"Bleach: Shattered Blade" game review!
Yay, so I got the Bleach game for the Wii: "Bleach: Shattered Blade." It's the American release of the game; I would have preferred the Japanese version, but the mod-chip that Johan installed in our Wii refuses to work. DX Still it's cool that I get to play it now because I really didn't think that they'd release it in America with where the Bleach anime storyline is here. So if you're interested you can read my thoughts about the game.
The game is a direct port of the Japanese game, so they didn't mess with the story of the game or hide any of the characters or powers that haven't been shown here in the anime yet, which is cool. Just remember that this game was a launch title for the Wii in Japan, so there is still a lot of room for improvement in the game play, so your expectations for it shouldn't be too incredibly high. This is a very good game, though, especially for being such an early title.
(NOTE: I feel it necessary to point out that so far I have been playing the game on "Easy' mode. The main reason is to save my right arm. I have problems with my arm, and there is a lot of movement in the game play which tends to cause me pain after playing; I've already had to ice my wrist and shoulder. So on easy mode, I can still enjoy the game play, but I also save myself a little bit of pain. I don't know yet, if I have to play it on other difficulty settings to unlock other characters or features.)
The storyline of the game is weak, but that's not surprising, fighting games are not known for their storylines usually anyway. You can skip through the storyline cut scenes in story mode, though, and it's nice to be able to get right to the fighting. There is a fair amount of loading, but it works having the little breaks between the fights. The game play is remarkably solid and responsive, although not very complicated. You do need a lot of room to play, either standing up or sitting on the edge of the couch because you have to swing the remote a lot. This game is not about random flailing around with the remote to control the zanpakuto (I haven't tried to play as any of the non-zanpakuto characters yet, so I might have to revise this later for them,) it responds to a specific set of swings, which are the same for all of the characters, although the outcome or visual of the swing differs between characters. Each character has critical attacks and special attacks, and then bankai attacks once the bankai gauge is powered up (for characters without bankai or if we haven't seen it yet, it's basically just a super powered special attack,) and you pretty much spend most of the time doing these attacks because basic attacks really don't do much damage at all. The modes in the game are Story (silly story lines, but you need to play them to unlock other characters and features,) Arcade (play through 8 opponents, this will also unlock other characters,) Versus (play against another player, the computer, or watch the computer play as both characters,) Training, and there's an Urahara shop thing (you get "Kan" which are credits and you can buy feature unlocks for the gallery and stuff like that.)
There is one major change that they made to this game, though and that is that they did dub the game with the English VAs, and much to my disappointment there's no setting to switch back to the original Japanese voices. If the anime dub makes you cry, then this game will as well. The dubs provide some annoying and/or unintentionally funny moments while playing the game. When Byakuya takes a hit he makes bizarre grunting noises or just says "ow" (like how it would sound if you bumped your elbow or something.) At one point in the story mode Ichigo says "I'm gonna make you cry, Uryuu." x_X Ikkaku has this really disturbing yell when he does his special attack, it's quite painful. (No offense to Vic, but I still hate Ikkaku's dub voice, it just doesn't work at all for me. [Many of you have expressed having similar feelings about Uryuu's dub voice.] And yet, I still love playing Ikkaku because his bankai is just so fucking badass! I get so happy when I see it fill up the screen! Yes, I know I have a problem. XDDD) Then there's the game-exclusive Arrancar character, Arturo Plateado, who I suppose because of his name has a Spanish accent (usually, sometimes he loses the accent inexplicably.) He sounds like a somewhat demented Puss-in-Boots. I haven't unlocked any of the other Arrancar yet, but I just hope that they didn't give them all accents, because that would make me oh-so-sad.
Dub voices aside, this game is a lot of fun. It has a nice look overall too (there are a few rendering issues, but nothing too serious.) One of the things that cracks me up is that they were clearly worried about 'boob physics' in this game; if you play as Orihime or Rangiku there is a lot of jiggling going on. XD (Someone needs to buy those poor girls sports bras!) I love being able to play as my favorite Bleach characters. This is definitely one of the best anime-based video games that I've played, and I've read on game websites that this game is also one of the most solid fighters out at the moment for the Wii.
One crappy thing is that none of the game stores in my city are stocking this game, so I had to buy it online, otherwise I would have had to have one of the stores order it in for me. If you're interested, buy.com has the game for a good price, and they have free shipping, and $10 off if you use a new Google checkout account, so that's not too bad of a deal. (I'm not getting anything from buy.com for this, it's just that that's how I got my game, and wanted to let you all know.)
So I definitely recommend this game for all Bleach fans and people interested in a fighter for the Wii.
Have fun!