Published , by Lucas White
Published , by Lucas White
Bleach being back in 2025 is wild. I was in high school back when the “Big Three” were exploding in popularity, consistently topping charts and pushing more manga and anime into mainstream spaces in the west. But while One Piece and Naruto are still a constant presence in media and games, Bleach fell off a long time ago. Bleach’s anime ended prematurely in 2012 and hasn’t seen a console video game (aside from crossover appearances) since 2011. Over a decade later, Bleach is back to finish the story with the Thousand-Year Blood War anime series and Bleach Rebirth of Souls, a brand-new fighting game, to go along with it.
Rebirth of Souls, like many anime-licensed games these days, is an arena fighter. There’s some fatigue here (especially since most of them aren’t great), but it’s hard to argue against the format as a good fit. Simpler, arcade-style combat lets casual fans enjoy without being crushed by FGC sickos, and the wide, open spaces give plenty of room for over the top powers, flying, and other things that are harder to adapt with genre constraints. The Naruto and Dragon Ball series have shown the audience will still show up, as long as the quality is there. I’m not sure the quality is here.
For starters, the story mode is a massive time sink that doesn’t feel worthwhile at all. It’s a shame, because the voice cast showed up to do some shockingly great work, but the material isn’t up to the same standard. The story is oddly delivered, skipping ahead in time randomly and sometimes immediately rolling into a flashback to explain what was skipped. Or it just commits to the skip and soldiers on.
One way we watch these scenes play out is in motion comic style, with some lovingly illustrated manga panels brought to life with light colors that emphasize the art as drawings, and give it a somewhat prestigious vibe.
Another way is using in-game assets, having character models interact and... attempting to recreate dramatic moments from the anime. But, seemingly to compensate for things the models weren’t built for, awkward cuts, camera zooms, or VFX will come in to obscure the action or avoid showing it entirely. It’s weird, super weird, and makes the whole thing feel unfinished. And it all proceeds at a remarkably slow pace; I was watching the clock like I was trying to will a math class to end. Which is kind of appropriate since that’s exactly what I was doing back when I was watching Bleach.
But hey, that’s just the story mode, right? The fighting game is about the fighting! While I think the first Bleach game in over ten years (not counting gacha stuff, sorry) could have been the perfect spot for an explosive, high production story mode, sure. The mechanics are overwhelming at first, largely because it uses in-universe terminology to label the meters and functions. But the tutorial does a good job getting you through it anyway, and the end result is a mostly simple, rock-paper-scissors kind of system with a creative way to represent health and rounds (like a life bar mixed with lives). At first, it feels pretty good to scoot around an arena with a character you like, mashing out little combos and dealing finishing blows powered by small cutscenes.
But it isn’t long before you realize the defensive options are kind of weak, offense has little interest in expression, and any character that has shorter reach or a slightly distinct gimmick (or isn’t a main character) is running uphill. And those cutscenes, which aren’t skippable and are required to deal damage, start to add up. As flashy as Rebirth of Souls looks, it’s actually quite shallow and messy. Every match I played felt the same, even after doing research and looking up more skilled players to see what was cooking. There are opportunities to “cancel” certain moves and use a couple other techniques to extend combos, but you’re largely just repeating a simple button sequence multiple times. And damage scaling hampers the effort anyway unless you’re trying to infinite people to death.
The rock-paper-scissors aspect is part of the problem there, as sticking so hard to that inherently limits whatever is laid on top. Ultimately the loop is to find an opening, mash out damage, and don’t get out-turtled while you and your opponent awkwardly play a button guessing game. Characters with long reach or projectiles they can combo with have a huge advantage, and a lot of moves have unintuitive properties that make confirming hits harder than you’d expect on a punish.
Some of these issues really showed up since I wanted to play as Yoruichi, a close range, rushdown-style character who fights with her fists. It’s a big task to be agile and dodge while trying to make space for a more complicated attack pattern when dealing with “swing big sword.” Pressure is much less effective in a system built on guessing and punishing. I’m also old (sort of) and have carpal tunnel (not sort of), so my losses in online fights aren’t the game’s fault by any means. But after playing the CPU several times and facing off against humans, I realized how few differences there were between matches.
Bleach Rebirth of Souls makes an excellent first impression, with cool, loud menu UI, amped-up music, and in-game action that looks fast and furious from a distance. But when you actually dive in to learn the game and experience all of its parts, the cracks show rather quickly. The mechanics feel unrefined and poorly balanced, and the story mode has a low budget vibe that betrays the new anime’s energy. Aside from impressive animations and a few distinct ideas, this isn’t the comeback Bleach fans have been hoping for over the last decade.
Bleach Rebirth of Souls is available now for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. An Xbox code was provided by the publisher for review.