Looking to catch up on Bleach? This fighting game might do the trick.
Bandai Namco Entertainment’s new fighting game Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a full-on retelling of the Bleach anime series, which first captivated audiences when it premiered in 2004. Bleach then saw a resurgence in popularity when the final arc of the manga was adapted into a new 2022 anime entitled Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War. However, say you’ve been hearing good things about Thousand-Year Blood War, but you can’t be bothered to catch up on the 366-episode original series. What then?
Enter Bleach: Rebirth of Souls, the game that pulls double duty as both a flashy fighting game and a lore refresher course for returning fans of Bleach. It’s also a great fighting game for casual anime fans, but what it isn’t is a great introduction to Bleach as a whole, given that its cinematics and storylines are presented haphazardly and rather cheaply. There’s a solid fighting game in here, buried underneath hours of shabby cinematics and repetitive fights.
Story
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a direct adaptation of the Bleach anime, retelling the story of the original series in a series of 1v1 fights. These fights most often, but don’t always, involve the story’s protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki, who becomes a substitute Soul Reaper after an actual Soul Reaper saves his life. Ichigo then goes on to meet others who share his powers, while learning more about the Soul Reapers and their role in defeating monstrous Hollows.
Bleach’s story gets a lot more windy and complicated as it goes on, incorporating various factions and characters into an increasingly high-stakes story. That’s just par for the course for a shonen series like this one, but its core appeal remains timeless. Ichigo remains a compelling, if irritable protagonist, who fights hard for the people around him, and the world of Bleach is an interesting and layered one to watch slowly unravel.
Unfortunately, only a fraction of what makes Bleach great translates into this game’s story mode. Its cutscenes do the job well enough in recapping the main story, with a pretty great English dub and all-killer, no-filler storytelling, but they’re hampered by obvious time and budgetary constraints. Dated textures, poor character animation, and uninspired set pieces drag the cinematics of this story mode down, appearing easily one or two generations behind modern standards.
These cutscenes make Rebirth of Souls look like a cheap cash-grab clinging onto the Bleach name for profit, and to an extent, that’s all it is. The story won’t convert any newcomers into fans of the franchise, and it can only tickle the nostalgic pleasure centres of returning fans at best.
Gameplay
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls might not have the most engaging story campaign, but the same can’t be said for its gameplay. There are many interlocking systems to get the hang of here, as the game’s earlier chapters make painfully clear, but they’re deceptively simple to understand. Like most fighting games, you have a guard and guard-breaker move. It’s important to not abuse your guard, as there’s a Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice-like posture gauge that, when it runs out, leaves the player vulnerable to a lot of damage.
As for combat, players have a swathe of moves available to make short work of their enemies: namely, the quick and flash attacks. These are your typical light and heavy attacks, which can be mixed together for a number of combos. This isn’t Mortal Kombat, however. You won’t have pages of combos to memorise. Instead, you can mix in special techniques like the Hakugeki and Kikon Move into your combos to deal more damage.
The objective is to reduce an opponent’s Reishi gauge (this is just a HP bar) until they run out of Konpaku. Enemies will have multiple Konpaku in a battle, which essentially serves as their number of lives. Players won’t have to deplete these Konpaku one-by-one, as mechanics like the Awakening Level provide ways for multiple Konpaku to be deleted all at once. There are more things to keep track of in combat, like Spiritual Pressure Moves (which are essentially special moves using up a gauge), but the main campaign is relatively simple to beat with a surface-level understanding of how it all works.
However, beating the game’s many Secret Missions and taking things to multiplayer will demand a deeper understanding of this game’s combat. By the time you’ve finished the main story, you should roughly understand what each character brings to the table. It’s a pretty packed roster overall, ranging from Ichigo Kurosaki himself, to fan favourites from the anime and manga like Yoruichi Shihōin.
It’s not surprising that Rebirth of Souls boasts combat this meaty. It is a fighting game, after all. What is surprising is just how fun it is for an anime adaptation like this, given how far its quality surpasses that of the main story. It only makes the cinematics feel that much more tacked on. If Rebirth of Souls were simply a fighting game with less fluff and more polish, it would be a stronger and more consistent package.
Verdict
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a fun way for returning fans to dive into the lore of the original, but don’t expect much from its story campaign. Its mediocre cinematics are a rudimentary way to experience Bleach’s story, despite the sheer breadth of voicework that went into voicing the many arcs and Secret Stories it encompasses. There’s a rote feeling attached to the cycle of watching cinematics and fighting bosses that this campaign takes the player on, and perhaps that’s down to the fact that the story isn’t as immersive as it was in the anime.
This game’s combat is its only saving grace. The game’s roster of playable characters is expansive and satisfyingly diverse, and it’s a lot of fun mastering their Spiritual Pressure Moves and combos before moving into the multiplayer mode. As it stands however, Rebirth of Souls might be best-suited for diehard fans of the anime. If you’re looking to catch up on the series, a simple YouTube video would suffice.
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls launched on 21 March, 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. We received a copy of the game for this review.
