BLEACH: Brave Souls is better than I had expected.

 Firstly, I'd like to apologize for only being able to get out one blog post in July. It was a bit of a rough month as I came down with an illness, but despite that I still managed to type out the Haikara post. I am glad that I managed to do at least the one. This time around I wanted to challenge myself and cover something different.

BLEACH: Brave Souls is a gacha mobile game based on Tite Kubo's well renowned manga, BLEACH, developed by KLab Games and released in 2015. Yes, you read that right, I played a mobile game and a gacha one at that. For this review and for the sake of transparency, I specifically played the PlayStation port as I do not own a phone. Most mobile games haven't piqued my interest and an awful lot look terrible both in terms of gameplay and graphics. With that being said, you can tell that I had very low expectations as I booted up Brave Souls.  

As soon as I loaded the game, I was instantly swallowed by a tsunami of nostalgia. The first eye catching thing that occurs is a very slick, stylish opening that is very reminiscent of the first anime opening. If you've ever watched the first few episodes of Bleach, I'm referring to the opening with Orange Range's Asterisk as the theme. It's not a copy and paste kind of deal but it invokes the spirit well enough to make fans of the franchise nostalgic. Hello Sleepwalkers did a phenomenal job with the music and they are a talented band that I recommend folks check out. After the opening finishes, players are then taken to the title screen which can be seen in the picture above my ramblings. As if the awesome illustrations weren't enough, before the player even pushes a button, they are treated to a character stating the name of the game. The character that says the title changes each time you get to the screen. This is a very neat touch and Bleach fans will adore hearing the voice actors voices again. If this wasn't enough, Ichigo then states Let's Go! I just love small details like this. 

From there, players are taking to the menu screen from which they can do a plethora of things. Overall, the design the hub area is pretty neat and I don't have many complaints about it. On the left hand side of the screen, players can access the inventory to take stock of what characters they currently have as well as any accessory's they can equip. At the top of the screen, there's the player's name and current rank which isn't all that important as the ranks only give you some spirit orbs. At the top, players can click to see the news, which, shows any updates to the game as well as any upcoming events, gacha selections, new sub quests/stories, new main quests etc. On the bottom left is the dreaded gacha system itself where players will gamble spirit orbs in order to attempt to obtain characters that they desire. The most expensive gacha pulls that I've seen have been around 250 spirit orbs and the least expensive were a mere 25. Fair warning though, it can be quite addictive especially when there's a specific character that you want. 

On the top right of the menu, players can go into the options menu. Asides form the obvious options, players can also choose the background of the hub and also the music which plays in the background. There's a great abundance of choice which is awesome. Below the options menu, there are the events and quests. These menus help players dive head first into the gameplay. Once again, there are various quests and such for the players to give a shot such as the main story quests, side story quests, the chronicle quests, raids, difficult quests, the arena. Senkaimon quests and even co-op. 

As far as the quests go, the main quests are pretty self explanatory. Main quests take you through the story of BLEACH from the beginning up until eventually the Thousand Year Blood War arc. The story is told through various cutscenes featuring stills of the anime and the characters whom have silent dialog. The lack of voice acting is a detriment a it would have been fun to hear the actors spout line after glorious line. Alas, instead players are treated to stills that at least change the characters expressions and bring it somewhat to life. The music is always neat though so that's a positive. Side quests allow the player to play through the various filler arcs from the anime as well as the first 3 movies and most interestingly, the Bleach novels, Can't Fear Your Own World and Spirits Are Forever With You. The 4th movie, Hellverse was relegated to a Sub story for whatever reasons which is rather odd. I opted to lump the main quests together with the side quests as I have the same issues with both. There's details that are glossed over, some certain cool scenes that are omitted and there's an overabundance of filler that serves no purpose than to prolong the arcs. These filler sections could have been used to give more story details and dialog. At least they give the player some spirit orbs. 

Sub stories are fun little adventures that take place within the Bleach universe. Some adventures are strictly within places such as the human world, the Seiretei or Hueco Mundo whilst others, take place within dreamlands of wonder such as the Spirit Society. There's also the Burn The Witch stories which the player can play through. These can vary in length, for example, there's a quest featuring Ichigo and Tatsuki that is a meagre one chapter long. Having said that though, the story is well done and so it's forgivable. The longer sub stories can go over 12 chapters long giving the players plenty of content. The best parts about these quests is the fact that every chapter contains story and the backgrounds also are beautiful and fitting the context of the stories perfectly. When playing a holiday themed quest, the background will have various decorations and even the enemies will dress up for the occasion, it's glorious! 

Then there's the lesser quests such as power up quests, raids and the Senkaimon quests. These are quests that focus on helping the player to obtain various rewards such as experience orbs, hogyoku, and characters to use to level up others. There's no story to be told in these, just copious amounts of grinding which isn't always negative, but it is less fun than following the stories.

 The gameplay is surprisingly fun. Having been used to playing the BLEACH fighting games, the Brave Souls gameplay was a welcome change. Players control a team of up to 3 characters of their choosing, each with their own unique abilities and attacks. Traversing through environments in 3D, players can hit big combos should they simply choose to hack and slash with a basic attack which is done by repeatedly pressing the X button if playing on PlayStation. If the player wants to do big damage however, the abilities are the way to go. By pressing either Square, Triangle or Circle, the player can unleash 3 unique abilities such as Ichigo's infamous Getsuga Tensho. These all differ between characters and it's fun to hear the voice actors go ham with move names and such. All characters also come with special moves performed by pressing the L1 button. These moves can be quite cinematic and features Bankais amongst other cool visual spectacles. I recommend saving special moves for the bosses you encounter at the end of the levels as they can come in clutch especially, on higher difficulty settings. 

Overall, I truly believe that Brave Souls is a great game. It's the very best BLEACH game out there for sure in my opinion and I'll do my best to try to explain why I believe that. Firstly, it's the most comprehensive BLEACH experience in gaming, as the player can play through the story of Tite Kubo's magnificent creation further than ever before. Sure, the Bount arc isn't included but, that was the least popular anime filler arc anyway. Almost anyone from the BLEACH universe is playable from Ichigo to Akon to Don Kanoji. It's the first game to feature the Thousand Year Blood War arc characters available to play as, including the Quincy! The quests have appropriate and well designed backgrounds that are suitable for the arc/quest they are used in. Honestly, it's a brilliant game for a BLEACH fan and even a casual anime fan might enjoy it. 

I will say that I have a love/hate relationship with the Gacha system. It can be extremely frustrating having spent all of the available spirit orbs and not getting the character you wanted. This has happened to me multiple times and I swear the Gacha system hates Nemu as she's so very rare whilst I get plenty of the same old characters over and over again. That being said, it is incredibly satisfying when you finally pull exactly what you hoped for. 

The most impressive thing about Brave Souls is the fact that it is still going strong even after almost a decade of development. There's fresh content and updates still ongoing to this day and Tite Kubo also has a hand in designing the anniversary additions of characters. His designs are some of my favourite in the whole of the manga and anime industry in general so for me especially, it's awesome that he helps out the developers in such a way.