"Better than your average anime fighter, but not perfect."

Though most games based off anime or non-game material tend to be of low quality, a few stand out as being fairly good games. Bleach DS 2nd: Kokui Hirameku Requiem is one of those. Instead of being a party fighter like Super Smash Melee or Jump Ultimate Stars, though, BDS2 (as I'll be calling it from now on) is a more technical, classic fighting game, reminiscent of the Guilty Gear series.

Graphics: BDS2 has a different graphical style, one that again will remind you more of older, technical fighters. Unfortunately, the characters really don't look great. The sprites don't show a lot of detail (admittedly the DS's screen isn't great for detail, but still...), and some of them start to look pixilated if the camera zooms in enough. Some of the attack animations look a little strange, too. The art scenes that you can view in the gallery look nice, at least.
Graphics score: 5/10

Sound and music: Actually, the game is pretty good here. While none of the music tracks really stand out, they do the job fairly well. The voice acting is also quite good - whether it's someone shouting "BAN-KAI!" or Hollow Ichigo's maniacal laughter, all of the voice acting is just as it should be. The opening theme, "Resistance" (By High and Mighty Color, same band that did Ichirin no Hana, which is the 3rd Bleach opening) is good as well.
Sound score: 9/10

Gameplay: Ah, the most important area of any game. BDS2 has fairly good gameplay in general, but (as with almost any game) has a few flaws that detract from the overall experience.
Starting with the actual fighting, the game fares decently well. You can use Y, X, and A to use weak, normal, and strong attacks, and the weaker attacks can be chained into the stronger. Most characters also have attacks that knock enemies into the air, where you can continue your combo. Unlike most fighting games, you have a meter for "Flash Steps", an ability to teleport short distances that many Bleach characters have. The Flash Steps allow you to get behind an opponent and back-attack, continue a combo after the opponent staggers, or just move around quickly. Extending a combo via flash steps can feel somewhat random - sometimes it works fine, sometimes it gives an enemy time to block. Flash steps drain your stamina gauge, which is also used for Specials, the weaker type of ultimate attack. Specials are usually minor in damage output (and aren't really flashy, most of them are just rushing attacks or extra combos), but they can be used in a chain for greater effectiveness. Supers (the stronger type of ultimate attack) have their own separate meter, and are the strongest types of attacks in the game. Since this is Bleach and some characters have Bankai, each character who has a known Bankai has it available as a super, where you get a few seconds of incredible power.

Unlike most fighting games, BDS2 has a story mode, with a unique story that vaguely follows the Soul Society arc of the Bleach manga. During the story, you go around and complete different missions, which earn you new characters, money (which can be used to buy things like different character colors, art, and cards), or just open up more missions. While many of the missions are just 1v1 fights, some have different objectives, like trying to pick up butterflies as fast as possible, or collecting blue pieces of paper but not red ones. The story mode is nice overall, but a few of the missions really needed reworking. There are several missions where it's 1v3, and your opponents basically all attack extremely quickly, leaving you very little openings. Fights like this are annoying and based off luck more than skill, since the best way to win is to try and run away, then pull off a super and do as much damage as possible with it. Once you've completed the story mode, you can replay it again to go through missions you've missed, and complete everything on different difficulty levels.

While the fighting is good, it isn't exactly easy to learn, especially if you haven't played a technical fighter before. The combos aren't exactly intuitive, and pulling off something simple you see someone else do can be extremely difficult. Supers and Specials can be used either by touching the touch screen, or by inputting specific button combinations. While having both options available is nice, it's very, very easy to accidentally hit the button combo for a special and screw up your combo, which is all the more annoying since many specials leave you open afterwards.

Someone somewhere once said "Balance and character variance in games are in an inverse relationship", and BDS2 definitely falls towards the balance side of the spectrum. Characters don't have too many regular attacks, and most of them are very similar. Seriously, almost all the weak attacks are short range hits with either hilt of sword/fist, and the other attacks don't vary much either. Most of the differences in between characters occurs during the specials, and thankfully, they vary a good amount without being imbalanced. Actually, balance in this game isn't much of an issue at all, and most of the characters can fight on equal grounds with each other. It's not completely balanced, but nothing stands out too much as being really bad. The one exception is the joke characters, but that's expected.

A part of the game that doesn't really pan out is the card system. You have cards that you can use by tapping the touch screen that give various effects, but it's easy to just forget about them. They're also frowned upon in online play, so ignoring them is probably the best thing to do.

One huge and really odd problem is the character selection. While one or two joke characters isn't a huge deal, this game goes way overboard. The ultimate example of this is a character called Shibata. He plays a minor role in one episode early on, makes a cameo in a later episode, and that's it. He doesn't fight at all, and most people who watch the show wouldn't have a clue who he was given just his name. And yet, he's a playable character in this. Characters like that getting in is all the more unforgivable when there are characters that would be fun and have unique abilities that DIDN'T get in. For example (minor Bleach spoiler), there's a character called Yumichika, who has a few fight scenes and has a unique ability (draining his opponent's energy) that would be fun to use. Several other popular characters that would've been fun to play also got excluded, although some of them didn't have many known abilities.

There are a few other sections to the game, including character bios, attack descriptions, and an art gallery. Unfortunately, if you can't read Japanese, most of these aren't going to do anything for you.
Gameplay score: 14/20

Multiplayer: The multiplayer service for BDS2 is fairly good, although not exceptional. You can choose from either random matches or friendcode battles, and fight with up to four people. The ability to see who from your friend list is on is convenient. The online community isn't quite as big as games like Jump Ultimate Stars, but finding a match usually doesn't take too long. A nice touch to the online play are the emblems you can use next to your player name. Some of them are pictures of Bleach characters, while others are just generic objects. You can even make your own, but good luck trying to get it to look nice. The real problem with the online multiplayer, though, is that there's absolutely no penalty for disconnecting in the middle of a match. Due to this, many players have absurdly high win records because they simply don't feel like taking a loss.
Multiplayer score: 6/10

So, in overview:
+Balanced gameplay.
+Fairly good for an anime fighter.
+Nice opening song.
+Uses the Bleach liscense well.

-Strange character selections.
-Expensive, since you need to import it.
-The language barrier gets in the way a fair amount.
-Ugly graphics.
-Fighting system isn't as smooth as it could be.

Final score: 8/10 (not an average)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/05/07, Updated 04/18/07