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Dark Souls boasts a complete Story Mode with branching plotlines that we got to take a look at. We’ve got to say we weren’t sorry we did. The action on the top screen flew by fast with our demo guy rapid tapping the buttons and craning his thumb to activate the spirit card attacks on the bottom screen (don’t even bother with the stylus). In Story Mode, you face off against different enemies depending on which branch of the path you take. You can replay matches too, opening up all the branches of the story (which you’ve got to do if you want to go back and play through in Free Mode where you can choose any character you want instead of the one the story dictates).
Spirit cards are the defining feature of Dark Souls. You collect cards through combat and form a deck of 15 cards stored on your DS. In combat, the game randomly gives you 10 cards from your deck to use while you fight. The cards unleash intense combat attacks or activate cool bonuses (like a %5 damage increase, or a decrease in your opponent’s movement speed). Once you’ve used a card, it vanishes and if you run out of cards, you’re going to get owned when it comes time to play multiplayer. So, really, even if you’re only into this game because your friends are, you’ve got to grind through Story Mode or Arcade Mode or something if only to pad out your deck.
What’s going to be a huge draw for fans of the anime is the comedy. Sega worked closely with the people at Studio Pierrot to ensure that the humor of the series made it into the game. Story sequences and voiced dialogue (some of it you can only hear in a bonus menu if you unlock it) are filled with the snappy, sarcastic lines we know and love. There are even a few story missions that link back to unresolved plotlines in the anime.
All in all, Bleach: Dark Souls is a whirlwind of anime activity wrapped around a decent-looking fighting game. Sega seems to understand that if you’re going to whore out a major anime franchise, the least you can do is go all-out with the details to make your game look even half as good as the anime. So even if you’re not a fan of the series, it might be worth a look when the game comes out later this year.
May 16, 2008
