Bleach: The Blade of Fate (DS)

(Page 1 of 2)

It's not often that a portable game ends up being better than its console sibling. Usually, the handheld versions of multi-system releases tend to feel like throwaway products intended to capitalize on the big-name game that has just debuted on a "real" system. This isn't always the case, however. Several months back, Ubisoft's GBA version of TMNT proved to be more exciting than the next-generation versions, and now it's happening again with Bleach: The Blade of Fate.

Sega recently released two games based on the popular manga/anime series: this 2-D fighting game for the DS and a 3-D fighter for the Wii. Although the Wii game looks impressive, its play mechanics are severely lacking. Luckily, Bleach fans can turn to this version if they want a satisfying fighting game with their favorite characters. It's developed by Treasure, the company behind great games like Gunstar Heroes and Radiant Silvergun. Like many of its games, Treasure has filled The Blade of Fate with great graphics, smooth animation and polished gameplay.

When you press start to get to the mode select screen, you might be a tad overwhelmed with choices, as the bottom screen ends up filled with options to select. Before diving into the main mode, you can check out the obligatory Training Mode or even better, the Challenge Mode, which teaches you a variety of combo moves that will serve you well as you play. In addition to naturally increasing your abilities, the Training Mode unlocks new Spirit Cards, which we'll discuss in a bit.

Arcade Mode is exactly what you would expect it to be: a series of fights against computer-controlled opponents. Not terribly exciting, but there are also new Spirit Cards to be earned here. If you want a little more depth, the Story Mode takes you through several branching paths depending on the outcome of your fights. By meeting certain conditions upon winning a battle, you'll move on to different chapters and unlock more bonus items. This non-linear approach may be a bit frustrating at first, especially to those who are used to fighting games that are fairly straightforward. If you're not careful, you can easily end up moving backwards in the story and repeating fights against previous opponents. It does, however, encourage you to use more strategy when taking on a foe. Simple button mashing isn't likely to get you far in Story Mode, as you have to carefully plan your attacks in order to win under the right conditions.

Actually, button mashing won't do you much good at any point. The fighting engine is quite deep, with a good selection of balanced characters, a solid variety of moves and an extensive combo system. It's akin to the Street Fighter, King of Fighters and Guilty Gear series, which is, of course, a very good thing when discussing fighters. The game even makes a big concession to beginners, too. If you're having trouble executing special moves with the d-pad, the DS' touch-screen can be set up so you can pull off the most impressive ones with a simple tap. This configuration is quite helpful if you're not an experienced video pugilist, but if you play multiplayer, be a man and use the "real" controls.

The Versus Mode has a good variety of options. Each battle can have up to four people competing at once. To make the action less frantic, characters can freely move between a foreground and background level in each stage. In addition to the Versus CPU and Wireless Play modes, the game also supports DS Download Play. The only problem here is that the game takes a fairly long time to send to the other DS systems. Once the fight is over, there's no replay option, forcing you to go through the download process again. The game also supports Wi-Fi play. The bulk of the matches that we played were completely lag-free, although there was the occasional match that ran a bit slow.