History VideoGame / BleachThe3rdPhantom

* EnergyAbsorption: In both boss battles with Arturo, the Shisui Mirror is used to drain his energy so he can be defeated. He starts with absolutely massive stats, but they rapidly decline over the course of the battle. The second time, his stats decline slower and with a higher floor because of a limiter put in place to protect the Mirror's user from the strain it puts on them.

* ThrowTheDogABone: No pun intended, but Komamura is treated with more respect here than he is in the source material, being a major mentor figure to the player character when they arrive in the present, consistently treated as a serious person and fighter, and playing a role in [[spoiler:Bankai]] training.

** Oversized characters such as Jidanbo and certain characters' Bankais - they're theoretically capable of blocking large numbers of enemies and their line and cone area of effect spells are wider (Jidanbo's Byakurai is 2x3 instead of 1x3 and his Raikoho 4 squares across right in front of him and 6 across a square further away instead of 3 and 5 squares, respectively), but they suffer a movement penalty compared to single tile characters and lack support abilities.

* BoobsOfSteel:
** Matsuri is impressively endowed and has an attack stat that is not just higher than any other female character's in the game, but also exceeds most male characters' attack stats (only [[MightyGlacier Kenpachi]], [[GlassCannon Ikkaku]], [[PowerfulButInaccurate Komamura]], and maybe Kyoraku and Yamamoto are likely to surpass her attack [[spoiler:and with her [[SuperMode Bankai]], she can surpass absolutely everyone except Ikkaku's own Bankai, which trades away half of his already-poor defense for unmatched attack, while Matsuri also bolsters her defenses in her Bankai]].
** Kukaku Shiba, one of the bustiest women in the manga/anime, is one of two women in the game who are Power type units (or the only one if Matsuri is made a Tech or Speed type) and in combat, she can demonstrate just why everyone in the Shiba household fears her with what is easily the second best attack stat of all female characters in the game, only outdone by Matsuri.
** Much like in the manga/anime, Yoruichi has one of the larger busts in the game and is a powerful physical combatant.
** Nemu Kurotsuchi is also given a chance to demonstrate that she is an extremely dangerous hand-to-hand combatant.
** {{Averted|Trope}} for Rangiku Matsumoto and Orihime, two of the ''Bleach'' characters with the most (in)famous bustlines, who have very poor attack and defense stats, as well as by Captain Unohana, who is a Non-Combat type unit, and thus cannot attack or counterattack at all.

* RecycledScript: The main character repeats Ichigo's Soul Society arc training pretty exactly, using the same teacher (Yoruichi), same methods, and broadly the same goal (defeat a Captain and bring back someone close to them) and getting a nearly-identical ThisCannotBe response from the person they were training to beat once they show the fruits of their training.

* GeoEffects: One of the peculiar gameplay elements is that there are two maps - the regular map and the Reishi map. Regular terrain only matters insofar as to whether a square is passable or not, while concentrations of Reishi have two uses - they can either be absorbed, along with all adjacent squares, to build Spiritual Pressure more quickly, or they can be stood on for boosts to accuracy and evasion. This also means that a character can absorb Reishi to take away an enemy's defensive boosts so their allies can more easily hit them.

** Inverted - almost immediately after arriving in the present via accidental time travel from over a hundred years in the past, the player character bumps into Don Kan'onji, a major television star, and shortly after, into Ichigo, who is the main character of the anime/manga and quite well-known in the Soul Society due to recent events. Once they arrive in the Soul Society, they very quickly meet Capitan Komamura and Lieutenants Kira and Hisagi.

** Ikkaku Madarame is the glassest of cannons in the game, at least as far as physical attackers go, with attack that rivals Kenpachi's, but one of the lowest defense stats in the game. Taken UpToEleven by his Bankai, which gives him peerless attack (as much as +70% with points in his Bankai tree), but drops his already poor defense to half its normal value, and by making him a 2x2 character, he is more vulnerable to AreaOfEffect attacks, he has more area to receive attacks from, and he can no longer receive supports from other characters.

''Bleach the 3rd Phantom'' is the third game in the ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' DS series based on the popular anime and manga, it is a departure from the usual fighting game formula established by ''Blade of Fate'' and it's sequel ''Dark Souls'', instead being a strategy RPG. The game progression is done through a mode called free time, where the chosen main character interacts with various heroes from the series.

