========= Gameplay ========= Bleach the 3rd Phantom is rather standard fare for the SRPG market. Both you and the enemy take turns moving your units over a grid in order to attack enemies with either swords or magic. The game does suffer from several flaws though. One of the more noticeable issues is that characters with a healing ability level up far faster than other units in the game. This is because a character receives 32 experience points for using a healing ability even if the target doesn't recover any HP. This allows the player to level up rather quickly with healing abilities that cover more ground. This makes a character like Rukia with potent kido abilities and healing abilities almost unbeatable since you can level her up to level 99 in two hours or so. The only plus side to this problem is that you don't get many characters with potent offensive kido abilities that also have healing skills until the last few chapters so you'll probably not take advantage of this issue that much. And, many of the characters that can take advantage of this issue have relatively weak stats to begin with as well. Another issue that pops up is that certain abilities work on using HP rather than SP to be cast. The issue with these abilities is that these abilities work on using a percentage of your maximum HP rather than a set amount of HP. This means a character like Orihime is largely useless since all of her abilities consume 1/6th of her health bar to use. And a final problem is that a lot of the characters are rather useless because of weak stats or abilities. This means you'll end up using a character like Rukia all of the time, but never even touch Yachiru because she can't take hit. On the plus side the game does feature a strong customization aspect where you can spend skill points to upgrade your weapon and gain new abilities that let you inflict status effects on an enemy or ensure that all of your attacks land. You can also gain new kido techniques or improve your kido techniques power, accuracy, or decrease it's cost to use. You can also spend your skill points on enhancing your various stats like HP, SP, ATK, DEF, EVA, and ACC. ========= Graphics ========= The game suffers a bit in this area with certain character sprites being a tad blurry during the attack sequence and many of the enemies being simple color palette swaps to indicate type alignment. I also felt a bit disappointed at the limited number of cannon fodder enemies in the game as well. The game also reuses a few of the maps multiple times instead of offering a new combat area. Outside of those problems the game was usually nice to look at and most of the effects were decent. ========= Sound ========= The soundtrack for the game is pretty good, but nothing to memorable. And certain tracks become rather annoying because you'll hear them constantly. A good example of this is when you end/start your turn the game will play a specific guitar riff every single time. The game also includes a limited amount of voice work in the form of special attacks and for when a character activates bankai which initiates a small scene that appears to be based off of scenes in the show. In the case of Ichigo it seems to be recreating the scene when Ichigo went bankai in front of Byakuya for the first time. ========= Lasting Appeal ========= The game offers quite a bit to do after you beat the main story actually in the form of a 30 floor tower with enemies that get more difficult as you advance. You can also unlock additional characters in the tower if you manage to beat certain bonus requirements on a floor. ========= Scores ========= Gameplay: 7 Graphics: 7 Sound: 7 Lasting Appeal: 8 Overall: 7.25

Okay , so this bleach game is unlike no other. You get to play as your own soul reaper ! That has a twin ! It's seriously amazing . The story line & plot .... It's like a lost bleach movie. The game play is fantastic & very strategic. If you like role playing games with a movie like story & making your own team , than this game is just for you :D

this was a great game. Only a few things really could use improvement.one would be that for an RPG, it was kind of short,the chapters went by way to fast,also, they should have made it so you can actually walk around the soul soceity and karakura town., and heuco mundo.The Show is awsome and this game was good,but it should really give you more to do.And upgrade your wepons more.

I was really looking forward to a Bleach game that wasn't just fighting, and since I like RPGs, I decided to pre-order it. I wasn't so much disappointed with the lack of touch screen usage as I was with the rest of the game. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't too good either. The battle style was a bit different from what I expected, and it didn't allow very much character customization or time between battles. Unlike the other reviewers, I found this game fairly challenging, but I guess that was just me. The bgm was okay, but the sound effects were a little worse. What I liked the most about this game was the storyline. I don't mind that they made up their own characters, but I like how they implemented them into the whole Bleach story. I usually like any game with a good storyline, whether or not I like the rest of it. The storyline just drew me in, which got me playing for hours on end. After that though, I guess my excitement died down and I haven't touched it since I got stuck. Overall, I would say this is a pretty good game, if you like Bleach, strategy games, and don't mind the lack of touch screen usage.

Bleach games to date for the DS have been your basic 2D hack and slash Arcade style format. Bleach: The 3rd Phantom leaves all that behind with a full on RPG game play. The game offers a unique storyline which takes place years prior to that which we are familiar to in the Anime series without any spoilers for those only up to date with the televised series. With two brand new character's to choose from as your main playable character; you embark on an original storyline by Tite Kubo that’s packed full of new and familiar characters. The game play is simple, but you’ll need plenty of battle strategy and clever tactics to maneuver your way around the battle grounds. As you progress through story mode your decisions and interactions with those you encounter can affect the characters you obtain to use in the battles. If you’re unfamiliar with the Bleach anime or manga series, you may just fear for your DS’ A button as this game is packed full of storyline and character interaction during the first few hours of game play. The battles pick up as the game goes on, and you’re love for RPG style game play will be well fed. This game is a must for any Bleach fan, or one searching for an entertaining 2D RPG.

I got this the day it came out. I have some of the same opinions as the other reviewer. No touch screen action detracted from it being on a DS, and the thinner they make portable game devices the harder it is to hold em for long periods. End result from that is hands hurt a great deal also detracting from the game in my case. Animation in this game was great just like the show top notch. Sound was also great but not 100% due to obvious compression. The menus were a bit hard to navigate at the start such as the upgrade menu. I also enjoyed the picking your own soul slayers released form, but i only got banki after the game ended and not even sure how i got it. So if anyone knows feel free to inform others so they might get it while playing. Good gameplay, to much text, i spent way way more time reading then playing, eventually i skipped through most side plot text and focused on main stuff. Game was easy after you learn your release, great game over all with few flaws.

I was so psyched when I first heard that a there was going to be a Bleach game. I love the series. However, when I bought the game and popped it into my DSi, the first thing I noticed was there was no touch screen functionality. So I thought to myself, "Oh well, I can live without using the touch screen." The next problem I discovered was that there is TOO MUCH TEXT! I felt there was more text than gameplay. There were no shops and no money so you couldn't purchase or sell items. The only time you could move around was in free time mode and during battle. I was, however, impressed with the storyline. I mean, it wasn't accurately but it kept me mildly entertained. Another problem was the battlefield. I like tactical rpgs but I felt that the camera during battle should have been slightly tilted close to an overhead shot. Half of the time, I couldn't tell if one of my characters could move to a specific location or not. I also like the fact that there was some character customization. I liked that you could pick the form of your character's zanpakuto's released form. Combat was a little too similar to that of the Fire Emblem series. I felt the overall difficulty of the game was a little too easy, I mean the final boss wasn't as difficult as I had expected. All in all, if I had to recommend this game to anyone, it would probably be only recommend it to fanboys. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.