If you’ve ever played Bleach GC: Tasogare ni mamieru shinigami on the Gamecube, Bleach Shattered Blade for the Wii will be very familiar. Barring a few graphical polishes and higher resolution, Shattered Blade looks like it was made on the same engine. The presentation is sleeker, and the supers no longer come in the form of crappy FMVs. In fact, they finally went ahead and added transformations (or power-ups, in the case of most of the characters). Unfortunately, all the updates and tweaks to the game are for naught because Bleach Shattered Blade for the Wii is significantly less enjoyable than its Gamecube predecessor.
The main culprit, and why it’s not even worth reviewing any other aspect of Shattered Blade, is the controls. Like many third party Wii games, Bleach Shattered Blade suffers from a forced attempt to use motion controls. There’s no option to use a classic or Gamecube controller (even though fighters tend to play better with buttons than waggle).
It wouldn’t be much of a problem if the motion controls were implemented well, sadly, matches devolve into you wagging the wiimote around while your character slashes and pokes his sword in random directions. Technically, the game allows matches to look more pleasing as the direction of the slash depends on the direction of your wiimote motion, but doing it this way will leave you severely handicapped as the CPU (and your human opponent, if he’s more concerned with winning than enjoying) slashes fast and randomly, leaving you with no recourse but to do the same.Sadly, that one single flaw is big enough to ruin the game itself. If you want a Bleach game on the Wii, the Japan-exclusive Versus Crusade is a better choice. Or if you just want the best Bleach experience, you can go with the Heat the Soul series on the PSP. Bleach: Shattered Blade is just a waste of the Bleach license, and will be a waste of your money.
