Bleach Brave Souls (BBS) is a game based on the Bleach anime and manga. BBS started out as a mobile game and has since expanded con console and PC as well. It is a gacha game with a large amount of characters. I have been playing this game for over seven years and it recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary. Even though the game has existed for 10 years, there is still constantly new content and changes to keep the game updated and fun.
Twice a month, a series of 2-3 new 5 Star characters are released that you can attempt to summon from the store. As of the beginning of November are a total of 2,644 characters in the game. That is a large amount of characters, and with the vast selection array of characters, one might think that some characters are pointless to have, but that never feels like the case. BBS does a really good job of making every character you get feel worth having, and there’s a variety of ways that they do this.
Different Game Modes
Bleach Brave Souls has a large variety of game modes characters can be geared towards. Some of these game modes are player-vs-environment (PVE) and some are player-vs-player (PVP). There are also a variety of single player and Co-Op game modes.
Most characters have skills that classify them as Normal Attack Damage characters or Strong Attack Damage Characters, usually abbreviated to NAD characters and SP characters respectively. This distinction greatly impacts these characters’ game play. Furthermore, they typically have exclusively melee attacks or ranged attacks, with very few having a combination. Each character also has 1-2 Affiliations that can receive bonuses in certain cases, 1-2 Killer Effects that give characters an advantage when fighting enemies of specific Affiliations, one of five Attributes that gives an advantage over enemies with an opposing Attribute, different Soul Traits which can be used to give buffs to other characters when they are linked together, and their own combination of skills which can lend themselves to different types of quests.
These differences allow certain characters to shine more in certain game modes. For example, Story Quests, Event Quests, and other single player PVEs usually have a lot of weaker enemies and one boss at the end. These typically favor Strong Attack characters for their big attacks that cover a lot of area. But there are some quests that might have additional requirements. For example, some quests only allow characters of a certain Attribute. Some only allow characters of a specific Affiliation. And some quests favor certain skills, like if a quest has a lot of enemies with the Guard ability, then you may want characters with the Guard Break skill.
Another game mode is Brave Battles, which is a PVP game mode where you build the best team team you can and you will automatically battle another players team. This mode is built for NAD characters with their repetitive but powerful standard attacks. There is also a meta to this game mode with having characters with certain skills, like Brave Battle Immunity, Ignore Brave Battle Immunity, and Persistence.
Another big game mode is Guild Quests. Guild Quests are a timed single-player PVE quest that awards you points for how many enemies you defeat, and contributes to your guild. These quest feature 1 playable character (typically a SP character) and 2 computer controlled characters (typically NAD characters), and it is your job to pick which characters to go in each slot. There are 20 variation of Guild Quest and you get two of them per week. Each version favors either ranged or melee characters, and gives bonuses to characters with a specific Killer effect. This allows for a wide variety of characters to be viable options in this game mode, meaning more of your characters will have a chance to be used.
Spirit Orbs
Spirit Orbs are the special currency of Bleach Brave Souls. They can be used for a variety of things but the biggest use for Spirit Orbs is using them to pull from the Summons, which is how you get new characters. There are multiple options for summoning called Banners, which have certain featured characters that you are more likely to receive. These summons usually cost 250 spirit orbs for 10 summons, but the first summon from each banner is 150 orbs.
There are multiple ways to get Spirit Orbs in the game. You can get up to 5 of them when you complete a quest for the first time, and you can get 5 a day when you complete daily challenges. However, the best way to get a lot of Spirit Orbs quickly is by powering up characters. The first time you power up any character, you get an amount of Spirit Orbs dependent on the amount of Stars a character has.
- 1 Star – 5 Spirit Orbs
- 2 Star – 10 Spirit Orbs
- 3 Star – 25 Spirit Orbs
- 4 Star – 35 Spirit Orbs
- 5 Star – 50 Spirit Orbs
- 6 Star – 75 Spirit Orbs
Since 5 Star characters can all become 6 Star characters, you can get 125 Spirit Orbs from one new character, which means that even if you won’t have a lot of opportunities to play as that character, it’ll still be useful to have that character for the orbs.
Resurrection
Admittedly, as new characters release, a lot of the old ones becomes obsolete in their game-play. New characters with new gimmicks and better skills will always be needed to keep up the hype of the game. However, Bleach Brave Souls gives these old characters new life by allowing them to “Resurrect.” About 3 characters get Resurrected every time there is a new Banner, which is approximately ever month.
Resurrecting a character upgrades their stats and gives them additional skills. The most important change to a Resurrected character is that the character will now have 2 Soul Traits instead of one, which means that the Resurrected character can be linked to another character and that character will receive twice the amount of benefits. Resurrecting a character will also start them back at level 1, which means they can be powered up a second time to receive 75 additional Spirit Orbs.
My Experience
Having played this game for over 7 years, I have seen a lot of changes and improvements made to the game. I remember when the Resurrection system was first added and it opened up a lot of possibilities regarding the usability of these characters. I remember when new releases began to focus more on individual game modes rather than be mostly all-rounders, and I thought it would be a good reason to work towards collecting a bigger variety of characters. Since these changes, I’ve been more focused than ever on collecting as many characters as I can.
Bleach Brave Souls is a game that really seeks to make itself a fun and exciting experience, and that includes keeping its vast roster relevant even after years have passed since their release. And that’s part of what makes it a great game.