Bleach: Shattered Blade

""I'm Vanishing! Vanishing!""

To the casual gamer, the name might seem odd, but to Bleach fans everywhere, we know no Chlorine is involved. Bleach: Shattered Blade (AKA, Bleach Wii) is based on very popular anime series of the same name. And, It does a fairly authentic take of the Characters from the series, so much so that, if so inclined, you'll feel perfectly at home shouting the names of your special attacks and the word "Bankai!", and not be embarrassed in the slightest. The game has it's flaws though, including a lack of serious depth that can be found in other fighting games. Anyway, down to brass tax.

Story
Bleach Wii has it's own story which takes place within the anime timeline. To the surprise of dub fans, this game will SERIOUSLY spoil the anime story, so if you don't want spoilers, you'll have to wait a few months until the dub catches up, or watch sub episodes to get up to speed. The story is played out in Episode mode, where you play through with different characters, depending on what episode you pick. To make it short, The Sokyoku (Non fans read as; “powerful thingy“) is broken and it's pieces are really powerful and the characters want to gather them up. Of course, they'll kill each other to get the pieces. Talk about clichéd. Doing this will ultimately lead you to fight the bad guy of this game, an original character created by Kubo Tite (the guy who writes Bleach) and Sega, Arturo Plateado.

The Story is told through either narrated still images, or the occasional cutscene. While they look pretty and tell you what's going on simple enough they obviously could be better. They do, however, give you a chance to hear the voice actors saying things other than the same lines repeated over and over.

Story Score: 6/10

Hey, speaking of voice actors…

Sound
Bleach has some pretty decent sound, which I've broken into distinct categories to make it easier to say how good they are, Voices and Music. The Voices are pretty good, every VA from the show lends their part to the characters they play, and characters yet to appear in the dub get their new actors who may or may not be the actors when they appear on American TV. The voices can get repetitive during fights, as spamming normal attacks with have the same generic cry repeated over and over, but you can break the monotony. And if you're some strange fan of the JP Bleach only who can‘t stand the English voices, you canmute them. The voices are particularly good in episode mode, where the people get speak nice long monologues. To bad not every one has an episode mode. As for music, well, it's pretty decent. The Menu tunes are pretty unremarkable, but aren't overly annoying. The stage BGMs are kind of hit and miss, some are nothing to write home about, but others are pretty catchy. The Bankai/Power up theme can get repetitive since you'll be hearing it a lot, but it doesn't bother me and again, you can adjust the music volume. The “Within the Seal” music matches with it‘s area the best, considering it's the Final Boss's stage.

Sound Score: 8/10

Graphics
Before considering the graphics, you have to remember that A, this game is on the Wii (Which is not a graphics powerhouse) and B, is cel shaded. Keeping that in mind, let's talk about the graphics. The game is pretty good in this regard. It has a certain quality that makes it seem above last-gen, but not quite good enough to be called “next-gen”. When fighting, the stages are pretty and bright (unless you're playing at night, in which case they aren't quite as bright). The characters attacks are plenty flashy and shiny, but the effect how good they look may wear off after seeing the same move for the Nth time. The 3D models are great though, they're pretty good 3D of the anime. Some characters look a bit odd due to the “fleshing out” the 3D gives them, but if that bothers you, you can probably play through their arcade mode and/or episode mode and just not care if you ever see them again. The graphics could be much better, but considering that they're also good now, let's not push it.

