Bleach Rebirth of Souls is a very unconventional fighting game, less focused on crazy combos and more on climactic moments and daring comebacks. To achieve this it uses some weird systems and doesn't really teach you any of them properly in the basic tutorial (the tutorial "challenges" are much more helpful though)... But once you get a bit of a feel for it it becomes wholly unique (and I will say ahead of time to just take a second to get used to the movement, up is always towards your enemy and down is always away, not left or right like a lot of other games, I thought it'd take me forever to not find awful but it really just took a couple of minutes, you get used to it I promise)

It reminds me a lot of "Dissidia Final Fantasy" for anyone who's played that, not that it plays anything like it, it doesn't, but it reminds me of it in that it uses a different system for how real damage is dealt compared to "just hit health to 0"... You can still do that but it's not always the best move and there's real tactical considerations in a fight to deal with, it's all about positioning and meter management and patiently waiting for your moment while occasionally deploying a bit of very basic math. What at first to me felt a bit stiff and heavy really quickly turned into feeling more deliberate and tactical, while also providing that sense of pulling out the next ridiculous transformation to come back from the brink of a losing fight which, let's be honest, is very Bleach.....That happens a lot xD

But my god is it the style that really helps this thing to work; the UI, the general tone, the fact that every character seems to have their own music that takes over the soundtrack when they transform and it's all great and funky and vibrant; the game feels like the people who made it really loved this world and its characters, they're mechanically unique and, while all quite simple to play in terms of controls, all have a distinct personality to their battles.
But what really gets me is that it seemingly wishes to bring back that sense of style and "cool" that Bleach had in it's first series, something more modern and "urban", and it absolutely nails it.

I've played basically none of the story mode so no idea how that goes, I played a bit of online, seemed okay but bad connections do have the ol' "slo-mo" lag problem, and, to be honest, I've spent basically all my time fighting bots on versus and trying characters out so, how this game is as an entire package of value for your personal needs... I don't know to be honest, but I know I like fighting in it so far :)

Sadly right now for many it does seem to be a technical nightmare, I've been lucky, no crashes atm and only one minor audio bug that fixed itself on just restarting the game, and my game is locked at 60fps which is fine and very typical of fighting games but I have ticked an option that says "uncapped" on the framerate so.... not quite sure what's going on there, it's mostly been working fine for me but I'm sure plenty of the current negative reviews are pretty strong evidence that I am the exception here so... be wary that you probably won't be as lucky as I am.

Still, this game's unique systems and style are really entrancing to me, I like it a lot so far and so, for now, I'm giving it the thumbs up. Takes a minute to get used to but, once you start to understand it, there's a really thoughtful and fun game here... Plus you get to be Chad and punch people with an arm that is literally just the devil in arm form so....I dig it :)

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is a very unconventional fighting game, less focused on crazy combos and more on climactic moments and daring comebacks. To achieve this it uses some weird systems and doesn't really teach you any of them properly in the basic tutorial (the tutorial "challenges" are much more helpful though)... But once you get a bit of a feel for it it becomes wholly unique (and I will say ahead of time to just take a second to get used to the movement, up is always towards your enemy and down is always away, not left or right like a lot of other games, I thought it'd take me forever to not find awful but it really just took a couple of minutes, you get used to it I promise) It reminds me a lot of "Dissidia Final Fantasy" for anyone who's played that, not that it plays anything like it, it doesn't, but it reminds me of it in that it uses a different system for how real damage is dealt compared to "just hit health to 0"... You can still do that but it's not always the best move and there's real tactical considerations in a fight to deal with, it's all about positioning and meter management and patiently waiting for your moment while occasionally deploying a bit of very basic math. What at first to me felt a bit stiff and heavy really quickly turned into feeling more deliberate and tactical, while also providing that sense of pulling out the next ridiculous transformation to come back from the brink of a losing fight which, let's be honest, is very Bleach.....That happens a lot xD But my god is it the style that really helps this thing to work; the UI, the general tone, the fact that every character seems to have their own music that takes over the soundtrack when they transform and it's all great and funky and vibrant; the game feels like the people who made it really loved this world and its characters, they're mechanically unique and, while all quite simple to play in terms of controls, all have a distinct personality to their battles. But what really gets me is that it seemingly wishes to bring back that sense of style and "cool" that Bleach had in it's first series, something more modern and "urban", and it absolutely nails it. I've played basically none of the story mode so no idea how that goes, I played a bit of online, seemed okay but bad connections do have the ol' "slo-mo" lag problem, and, to be honest, I've spent basically all my time fighting bots on versus and trying characters out so, how this game is as an entire package of value for your personal needs... I don't know to be honest, but I know I like fighting in it so far :) Sadly right now for many it does seem to be a technical nightmare, I've been lucky, no crashes atm and only one minor audio bug that fixed itself on just restarting the game, and my game is locked at 60fps which is fine and very typical of fighting games but I have ticked an option that says "uncapped" on the framerate so.... not quite sure what's going on there, it's mostly been working fine for me but I'm sure plenty of the current negative reviews are pretty strong evidence that I am the exception here so... be wary that you probably won't be as lucky as I am. Still, this game's unique systems and style are really entrancing to me, I like it a lot so far and so, for now, I'm giving it the thumbs up. Takes a minute to get used to but, once you start to understand it, there's a really thoughtful and fun game here... Plus you get to be Chad and punch people with an arm that is literally just the devil in arm form so....I dig it :)