Special moves are pulled off through street fighter-esque combo system, which works very well with the DS controls. You even have the long combos for the super moves, or in this case, the 'Bankai', which visually does pretty good justice to what we've seen in the TV shows.
When things don't look good on your side, you can use the special cards accessible on the touchscreen that give you an offensive or a defensive power-up. You will most likely get a lot of these cards through the story mode, but if you see yourself running out you can pick them up from the Uruhara shop, along with a lot of other goodies.
You can have 2-four player match setups, with any permutation of human/computer controlled player ratios. Since the game supports local wireless player through game sharing, your friends will not need to get their own copy just to have a basic match. There's also Internet play, which I feel is a must these days in fighting games.
Visually the game is made up of 2D sprites on multi-layered backgrounds. Even the special effects are in 2D, which is why they appear pixelated at times. But that's not really an eyesore, and I guess that kind of sacrifice is justified when you want to keep the frame rates in check in a 4-player match.
Much as I like the game audio, placed in wrong hands it can lead up to being the most annoying part of the game. Bleach offers you excellent guitar riffs as background scores. Though it's not the same you'll get to hear in the TV show, it still does kick ass in its own way. There plenty of audio quotes and individual sounds given to each of the characters, acted out by the voice cast of the US-dubbed TV show.
In moderation, the voices add to the overall gameplay, but when you're fighting against someone who solely relies on special moves, the sheer repetaion of each line can get really annoying. After a while you'll probably mute your DS just to avoid the repetitive voices.
Still, even with the minor issues, Bleach: The Blade of Fate is an awesome fighting game, an excellent way to bring the TV show to the DS, and a great pick-up and play game for a DS gamer.
For anyone interested in picking this up, the sequel, Bleach: Dark Souls, will be released momentarily. It boasts some new characters and game balances, and a much more interesting single-player mode. Get Blade of Fate only if you find it cheap.