The plot, which takes place in an AlternateContinuity, comes from Tite Kubo himself, and introduces four new characters, the Twins Fujimaru and Matsuri and their adoptive family Konoka and Seigen Suzunami, thrown through time after Arturo Plateado (who some players might remember from Bleach: Shattered Blade) attacks the soul society and is stopped by an object known as the Shisui Mirror.

** [[spoiler: Achieving Bankai]], it uses up a large portion of the Free Time between several missions that could be used to raise affinities or recruit units, and requires completing some of the hardest maps in the game, such as Zanjutsu Training I: Single Blow, where all undefeated enemies fully heal at the beginning of each turn and the Female Soul Reaper Society Training, where teams are chosen at random from the playable female Soul Reapers. Furthermore, even if the training is not completed, you still get [[spoiler: Bankai and all the other potential techniques]] in the post-game. However, the various trainings also net the player character a great deal of experience and there is still time to do a few other things.
** Using Bankai - For all characters who can use Bankai, it requires building up max spiritual pressure and eats up your SP when in use, leaving both at zero after Bankai ends and disabling giving and receiving team ups and attack/defense supports for the duration of Bankai. In exchange, Bankai significantly boosts all of the user's stats and generally gives some combination of boosting one stat even more, often by a percentage instead of a flat amount (such as Ichigo getting massive additional movement and as much as doubling his evasion when in Bankai), summoning an extra unit (such as Komamura's Tenken Myu-oh), and unlocking Bankai-only skills (such as Byakuya's Senkei Senbonzakura Kageyoshi). Most characters with Bankai can mitigate the impractical side of this with a Bankai skill tree that allows them to sustain their Bankai longer, unlock additional Bankai-only techniques, and increase the stat boosts from Bankai. However, one character's Bankai, [[spoiler: the PlayerCharacter's]], has no skill tree to boost its endurance, limiting it to a paltry three turns, but instead of a sizable flat stat boost and a percent boost to ''one'' stat, they receive a 50% increase to ''all'' stats, making it extremely powerful.

* BadassBoast: If you've completed the training, after Seigen almost kills the chosen character's twin, they face him [[spoiler: and activates their Bankai for the first time]], boasting "Seigen Suzunami, I will break your will".

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: After subconsciously holding back and failing to cut down the non-player Kudo twin when they stop following him and take a blow intended for the player Kudo twin, Seigen decides that his compassion is holding him back from his determination to keep the Soul Society from using the Shisui Mirror ever again. He asks Aizen to help with this, which he does [[spoiler: by using the Hogyoku to fuse Seigen with a Menos Grande, destroying most of his mental faculties and turning him into a nearly mindless brute with the regeneration capacities of a Menos Grande and the raw power of a Captain, allowing him to rapidly, continuously, and constantly fire off Ceros, as well as altering their spiritual makeup such that the abomination can use the Shisui Mirror and that combination of rapid regeneration, Captain-level power, and a compatible spiritual makeup allow the Hollowfied Seigen to use the Shisui Mirror without any of the endurance limits that Konoka and Shiyo faced, which in some capacity or another advances Aizen's plans.]]

** Matsuri is impressively endowed and has an attack stat that is not just higher than any other female character's in the game, but also exceeds most male characters' attack stats (only [[MightyGlacier Kenpachi]], [[GlassCannon Ikkaku]], [[PowerfulButInaccurate Komamura]], and maybe Kyoraku and Yamamoto are likely to surpass her attack [[spoiler: and with her [[SuperMode Bankai]], she can surpass absolutely everyone except Ikkaku's own Bankai, which trades away half of his already-poor defense for unmatched attack, while Matsuri also bolsters her defenses in her Bankai]].

* DramaticIrony: In the beginning of Matsuri's playthrough, Fujimaru will ask for Seigen's sword so he can chase Mad Eater. Seigen tells him that Matsuri has risked her life to save his for him to get himself killed. [[spoiler: Seigen's response to Konoka's death is similar to this.]]

* {{Filler}}: The brief Fake Captain arc, where Aizen unleashes fake versions of all the captains on the Soul Society, all of whom act more or less opposite of their real counterparts, that runs parallel to the player character's [[spoiler: Bankai]] training is basically a filler arc to give you something to do between training missions, and the events thereof are never mentioned again once the arc is done and doesn't really interact with any other plot points, nor are details of the fake captains ever given beyond "the Hogyoku did it".

** During special training, Shunko is presented as nearly as powerful as [[spoiler: Bankai]] and in the source material, actually rivals it in power. In gameplay, Shunko is just a slightly longer FlashStep that can be used every turn and a moderately-powerful linear map skill that the main character doesn't get a version of, even if they do master Shunko.