Graphics Score: 7/10

Gameplay
Now we come to the real core of the review, the gameplay. Saved the best for last, and all that. Since this is a Wii game, as you expect, you need a Wiimote and Nunchuck to play. Attacking seems pretty simple, thrust the Wiimote forward for a stab, wave it up and down for a vertical chop, swing side to side for horizontal slashes, right? Well, it's not quite that easy. Because of the nature of a stabbing motion, you may find your self chopping instead of stabbing, and I sometimes stab when I want to vertically slice, since I lunge forward a bit. These slight errors in motions aren't fatal however, as after a few sessions, you'll get the feel for it, and compensate. Be warned, holding the Wiimote like a sword and swinging it around like it has an imaginary edge will not get you the attacks you want. Unless you some how learned to play good like that. Then it might surprise human opponents. Other controls include holding the A or B buttons while swinging, which unleashes critical attacks or special moves, respectively. Movement is controlled by the Nunchuck, and the arenas are 3D enough for you to move in any direction you like, but you can only go so far from your opponent. To make moving quicker, holding C will cause you to dash, moving rapidly. This means you can run around behind opponents and give them a good whack on the head. In Bankai, several characters gain the ability to flash step too, meaning that regular dashing is replaced by an even quicker mini-teleport move. Z button Guards, though you wont be utilizing that particular action very much (Explained below). To prevent attack spamming, the stamina/reiatsu bar, just under the health bar, comes into play. Each swing reduces the bar a little, with more powerful criticals and specials taking more of the bar. When the bar runs out, you can't attack anymore. This stops infinite light attack spamming, but only for a moment. Yes, when the bar is gone, you cant attack. But, stop for a few seconds, and you'll have enough energy to launch another set of quick attacks, or a special move. To balance this, light attacks do almost no damage. The Nunchuck has one additional feature, shaking it causes the “Bankai” meter to go up, but you can't attack while charging. The meter also goes up when you get hit and to a lesser extent, when you damage the opponent. Shake the remote when its full to power up. In Bankai mode, you're specials will probably change, and deal more damage. Some people's entire move set changes, eliminating light attacks and replacing them with all critical attacks. In addition, most people gain a new super attack (Usually initiated with a Stab+B), which deals massive damage to your opponent, often being a finisher or way to even the odds. Multi-hit supers can have their damage as much as tripled, you can extend the combo by shaking the Wiimote during it. Using a super will probably deplete almost all of the meter, so you're better off saving those until you're about to run out of Bankai anyway. However, there are still flaws in the system.

Guarding is almost useless. Critical attacks (A+ some motion) are unblockable, and all it takes is one to leave you vulnerable. Specials can be blocked, but it's often just easier to cancel out you opponents attack. The AI is laughably easy when you're beating it, or near impossible when you're not. I'm not saying the computer is really intelligent, but if you start to lose, more often than not, you'll stay losing. The game's fighting system is very shallow, with normal attacks just used to either whittle away your opponent's health or force them to put their guard up so you can critical. Even this is just a build up to Bankai, since victory is much easier when you have the highly over powered attacks wielded by some characters. It's not really a race to Bankai though, as just because you make it their first doesn't mean you wont run out first and have your opponent put the smackdown on you. At least the game modes are simple enough. Apart from the aforementioned Episode mode, there's Vs mode, where you can play 1P vs. COM, 1P vs. 2P or COM vs. COM, and Arcade mode, which is a serious of eight matches against random opponents. You'll spend a lot of you time unlocking characters and extra stuff you buy from “Urahara Shop” . So you do manage to spend plenty of time playing.

Gameplay Score: 7/10

Conclusion
In the end, Bleach is a decent and fun game. Not the best fighter for Wii, but a good game nonetheless. Anime fans will enjoy the game for it's license value and good Bleach-based gameplay, and non-fans can get enjoyment out of the unique style and time invested. The game has great replay in multiplayer, as do most games of its genre. There are still flaws that will hopefully be fixed in a sequel in the next couple of years, but for now, we'll make do what we have. If you're a Bleach fan, this game is a great addition to your collection, and is a good buy. For everyone else, unless you've very thoroughly studied every aspect of the game, you should rent or play a friend's copy before buying. And you should do it right now. Seriously, go try it now.

Score Review:
Story: 6/10
Sound: 8/10
Graphics: 7/10
Gameplay: 7/10

Overall Score: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/07

Game Release: Bleach: Shattered Blade (US, 10/09/07)