Tell me something gamers? Would you risk it all to go to the ends just to protect your friends? I mean even though this is the fifth time you had to put your neck on the line? Well guess what you will have to face down the Espada in one big battle. You will have to team up with the unlikeliest of allies or enemies in search of Orihime. Once again they have made an awesome fighter and now to the bleach series is Bleach Heat of The Soul 5 vs. Espada for the PSP. Soul society is going to shake with triumph.

Welcome to the Hueco Mundo realm where you can visit the fabulous Los Noches Plaza. They have fine dining of souls and of course tea parties on the regular, but stand clear of the GrimJaw! As you have noticed the Bleach video games has been keeping up with the anime series very nicely, offering the abilities and story modes that follow what is out now. In this fifth installment you are in the Los Noches realm and of course dealing with the Espada, they first appeared in the game when Bleach 4 came out last year, however in this version you get a massive amount of Espada and other Shinigami characters you couldn't play with before. From Ichigo's Hollow Soul form to the Vice Captain Shinigami's with some of their Bankai modes. You have a healthy supply of characters to play with.


Now the next thing that would come to mind is, "What makes this game different then the sequels?" Well i am so glad you asked because if you are a fan of the tag battle system, well you are in luck. In this version you have the option of choosing two playable characters for huge combo mixes. As did the vs. series of capcom you can now do a double super finisher that will end in a 30+ combo hit or switch back and forth between characters. What I do like is that they made sure people don't abuse the switching of characters by adding a switch meter. It does regenerate fast and if you want to pull off the super finisher then you can hit both the right and leftt shoulder buttons to perform an inifinite meter that will last a lot longer. Once in this mode depending on the characters you have choosen, they will perform and in sync finisher or a seperate one that will happen in a turn. However you can do a double combo by using the soul move by pressing the square and triangle which will toss both characters out for a combo move.


The modes of the game are pretty linear with a few added additions. You still have your story mode with the rank system and having to perform certain deeds during fightso so you can obtain that perfect score. Then you have the Tag battle system, once inside you can make an entry of your name and pick two playabale characters to battle it out kind of like a survival mode but you can always continue. As you progress you can upgrade your team and soon enough become a Tag Battle Master. The other modes are Single Battle, Tutorial's 1 and 2, the Appendix and the Options. Yes you can merge your old Bleach data into this version as well which I always thought was a great feature. The unlocakables are fairly easy and you get the standard of movies, gallery pictures. There is a nice little easter egg in the game of footage to the new Bleach Game with a new way of playing, so I would say get cracking on unlocking that or go to youtube if you are too lazy to do it yourself lol.

Thanks to Gametrailers.com we can show you gameplay footage that will make you drool all over your keyboard. Just take a look!

That gameplay footage was very hot. As you can see you can transform into your bankai form when you reach level two and once you have powered up just hit that nice left shoulder button to gain the advantage. In a tag match with two bankai powered characters the finishing blow will be amazing.


Yes I know I am praising this game too much, but you are wondering about the flaws of this game? Honestly the only flaws that I see are the fact that SCEI has not yet brought this over for American fans. The game alone is worthy and they have enough fans of the genre to import it over to the english language. I mean naruto is here now and we have many games so far the only system that is getting Bleach love is Nintendo and I find that odd. Another thing is in the first area where you press start they have a home page option to go on the net. Now if they can do that why not add infrastructure to the mix? That is just me personally wanting to take on players over seas because I know there are many out there playing.



Time to wrap this up Bleach fans. You have a good story which hopefully some of you can read it, and even if you can't the game is user friendly so you will not have a hard time figuring out what to do. The addition of more characters especially being able to play with other shinigami and espada also adding the transformation feature makes it a superb sequel. Add a new fighting mode which you can switch off characters to create a better and more challenging game. The unlockables are a treat especially get a first look at the new side scroller coming out for the PSP. th eonly cons I see is no infrastructure and I just want the game to import over for English translation. So in closing you have a massive fighting game with many characters and hours of replay value with many characters from the series and challenges to defeat. I am giving Bleach Heat of The Soul 5 a perfect 5 out of 5 bankai transformations. Thanks again and check back for more reviews gamers "Stay Frosty".

Writen By Naquan Baity

Bleach: Heat the Soul 5 - trailer