** Yoruichi (present-era version only) and Soi Fon [[spoiler: and both Kudo twins]] can perform Shunko, which is essentially a 4-tile version of Flash Step that costs all current SP. Yoruichi and Soi Fon also have a powerful linear skill with the same requirements (Shunkofujin for Soi Fon and Shunshinraijin for Yoruichi, though they're basically the same).

* MacGuffin: The Shisui Mirror is the game's resident plot trinket. The Soul Society wants to hold on to it as a last-ditch weapon against powerful foes like Arturo Plateado, Arturo and Seigen want to destroy it, and Aizen wants to take it and use it to [[spoiler: manipulate the cycle of reincarnation to his own ends.]]

** Fake Unohana is a violent sadist. [[spoiler: Ironically, the real Retsu Unohana was once like that back when she was Yachiru Unohana, which would be revealed in an arc of the manga that would come out nearly ten years after the game.]]

* SecretCharacter: Nearly every named character who appears on a battlefield (and don't leave before the battle actually starts) at any point in the game can be gained as a SecretCharacter by fulfilling the right conditions in the [[PostEndgameContent Bleach Tower]]. This includes any normal characters you didn't unlock during the story, Arrancar, Aizen and the captains who sided with him, Kaien Shiba, Seigen Suzunami, past versions of Aizen, Urahara, and Yoruichi, [[UnexpectedCharacter Sojiro Kusaka]], and [[spoiler: Konoka and Shiyo]]. The only characters who are named and have battle sprites who ''aren't'' available in this way are Tatsuki, Mad Eater, and [[spoiler:Hollowfied Seigen]].

** The chosen twin will get all their possible special training results in the post-game, regardless of whether they cleared all the training maps during the main story. The unchosen twin will get all the results of the special training [[spoiler: except Bankai]].

* ThisCannotBe: If you [[spoiler: achieve Bankai]], Seigen Suzunami is dumbfounded and incredulous that such a young and inexperienced Soul Reaper has mastered such an extremely advanced technique. [[spoiler: In much the same way that Byakuya was incredulous that Ichigo would so much as dare utter the word "Bankai", much less actually be able to perform it.]]

* TigerVersusDragon: Matsuri's Zanpakuto's default name is Kotomaru or "Tiger Culler", while Fujimaru's is Ryujomaru or "Dragon Brander" and this theme carries over into the [[CallingYourAttacks names of the attacks they call out in their SP attack]], especially if you stick with your starting TacticalRockPaperScissors affinity (if you change from your starting affinity, the SP attack does not clearly fit the theme). This is also reflected in Matsuri's relatively straightforward personality and bulldozer-like fighting style and Fujimaru's more laid back personality and his fighting style focusing more on many small hits instead of one big hit. [[spoiler: Made even more explicit by their Bankais, Ryukyu Kotomaru or "Dragon-Seeking Tiger Culler" for Matsuri, which comes with outfit that includes a dragon head on her left shoulder and Kokyu Ryujomaru or "Tiger-Seeking Dragon Brander" for Fujimaru, which comes with an outfit that includes a tiger head on his right shoulder.]]

* TimeyWimeyBall: It is eventually revealed that the Shisui Mirror sent Seigen, Arturo, and the Kudos [[spoiler: and Konoka]] to a "Wandering Spirit World" where time doesn't actually exist, until such time as it bumped into the Human world and dropped them off, thereby sending them from the past (~110 years before the present era) to the present era (roughly at the beginning of the Arrancar Arc) in what was, for them, an instant.

* PostEndgameContent: After completing the story, the Bleach Tower becomes available, where you may continue to play the game, unlock any characters you may have missed, unlock nearly every named character who ever shows up on the battlefield as a playable unit, including getting back Kaien Shiba and past versions of Yoruichi and Urahara, experience a small additional story and a few extra hot springs scenes, and farm AP to spend on stat ups even past level 99. Also, in the Bleach Tower, the main Kudo twin gains all possible results of their special training and the secondary twin gains all but one of the possible rewards.

The plot, which takes place in an AlternateContinuity, comes from Tite Kubo himself, and introduces four new characters, the Twins Fujimaru and Matsuri and their adoptive family Konoka and Seigen Suzunami, thrown through time after Arturo Plataedo (who some players might remember from Bleach: Shattered Blade) attacks the soul society and is stopped by an object known as the Shisui Mirror.

