Bleach: Heat the Soul 7, as the name indicates, is the 7th (and possibly the last) installment in the ‘Heat the Soul’ line of Bleach fighting games on the PSP. There’s no need to do an introduction of the earlier installments of the series as the games have mostly stayed the same except for additional content (in order to keep them up to date with the manga/anime) and a few tweaks to the combat mechanics. All-in-all, it’s still a 3D cel-shaded fighting game featuring your favorite characters from Bleach (also, Sado.)
Changes, in a Nutshell
If you’re already familiar with the series and just want a quick rundown of what you can expect with HTS 7 compared to its predecessor, there are minor tweaks to the combat that, sadly, tend to slow down the pacing of the matches a bit. But it’s still enjoyable so don’t fret. It still runs in 30 frames per second - if you want smooth as butter 60 fps, you have to go back to Heat the Soul 4 and older, back when the games still lacked in-game transformations. Speaking of transformations, Ulquiorra now has one, so does Harribel and Ichigo can now turn into full Hollow. Additionally, there are now 4-way free for all (as opposed to 2 vs 2 tag) matches and special matches against giants, namely Allon and Yammy’s ressurecion.
Combat
Now, for those who are only coming in to the series via HTS 7, it’s understandable if you don’t want to go through the trouble of playing all the installments. HTS 7 has all the updated content you may want, and if you want the more competitive engine, you can go back to HTS 4 as the games older than it tend to be subpar.
Combat still works the same: you have one button for weapon attacks, one for barehanded attacks, another for charging your reiatsu, and another one for throws. You can do supers by pressing weapon and throw at the same time or throw and reiatsu while the reiatsu bar is full, depending on whether your character has a second super or not.
Characters that have a second form can transform by pressing L + R, during which they also enter a supercharged mode wherein they have infinite uses of supers as long as the reiatsu bar has not emptied (it starts to empty slowly under this mode), while characters who don’t merely enter the supercharged mode.
Non-Japanese Friendly
Unfortunately for non-Japanese fans of the series, the Heat the Soul games were only released for Japan and China, so you won’t be able to find an English release. Thankfully, the menus all contain English translations so you’ll be able to navigate the game enough to get into matches. Some of the parts of the menu will require you to experiment blindly or at least get a FAQ in order to understand, though – such as the soul codes and some parts of the option. But it should be enjoyable enough even if you don’t go through all that trouble at first.
Buy or Not
If you’re a Bleach fan, definitely. The later parts of the Heat the Soul series are arguably the best videogame adaptations of the Bleach franchise during its time, beating out the Wii, Gamecube, and PS2 Bleach games in terms of fun factor. If you’re not a fan of Bleach or unfamiliar with the franchise, you may want to test this out with a rental or by borrowing a copy first, as majority of the appeal of the game comes from finally seeing the characters get translated accurately into videogame form. If you don’t have that as a basis, you might not enjoy the game when compared to other weapon-based fighters.
