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IGN Review of Bleach: Shattered Blade
The battle for best fighter of the year in 2007 will be determined not by some flashy, hardcore series, but rather a few impressive anime fighters. With Smash Bros Brawl now moving to 2008, Wii is looking to a few games that have shown extreme potential over the years on GameCube and PS2, including titles like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z. Unfortunately, while Bleach: Shattered Blade has a few entertaining moments, and comes to the US accompanied by the best DS fighter to date, the anime's first Wii effort comes up short, as Bleach remains to be nothing more than one part waggle-fest, and one part fan service.
We've had a chance to go hands-on with Bleach Wii numerous times, starting with our import coverage earlier this year, event playthroughs, and finally in-house hands-on. As far as info goes, our previews cover everything you'd ever want to know about Bleach Wii, so we'll keep the review concise and purely performance-based rather than spending time to recap. For those that are late to the party though, Bleach is one part Wii sword control (vertical, horizontal, and thrust), and one part every other 3D fighter ever. Enough said.
From the beginning Bleach feels nearly identical to something like Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution, as the general interface and front end is very similar overall. You've got a few main modes, including arcade, story, multiplayer, and a few other single-player bonus modes such as timed fights and survival. As you play you'll gain credits that can be used to unlock content; pretty straightforward.
Fighting games are all about the core mechanic though, and Bleach just doesn't cut it for a next generation battler. Players face off against each other, dash forward and backwards, and deliver strikes via Wii mote. It all works, but it becomes nothing more than constant waggling, often doing little more than mindless up/down, left/right attacks as fast as you can. Actual combo attacks are limited to your special swipes, so when it comes to general quick-strikes it's literally a "shake-to-play" design. The only real depth comes with the stamina bar, which alone helps to add at least a bit of strategy, as players can't just run in and attack blindly as long as they want.
In the end though, it comes down to who can raise their Bankai meter the fastest. Every attack you land (or to a lesser point, get hit by) will start to raise your Bankai meter much like Street Fighter or the like. Once the meter is full, simply activate the attack and you'll soon decimate your opponent. There isn't a ton of depth though, and fighters will soon realize that games like Naruto and DBZ outplay Bleach by leaps and bounds. Once you're in Bankai mode you're nearly invulnerable, as your attacks become uber-powerful and wipe out the opposition with little resistance. The only hope when fighting a powered-up fighter is to rush them aggressively in an attempt to also activate your meter and stand toe-to-toe yet again with your opponent.
It isn't all bad, but it's obvious that Bleach is just too shallow for current-day fighters; its DS counterpart included. You can pull off some decent defensive moves, including guard countering and some effective back-stepping and dodging, but all in all it'll boil down to running at your opponent, waggling, and powering up Bankai. Multiplayer is easily the most entertaining portion of the game, though it does have a decent amount of VO and production value for the three main story modes as well. Nothing ever changes up gameplay-wise though, so even if you've got an anime storyline to follow you'll still just end up ripping through the same one-minute battles over and over again. There are 32 characters, but each play fairly similar to one another, and the lack of overall depth can become extremely annoying, especially when Treasure cleaned house on DS. There's also no online (as the game is identical to the Japanese version), and also displays in only 4:3. At least 480p is supported, though.
©2007-10-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
We've had a chance to go hands-on with Bleach Wii numerous times, starting with our import coverage earlier this year, event playthroughs, and finally in-house hands-on. As far as info goes, our previews cover everything you'd ever want to know about Bleach Wii, so we'll keep the review concise and purely performance-based rather than spending time to recap. For those that are late to the party though, Bleach is one part Wii sword control (vertical, horizontal, and thrust), and one part every other 3D fighter ever. Enough said.
From the beginning Bleach feels nearly identical to something like Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution, as the general interface and front end is very similar overall. You've got a few main modes, including arcade, story, multiplayer, and a few other single-player bonus modes such as timed fights and survival. As you play you'll gain credits that can be used to unlock content; pretty straightforward.
Fighting games are all about the core mechanic though, and Bleach just doesn't cut it for a next generation battler. Players face off against each other, dash forward and backwards, and deliver strikes via Wii mote. It all works, but it becomes nothing more than constant waggling, often doing little more than mindless up/down, left/right attacks as fast as you can. Actual combo attacks are limited to your special swipes, so when it comes to general quick-strikes it's literally a "shake-to-play" design. The only real depth comes with the stamina bar, which alone helps to add at least a bit of strategy, as players can't just run in and attack blindly as long as they want.
In the end though, it comes down to who can raise their Bankai meter the fastest. Every attack you land (or to a lesser point, get hit by) will start to raise your Bankai meter much like Street Fighter or the like. Once the meter is full, simply activate the attack and you'll soon decimate your opponent. There isn't a ton of depth though, and fighters will soon realize that games like Naruto and DBZ outplay Bleach by leaps and bounds. Once you're in Bankai mode you're nearly invulnerable, as your attacks become uber-powerful and wipe out the opposition with little resistance. The only hope when fighting a powered-up fighter is to rush them aggressively in an attempt to also activate your meter and stand toe-to-toe yet again with your opponent.
It isn't all bad, but it's obvious that Bleach is just too shallow for current-day fighters; its DS counterpart included. You can pull off some decent defensive moves, including guard countering and some effective back-stepping and dodging, but all in all it'll boil down to running at your opponent, waggling, and powering up Bankai. Multiplayer is easily the most entertaining portion of the game, though it does have a decent amount of VO and production value for the three main story modes as well. Nothing ever changes up gameplay-wise though, so even if you've got an anime storyline to follow you'll still just end up ripping through the same one-minute battles over and over again. There are 32 characters, but each play fairly similar to one another, and the lack of overall depth can become extremely annoying, especially when Treasure cleaned house on DS. There's also no online (as the game is identical to the Japanese version), and also displays in only 4:3. At least 480p is supported, though.
©2007-10-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved