Bleach: Shattered Blade is about as far away from its Nintendo DS counterpart as possible. Shattered Blade is nothing more than a simple fighting game with multiple characters and skills to unlock, and features the same stages over and over again.
For some, Bleach is a part of weekly life - the manga currently has 300 chapters and the anime is in the mid 100s in terms of episode count, meaning it's no small commitment. For others, this is something completely new. So for those, like myself, who’ve never ventured into the Bleach realm, here’s a brief overview: Bleach is a tale of demons and death gods and follows the many adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki, who is a high school student that’s lucky enough to be able to see spirits. One day Ichigo sees a ninja spirit sent from heaven to destroy corrupted souls known as hollows. He is pulled into the Spirit World where these creatures live with some of his friends and the adventure starts there.
However, Shattered Blade has little to none of this back-story in it, and for those who’ve never seen the series, the game will have little significance. Though, as with most fighting games, Shattered Blade does attempt to incorporate a very shallow plot which is nothing more than an afterthought. The basic story of the title is that you can choose to play as a variety of the characters, and they’re all after the same thing – the shards. It soon becomes apparent that to get all of the shards, the player will have to battle against enemies and friends alike to get anywhere.
This simple storyline means that the fighting starts right away. Well, that is after a few cutscenes which vary between fully animated with voice actors and dubbing that’s often out of sync to no animation on the screen and voice actors talking over nothing but a picture. Either way the voice acting is well done, it’s just a shame about the lack of consistency between fully animated sequences and those with no animation at all.
After these cutscenes, you are then presented with a loading screen, which tends to be in the same style as the cutscene before hand. Sometimes the loading screens are partially animated, and sometimes they’re not. Either way, after almost every cutscene there is a lot of loading, and before each cutscene the loading is abundant as well. Unfortunately all of these issues arise before the chance to battle against anyone.
Although once the battles begin, the player is in for a brief reprieve as the usage of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck is brilliant. Unlike in its Nintendo DS counterpart, Shattered Blade on the Wii does not have a hundred-and-one different combinations to remember before a basic attack is implemented. To inflict damage upon an enemy, a waggle of the Wii Remote is necessary. Move the Wii Remote upwards or from side to side and the attacks vary slightly. To increase the amount of attacks there are the option of using the A and the B button in two ways.
When holding the A button and then moving the Wii Remote, a stronger attack will harm the enemy; tap the A button and move the Wii Remote and a similar, but weaker attack will harm the enemy. The same can be said for the B button attacks as well. Once these basic techniques have been mastered, then the option of shaking the Nunchuck will be allowed.
When shaking the Nunchuck, or when receiving attack, a Bankai gauge will increase. Once this gauge has been filled, waggle the Nunchuck again and the character will transform into a stronger version of themselves. With this, the standard moves will just become stronger.
There are a total of 32 unlockable characters, with most players being able to unlock them all in about twenty or so hours. Aside from the story mode, there are also arcade and multiplayer modes, although they all lack online support which really counters many aspects of the game.
Bleach: Shattered Blade ultimately lacks the depth and sophistication that many fighting games require. With forgettable music and virtually no story, this game can easily be confined to Bleach fans only.
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