** Fake Yamamoto is a self-aggrandizing jerkass for whom NothingIsMyFault

* LaserBlade: The form taken by [[spoiler: both Kudo twins' Bankais, with Fujimaru's being blue and Matsuri's being pink, coinciding with both common gender associations of those colors and the TacticalRockPaperScissors affinities of each twin.]]

* LethalJokeCharacter: Hanataro Yamada has unimpressive stats, cannot attack, and his only starting ability is his HealingShiv Zanpakuto and he doesn't learn offensive Kido. However, he gains multiple power boosts that make his full Spiritual Pressure ability terrifyingly powerful - his released Zanpakuto's SwordBeam is tied with Byakuya's Shukei Hakuteiken for the most powerful map skill in the game, but it hits four tiles forwards instead of one.

* CordonBleughChef: Matsuri isn't presented as necessarily incompetent at the technical task of cooking, but her idea of what ingredients would work well together is strange and poorly received by pretty much everyone except Rangiku, who seems to genuinely enjoy her food.

** Inverted by the Early Riser skill, who start with seven bonus points to all their stats and tick back down to their base stats over the first seven turns at one point per turn.

* PostEndgameContent: After completing the story, the Bleach Tower is available, where you may continue to play the game, unlock any characters you may have missed, unlock nearly every named character who ever shows up on the battlefield as a playable unit, including getting back Kaien Shiba and past versions of Yoruichi and Urahara, experience a small additional story and a few extra hot springs scenes, and farm AP to spend on stat ups even past level 99. Also, in the Bleach Tower, the main Kudo twin gains all possible results of their special training and the secondary twin gains all but one of the possible rewards.

* StrangeMindsThinkAlike: Shiyo shares Kukaku's rather strange architectural sense and the two bond over analyzing and appreciating the defects in a bootleg model of the giant arm statues in front of the Shiba household.

** Some characters can gain complete immunity to certain StandardStatusEffects - D-Roy and Nemu can get Block Poison, Kaien Shiba can get Block Freeze, Kukaku Shiba can get Block Burn, Nakeem can get Block Shock, and Rangiku can get Block Hold.

** Inverted - almost immediately after arriving in the present via accidental time travel from over a hundred years in the past, the player character bumps into Don Kan'onji, a major television star, and shortly after, into Ichigo, who is the main character of the anime/manga and quite well-known in the Soul Society due to recent events. Once they arrive in the Soil Society, they very quickly meet Capitan Komamura and Lieutenants Kira and Hisagi.

** In the first mission where Arturo returns in the modern era, you are not expected to defeat him (though doing so is possible given sufficient LevelGrinding and/or inflicting burn on him) and the fact that the main character isn't a match for even a much-diminished Artur, along with a refusal to accept Mayuri's order to just give up, is part of their impetus for engaging in special training.

* FuroScene: The game boasts about these during Free Play. Logically, girls get more scenes then guys, but Ichigo and the other male Soul Reapers also get quite a few.
* GameBreakingBug: If an enemy has the Hit and Run skill, the AI won't ever actually end their turn after attacking, functionally freezing the game. This is normally not an issue, but can happen in Female Soul Reaper Society Training if Yoruichi has learned the skill.

* EnergyAbsorbtion: In both boss battles with Arturo, the Shisui Mirror is used to drain his energy so he can be defeated. He starts with absolutely massive stats, but they rapidly decline over the course of the battle. The second time, his stats decline slower and with a higher floor because of a limiter put in place to protect the Mirror's user from the strain it puts on them.

* EnergyDrain: In both boss battles with Arturo, the Shisui Mirror is used to drain his energy so he can be defeated. He starts with absolutely massive stats, but they rapidly decline over the course of the battle. The second time, his stats decline slower and with a higher floor because of a limiter put in place to protect the Mirror's user from the strain it puts on them.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: Grimmjow's Fraccion do not die in their attack on Karakura Town. {{Downplayed|Trope}} in that all of them end up dying later on, anyway; some in an attack on the Soul Society and the rest during the invasion of Hueco Mundo. Also Grimmjow doesn't lose his arm or rank, which by proxy spares the absent Luppi his demise.

* CombatTentatcles: The FinalBoss is so massive that its lighting-spitting tentacles constitute units in their own right and occupy as much map space as a medium-sized Hollow (2x2).

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Whichever twin you pick as your main character will start with Byakurai. This means that no matter how you build your character, you can never be in a situation where you have absolutely no Kido if you attempt Kido Training I, which disables the regular attack command.