Ban-kai!: Sega to bring Bleach DS sequel stateside

by Eric Caoili { Mar 7th 2008 at 2:15PM }

Likely surprising no one considering the popularity of the Bleach manga/anime series, Sega announced its plans to publish Bleach: Dark Souls (or Bleach DS: 2nd Kokui Hirameku Requiem, as it's known in Japan), the follow-up to Bleach: The Blade of Fate, this summer in North America.

The Treasure-developed 2D fighter features a number of improvements on the original:

an exclusive storyline that takes place in between the series's first and second season
44 playable characters (The Blade of Fate has 26)
30 new Power-up Cards and Power Crystals
Bleach encyclopedia containing "fun and interesting facts about the entire Bleach universe"

All that comes on top of the game's four-player online battles and multi-plane stages. Hit the gallery below for English-translated screenshots from Dark Souls, or check past the break for a two-minute trailer from the Japanese release.

Gallery: Bleach: Dark Souls

[Via press release]

Tags: 2d, anime, bleach, dark-souls, fighter, manga, sega, treasure, viz-media

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Skavie @ Mar 7th 2008 2:20PM

First... err not... OMG I love this game, and given the story has move so far it is nice to have new bleach game with new characters.

justin b. @ Mar 7th 2008 2:57PM

YES! I'm SO EXCITED! Bleach DS is an awesome game and the best fighter on the system, and I love it! All it needed was a few characters, but now that they're doubling the amount, I'm really happy. Great stuff, Treasure, you still got it! Now I have something else to buy besides Apollo Justice and Advance Wars.
(And Brawl and Mario Kart, but that's different)

hvnlysoldr @ Mar 7th 2008 7:15PM

Being lazy until a sequel usurps the first has paid off again.

KaliKot @ Mar 8th 2008 9:26AM

This was out in japan like 1 1/2 year ago? It's almost the same as the 1st one only with more characters some new moves and weakened characters

Some are good like ikaku and urahara but there are like 10 joke characters which just ruin the pace of the game

In fact if you've played the japanese version of bleach 1, Zaraki is so broken there and that he just got rebalanced along with uryu to be more like their bleach 2 versions.

so you guys probably won't be pleased if you're totally expecting everything to be new. And I hope they have the option for the japanese track this time :( my god hitsugaya sounds like some kid in the middle of growing up and changing his voice tone into an adult one in the US dub.