BLEACH DS 4th:フレイム・ブリンガー

Finally, after many many hours of slashing and hacking, I've officially beat the whole game! That means I cleared story, mission and survival modes, got all the hell butterflies in both story and mission mode, and collected all soul cards and CGs. よくやったな、自分！ヽ(｀д´)ﾉ

To sum it up, it's definitely one of the best action games I've played in the last few years (not that I've played many). The story itself is nothing special, but it's closer to the manga concept than those anime original arcs. I especially liked the stage where Rukia appears in Ichigo's inner world, and Ichigo recalls who is it that he's supposed to protect when he came to. Of course, anything focusing on the relationship between Ichigo and Rukia is my cup of tea. XD The side talks are rather amusing sometimes and involves most characters minus those from Aizen's side.

The ranking system for the story and free mode is interesting. Since a lot of the extra talks and the hidden stages are only available with A or better rankings, a B means replaying the stage. The surest way to rack up the rank is to hit over 500% SR. The maximum 1000% SR pretty much guarantees you an S rank. There's two stages that I kept getting B ranks during the story mode. Luckily, rankings (and hell butterfly count) are synchronized between story and free modes, so I re-challenged the stages in free mode to get everything necessary after clearing the story mode.

As additional characters are unlocked in the story mode, they become usable in all other modes after certain scenes. Bro seemed to like Renji because of his wider attack range and Yoruichi because of her speed. My character of choice is Ichigo all the way. When I'm stuck in the mission mode, I sometimes switch to Rukia or Hitsugaya.

Except for Ichigo's bankai, all other bankai or ultimate techniques are automatic once executed. I don't have much experience with most of the characters, but I'm very impressed with Rukia's techniques. The cards I set on the board most definitely played a role as well, but beating the Grand Fisher stage in hard survival mode in under 5 seconds with one strike of hakuren is extremely satisfying. XD

I have my system voice set to Rukia, and my save file shows Rukia as she was the last character I used to beat the hard survival mode to get my last soul card and thus completing the game. Beating the story mode puts a star on the save file. Completing the game puts Kon's paw beside the star. :)

I must admit that I cheated once, though, when I searched online for the last missing card after I beat all three modes and got all the hell butterflies. Turned out it's Lilinette, which I at last managed to get after numerous Stark. For some reason, the various guides I found all have instructions on how to get Stark, since people seem to get Lilinette a lot... *shrug*

Bro pulled an all-nighter and beat the story mode just under 9 hours, without setting any card on the board 'cause he couldn't read Japanese and didn't know, and he only aimed to finish the game. As the result of playing the game, he's now watching the Bleach anime. XD

Time to move on to the next game... :3