The game primarily uses the Wiimote and nunchuk for its controls, with the nunchuk’s joystick controlling the movement while the shoulder buttons and the wii mote buttons control the jumps, teleports (sonido and flash steps, actually), and special attacks. Normal sword attacks are handled by the wiimote’s motion controls, with the direction of the attacks corresponding with the direction of your wiimote slash.
The controls in Bleach: Versus Crusade is a significant step up from Bleach: Shattered Blade, as matches will no longer devolve into wagfests, mainly because the game now rewards strategic use of the attacks instead of being dependent on how fast you can shake the wiimote. However, being a fighting game, it’s still not as intuitive when compared to a gamepad setup, which is why it’s a good thing that the developers included support for the gamecube and the classic controller. I don’t use numbers to rate games but if I did, that move alone should be worth a point or two.
Visually, Versus Crusade had the right idea when it went with cel-shading – not just because it provided anime-like visuals, but also because it meant that the visuals aren’t hindered by the Wii’s hardware limitations. Versus Crusade looks as good as you would expect a Bleach game to look on a seventh generation console.
When it comes to audio, we assume that the game features the original voice actors (or really good substitutes) and the stage scores provide a nice selection of industrial rock and synth-based music, which is exactly what the anime series is known for. However, the sound effects can be a bit repetitive, especially because the characters tend to be a little bit on the verbose side. Still, it’s not a deal breaker as matches are short enough that you won’t be stuck with hearing the same sounds over and over in a single match. Besides, like every single game out there outside of rhythm games, you always have the option of muting everything.
Gameplay is where things start to get a little bit problematic. One can assume that Versus Crusade is Bleach’s answer to Dragon Ball Z’s Budokai Tenkaichi series because the mechanics are the same on the surface level: you have anywhere from two to four characters on a large expansive stage duking it out on the ground and in the air, using the ability to jump, fly, and run to make it across the screen.
However, unlike the Budokai Tenkaichi games, Bleach: Versus Crusade simply isn’t that fun to watch. Fights simply happen too fast, and the flash steps make it even worse. Unlike flying across the screen in Budokai Tenkaichi, the flash steps simply have your character teleporting over vast distances, making the action on-screen look very jerky and too chaotic to enjoy. But it does provide a decent competitive experience, if that's what you're after.
The game is primarily in Japanese, but it isn’t that hard to navigate. Once you find out which item on the screen takes you to the story mode and which one takes you to the versus mode, you’ll be playing the game the way it’s meant to be without a need to understand a single lick of Japanese.
As mentioned above, there are 25 characters in all, but more than half of them are unavailable when you first play the game. Thankfully, unlocking all save for one is done just by going through the story mode a couple of times (the branching paths mean that a single playthrough will make you miss out on some of the stages required to unlock certain characters.) The only character that will make you work a little bit to unlock is the filler arc character Shuusuke Amagai, who can only be obtained by buying his figure on the Urahara Shop. The game gives you figures randomly, so it may take a lot of tries before you get him).
Overall, how much you’ll enjoy Bleach: Shattered Blade will
depend on where you’re coming from. If you’re a Bleach fan and a Wii owner, I
can definitely recommend this game as it’s going to give you the best Bleach
experience on the console. But if you’re only looking for a good fighting game,
I recommend renting or borrowing first, because it’s going to be a bit of a
gamble. It’s not a bad game per se: Bleach Versus Crusade is a very good Bleach
game, but as a fighting game it’s unremarkably average.
