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Don’t ask me what “Tasogare Ni Mamieru Shinigami” means. I don’t know either, but it doesn’t matter because Bleach GC Tasogare Ni Mamieru Shinigami is a 1 vs 1 fighting game based on Tite Kubo’s extremely popular shonen franchise. This means that A.) you don’t really need to know the reason why they’re hitting each other with swords and B.) even if you did, there’s already a wealth of backstory available via the manga, the anime, and all the websites on the Internet dedicated to the franchise.
As for the game itself, sadly, this is not one of the better Bleach games out there. Sure, it looks really impressive visually (taking full advantage of the Gamecube’s capabilities as you get smooth, buttery 60FPS and crisp cel-shaded visuals), but as a Bleach fighting game, it’s not very enjoyable. Even as a straight fighting game, it falls flat.
The gameplay itself is sound in concept – you get to control your choice of character, out of a bunch of choices available (well, you technically need to unlock majority of them first, but they can be unlocked via passwords or simply by going through the single player mode so it’s not a dealbreaker). Each character stays somewhat true to the series when it comes to the powersets, but only on the surface level. They all move as fast, hit as hard, and move like each other. It makes for a balanced game, but also a boring one. There’s also no transformations in the game, which is a mortal sin because one of the main selling points of the series are the various power-ups and transformations (such as shikai, bankai, etc.)
There are a couple of real dealbreakers for Bleach GC Tasogare Ni Mamieru Shinigami: first is that the supers come in the form of FMV cutscenes, which don’t fit in with the flow of the match, and don’t look impressive at all. The other, more serious one, is a mechanic in the game wherein a single push of a button will make ANY character emit a pulse of light which, upon hitting your opponent, will turn the whole screen monochrome and slow things down. The game designers may have thought it looked cool, but the first time you encountered it you’ll realize that it does nothing except completely ruin the momentum of a fight, for both sides. 5 seconds of slow motion will completely bork your timing as you wait for a launched opponent to fall to the ground.
Sadly, considering the complaints above, Bleach GC Tasogare Ni Mamieru is not the kind of game that I’d want to recommend, Bleach fan or not. There are better Bleach games out there, and there are even more choices if you’re just looking for a good fighter. Only get this game if you simply need to get all the Bleach games available, or if you want it as a display piece:
