Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is looking more and more promising the more we learn about it. While it was first assumed that it would just be another arena fighter, something that is quite standard for anime-based fighting games, the fact that it’s being done by developers from the old Battle Arena Toshinden series coupled with gameplay videos showing movement more akin to standard fighting games, it’s safe to say that there’s potential for something here.
Until we get our hands on it, it’ll be hard to tell just how interesting it’ll be, but for the time being us Bleach fans can at least enjoy seeing more and more of our favorite characters getting added to the roster. My colleague Dakota “DarkHorse” Hills recently outlined the currently known roster, but with about a month left until its March 21st release date there’s likely to be a few reveals left… So who are we missing, exactly?
Be warned that this article will contain several spoilers for the Bleach series for all arcs preceding the final arc, The Thousand Year Blood War. Proceed with caution.
Before delving in to the potential launch roster candidates, I’d like to bring attention to the fact that with their Season Pass announcement, it was stated that the DLC characters for Bleach: Rebirth of Souls would be focusing on the series’ final arc, The Thousand Year Blood War, which currently has an ongoing anime season.
Since the DLC is said to be focused on this part of the story and with all of the promotional material so far avoiding it entirely, it seems highly likely that said arc will be confined specifically to DLC content. So for the purposes of this story, we’ll only be looking at content which precedes it as potential launch roster additions.
One more thing I’ll add is that I think it’s a bizarre choice that one of the central characters of the game, Orihme Inoue, does not appear to be playable, but given that she’s been part of promotional materials and trailers since the very start yet never confirmed as playable, that does indeed seem to be the case, so my own personal feelings notwithstanding, I’m just going to assume for this story that she’s simply not going to be part of the roster.
So with that, let’s have a look at which characters might be likely additions to the already stellar roster of Bleach: Rebirth of Souls.
Honestly, the Shinigami faction is very well-covered already. The vast majority of characters you’d want to see from them are already in the game and even though they’re the majority of interesting characters in the Bleach universe, they’re already bordering on potentially being over-represented.
That said, there are still a few that wouldn’t be too bad to include on top of what we already have. First of all, Yumichika Ayasegawa is a long-recurring character whose main partner Ikkaku Madarame is already part of the roster.
While Ikkaku does have a few more shining moments than Yumichika, he also has his fair share of battles and is a decently popular character with a fairly unique skill set, as his main ability revolves around siphoning energy from his opponent.
There’s a variety of ways you could implement this in a fightin game and while they’ll probably be eternally frustrating to fight against, it also leads to a high move set diversity.
Besides Yumichika, there’s also Ichigo’s very own dad, Isshin Kurosaki. The sheer power he displays in the few fights he has coupled with his obvious plot relevance as the father of the series main protagonist make him a very solid addition to the roster if he were to be included.
The only other character I can think of that seems important enough but isn’t confirmed yet from the Shinigami faction would be Jushiro Ukitake, though honestly, he barely ever fights on-screen at all so if he’s left out it… well, it would make sense.
By far the most glaring omissions so far are the most powerful of Aizen’s personal Arrancar guard, the Espada.
So far we’ve seen ranks #4 through #6 all presented with Ulquiorra, Nnoitra and Grimmjow, and while Ulquiorra and Grimmjow definitely top the popularity ranks as far as the Arrancar go, in actual power they’re both dwarfed by the numbers above them.
The #3 ranked Espada, Tier Harribel, is the only female member of the top ten and she’s always been a popular character. With an iconic battle against fan favorite Toshiro Hitsugaya, she has more than enough reason to appear. Plot relevance, notable battles and popularity — all boxes checked.
Directly above her in the Espada ranking is Baraggan Louisenbairn, at first glance simply an old man, but actually a character whose very power is age and deterioration itself. Much like the aforementioned Yumichika, there’s no doubt this is going to be all kinds of annoying to fight against.
Just like the argument for Yumichika, though… it’s an interesting ability to incorporate in a fighting game. Much like Harribel, he has a notable fight against one of the central characters already in the roster, Soi Fon.
On top of that, we’ve already seen that Soi Fon’s Bankai ability which is specifically from her fight against Barragan is present in her move set, making it all the more likely we’ll see this lich-lookalike appear in the game.
Finally, there’s the #1 ranked Espada himself, Coyote Starrk. Given his abilities of summoning a spiritual wolf pack at his side, he’d likely function as a summoner type of fighter, something we also don’t quite have represented in the game yet.
He also comes equipped with a gun, so you could combine the minion summoning with general zoning abilities and you’ve got yourself an extremely annoying character to fight… Sensing a theme here?
Like the other two Espada before him, he also has a central fight in his arc where he battles against Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake, though since Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a 1-on-1 fighter, you could easily just narrow this down to him battling against Shunsui even if Ukitake ends up not being present in the game’s roster.
These remaining Espada seem like by far the most likely candidates to still be part of the roster. They all fit the main boxes which is plot relevance, move set potential and popularity or iconic value.
They’re very important for the totality of Bleach’s longest arc and given that several of their inferiors in the Espada ranking are already in the game, it’d be a big surprise if any of the three of them end up not making the cut.
Although it is the shortest arc of Bleach, the Fullbringer Arc serves as a bridge between the Arrancar arc and the Thousand-Year Blood War arc and serves as a very important point for main character Ichigo’s development in particular.
Though it deals with characters known as Fullbringers who aren’t quite the same as the other ability-possessing types of characters in the series, it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem incorporating them in the roster as fighters since they can still battle against each other in a game setting just fine.
The most important potential addition from this arc would be Ichigo’s new friend turned bitter enemy, Kugo Ginjo. At first appearing as an ally who wants to help Ichigo find a new purpose in life after losing his abilities, his dark past is eventually revealed and how he’s simply manipulating Ichigo to reach his own goals.
Although his abilities aren’t necessarily the most interesting from a fighting game perspective, he serves as an excellent foil for Ichigo and if the goal is to adapt the entirety of Bleach’s run, simply ignoring the Fullbringer arc would be a bad oversight.
Besides Ginjo himself, the other notable addition from this arc would be Shukuro Tsukishima, seemingly the main antagonist of the arc who was actually working together with Ginjo all along.
Tsukishima has a very creative ability that seems quite difficult to embody in a fighting game, though I’d be very excited to see the developers try. He essentially is able to cut directly into the past of his target and insert himself in their own personal histories, essentially manipulating reality itself to his whims.
This is obviously an ability that is interesting from a narrative perspective but quite difficult to imagine having utility within a fighting game beyond being a mere super move cutscene, but if you get really creative you could possibly make him manipulate the opponent’s moveset or abilities in some way.
The Fullbringer arc is the shortest in Bleach and it often gets overlooked when discussing the series, but as it is an important part of its history and also relevant for what comes later, I do think it’s vital to include it in Rebirth of Souls which seems to be aiming to be the definitive Bleach gaming experience.
With only just over a month left to go, we’ll soon get our eyes on what the final roster (before DLC of course) will look like. Are there any other characters that you’re hoping to see? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Event Hubs
