Gamertell

Clearly all the video game companies had a secret meeting to arrange for 2008 to be the best year for portable gamers, as the latest news from Sega almost seems too good to be true. Sega has just announced that Bleach: Dark Souls, the sequel to Bleach: The Blade of Fate, will be released in North America in Q2 2008. The sequel, known in Japan as Bleach DS 2nd: Kokui Hirameku Requiem, features an all new exclusive storyline, 44 characters and many other improvements.

Practically everything in Bleach: Dark Souls has been tweaked from the original game. The most noticable change is the spirit cards, four rather than two are displayed for use during battle and 30 new cards have been added to the game. There are also custom character icons and crystals which can be used to enhance a player’s character. The single player story mode has also been revamped from the previous game - rather than viewing the story by unlocking episodes, there is a map of battles which must be played in a certain order in order to unlock everything.

Speaking of unlocking brings up the greatest addition to the title, the character roster. There are 44 available fighters in Bleach: Dark Souls. All 27 characters from Bleach: The Blade of Fate return and 17 new characters are included. My personal favorites among the new fighters are Ririn, Hisagi, and Kukaku. Other notable inclusions are Urahara, Don Kanonji, Kira, Matsumoto and four different Hollow characters.

Read [Kotaku]