapted episodes of the original Bleach series (plus the Thousand Year Blood War anime so far!) if you want to read up about it.

As I said the game does add a whole bunch of brand new comedic (and sometimes serious… okay rarely serious) filler episodes to the Bleach lore, but by their very nature they don’t impact anything and I can’t really remember many of them regardless. I think Mayuri created a large board game for all the Captains to play on was one, and Kyoraku took out some Shinigami who were fleecing an alcohol brewer only to get some good drink as a consequence in another. Chad taught the female Shinigami boxing as a way to keep fit? Then something to do with Shuhei and Iba practicing rock and roll in a forest disturbing Kira? … Hmmm… Definitely one where Ikkaku and the rest of Squad 11 play a fighting game because I took a screenshot of that one for the sake of the meta-ness of it all, as you’ve seen! Um, anyway…

Downloadable Content:

Shuhei slashes away at a Menos… remember that brief time they were a major threat? A shame, always loved the design!

As is traditional at this point the game came with some special Pre-order DLC costumes (of Hitsugaya and Yoruichi’s TYBW costumes) and “Ultimate Edition” costumes (where are just really naff looking palette swaps that I have no idea why they’re classed as being special…) along with a “Season” of DLC characters, specifically four from the Thousand Year Blood War arc. Now as of this writing they haven’t been announced yet but some datamining has uncovered who they are with pretty much 100% certainty, so if you want to know beforehand it’s out there for you to find!

Thoughts Now:

Aizen vs. Mayuri, now THAT would be an interesting fight…

I did enjoy my time with Bleach: ReBirth of Souls and I’m looking forward to giving the DLC characters a go, but I will say it’s hard to recommend. If you’re a big Bleach fan then you’ve probably brought the game already, but if you haven’t it’s not the simple and easy pick up and play type game most anime fighters are so you’ll be out of luck if you just want the power fantasy as playing as your favourite character, likewise if you like your traditional fighting game then I can’t recommend this either as it’s not your regular fighter and what it is doesn’t really work… Hmmm… its presentation also brings it up a notch, to be fair… I guess I’ll just call it down the middle and go with: