Bleach: Immortal Soul – 2020 First Impressions and Thoughts

I watched every episode of the Bleach Anime. Yes, even the filler episodes. I was a huge fan of both Naruto and Bleach when growing up so when I saw Bleach: Immortal Soul I was ecstatic to play through it. And considering the reviews were solid – I figured this is a good opportunity to jump on in.
You begin watching Rukia appear in Ichigo’s room, Ichigo acting in self defense.. pretty much what you’d expect out of the intro, honestly.
After various cutscenes, some of which looked to be ripped out of the Anime itself, we’re thrown into a plethora of different tutorials, including a tutorial battle with a Hollow.
After 15 minutes of telling us how to click a target and move left and right, we’re finally allowed to move freely throughout the game world.

Yeah, surprisingly, you – at least at this point in the game, are allowed to run around several different parts of Karakura town – I’m assuming Soul Society is another place you’ll be able to run around, and Hueco Mundo eventually.
Granted, you can only move horizontally, and vertically every now and then to access new paths to move horizontally, but this is more exploration than most RPGs in this day and age.
You encounter various enemies along the route towards your overall objective, doing battle with them, leveling up and obtaining items.

Speaking of battle, there are both auto and non-auto modes available. We were started with auto enabled, but can turn it off and participate in battle manually if we prefer.
I did try manually fighting, and while it allowed me to have direct control over who would attack what, and when my abilities would be used, I couldn’t figure out how the combo system worked so ultimately ended up leaving the AI in control for battles for the most part.
Attacks looked pretty good honestly. It was kinda cool seeing each characters’ abilities used – abilities I’d seen used within the Anime itself.

Honestly, the game moved along at a good pace as well. After an hour – hour and a half, I’d acquired only Rukia and Orihime from the story, making progress towards Chad, and had obtained Rangiku through log-in rewards. Thankfully. Rankgiku and Yoruichi were my 2 dream waifu’s from Bleach.
I was surprised it wasn’t moving as fast as I had anticipated, and that left me with the impression that this would last a lot longer than I had originally thought it would.
And the story itself was voice acted by the original Japanese voice actors as well – yup.

They kinda went all out with this game. While it isn’t anything groundbreaking, it’s a very nice rendition of what the Bleach Anime would be.. if it were on mobile devices.
I’ll probably keep playing for a while longer, purely so I can Yoruichi in-game – and hope that there are outfit options so I can.. y’know. *cough*