Starting off I have to say that I have not beaten the game. From what I hear its a 200+ hour game, I am about 40 hours in and haven’t even touched the tower at all, I have been in the Hollow area pretty much the whole time. SAO:HF is a single player Action-RPG that plays similar to a MMORPG like Tera and Guildwars 2 with local co-op. Watching the Anime isn’t really necessary but highly recommended in order to understand whats going on, the characters and the setting a bit more. The review will have some spoilers regarding the plot of episode 14.

The game starts you off at level 95 and on the 76th floor of the 100 floor dungeon and tosses you into the game with little explanation on how things work. The plot however starts off at Episode 14 of the series but pretty much retcons everything after that point, making its own canon. Sugu and Sinon are in SAO with a briefly explained reason that makes very little sense but you just shrug it off because it was a way to get everyone you know into the game. I would have preferred Starting at level one as a random guy in the SAO world and getting to know the characters we have come to know, rather then forcing us to play as the most boring protagonist ever with generic waifu #1254634.

The game does a good job making it feel like an MMO, everything from a logout button in the menu, to random groups in the field grinding away and fighting monsters, to the simple action of opening op a party invite screen when asking one of the female supports (and Klein) to join you. It’s the little things they did like that, that really help you get immersed.

The game play of SAO is primarily an action RPG where timing and cooperation with your AI partner is required. Lets start off with the combat what you will be doing 75% of the game. You have your basic abilities, a dodge, a “burst” attack, a stun, and a parry ability, each of them can be removed changed and customized however you want. You also get different skills, Weapon skills battle skills and passive skills, all of which that can be mapped to the face buttons. You get a total of 12 slots you can mix and match, that can be accessed by holding L or R then pressing the appropriate face button. Its pretty overwhelming at first. You have 3 bars at the bottom of the screen, HP, Burst, and SP.

HP you should already know. Burst however, you will be fighting this damn bar the whole game. Every time you attack with your burst attack it removes blocks from the bar, as long as you have a block in the burst bar you do a bunch of damage, not a whole lot compared to your skills tho. You have an auto attack that’s about useless. If your burst bar is empty you pretty much do no damage you spamming the burst attack wont do anything. Then you have your weapon skills, they are your main damage dealers but they generally cost SP, and usually 100. You never get more then 300 SP that I know of, it recharged really slow so you have to manage it properly so you aren’t caught with your pants down. You can also get more SP by complimenting your teammate when they do something, like using a skill or switching with you (I’ll explain that later), you can get back 50sp, but you never have enough.

There are a few other things, you have your Risk bar that goes from 1 to 5, this is pretty much your threat/aggro bar. The higher it is the more damage you take from enemy attacks and the slower your burst bar recharges. Attacking raises it and it slowly decreases as your partner attacks, and they are gaining aggro. You have an option to switch where basically your companion jumps in front of the monster and takes all your risk reducing yours to 0 and keeping it there for a few mins so this is when you spam the hell out of Burst.

Both the like and the switch ability have a cool down, so it stops you from spamming it. The battle skills have a cool down, they are basically buffs and de-buffs, most of the time they cost SP to activate, there are a few that have no activation however that are pretty useful. There are battle skills that can stun, parry attacks, heal, even slow the enemy. All of them are pretty useful but the fight with SP will make you sweat it pretty bad. Passive skills are exactly that, you can only have one equip at a time however making the choice pretty hard sometimes.

The combat is simple yet complex at the same time. It sounds like it gets boring but really fun and keeps you paying attention. Dying in SAO pretty much resets you back to the start of that map section, letting you retry the area that killed you, tho it sucks to be jumped by 4-5 things right before you reach the door exiting and die, making you redo the whole part again, but it could be worse.

While fighting your companion will sometimes tell you to use a skill, or switch. If you do what they ask they may like you as well, giving you more SP and also pulling off some cool combos.

The maps in SAO are pretty small, but they piece together to make this massive world for you to explore. I haven’t explored the tower much, I have only really hung out in the Hollow Area and trying to complete that before I progress in the tower. The world is riddled with secret zones that don’t appear on the main map seen below. Keeping in mind that’s only one of the worlds. There are 5 Zones each with there own feel, Each zone has little sub-zones so to say. Like the Sea of trees, there’s a few temples, a jungle area, a canyon, and a few others. The variety in the zones is pretty cool, makes it feel refreshing, you aren’t looking at the same areas over and over. Each zone has its own variety of enemies as well, again so you aren’t fighting the same guys over and over again the whole game. Each dot on the map below is a section of the map, and below that is a map segment. Some are small, and others are pretty expansive.

I do have to say I did find what I think is one glitch so far, one of the new girl companions for the Hollow Area is Philia. While doing her event (more on these in a bit) and after gathering the materials needed and going back to where I am supposed to go, it never triggers the event. According to forums and everything, its supposed to trigger some dialogue, development with this new girl, and an item. Non of which I can get now because of what i assume to be a bug. That said It may be a time thing, like I have to progress to a point before it lets me, bringing me to my next point.

Events, these are Hollow Area quests kind of. They relate to the female characters, like bringing Asuna to a garden for lunch. You have to find the garden with pretty much no hints at all, you just have to stumble across it pretty much. If you are playing Coop (alone or with friends) with AI companions you cant even trigger the initial “This is an Event zone” thing, I missed like 4 of them because I was leveling up Asuna, Silica, and Sinon and never triggered the scene letting me know.

The game does a terrible job at explaining everything in the game. Everything from Events, to quests, to the research things. I wound up having to Use various forums and discussion boards to figure some things out. Like the research things, they can only be done in the circles in the above map, and those are pretty much mini missions like kill x of these. The research is used to unlock more skills and buffs and stuff.

The skill tree is pretty cool, you gain mastery points for the type of weapon you are using every fight you get into. The higher your mastery level the more skills and stuff you unlock. The weapon skills are only for that weapon, but the battle skills and passive skills can be mixed and matched from other skill trees. Using only one type of weapon is going to gimp you pretty bad, but the more you use one type of weapon the more damage its skills will do, overall its a pretty good system.

When you level up you never get points to allocate or anything like that, your stats go up a stock amount and you gain HP. You alter your stats with the gear you get, and the gear you find changed the appearance of Kirito pretty drastically, and can look really cool.

Brings me to one of my biggest gripe of the game. When you start the game you get the chance to rename Kirito and change his appearance, both of which are pointless to do. The game is played through the eyes of Kirito no matter what, during every dialogue conversation, during every voiced section, and during every cut-scene its generic Kirito. Maybe its just me, but that bugged the hell out of me, why give me the option to change it and have it pointless.

The visuals in the game are pretty good, vibrant colors, diverse locations, large variety of creatures to fight, lots of items and gear with there own unique visuals. I cant say anything bad at all about the visuals for SAO.

The story of SAO as said before starts off right before Kirito kills Akihiko Kayaba on Ep 14. In the game he does kill him without dying and the game does not end like it should, forcing them to make there way to floor 100 to see if maybe its something else they have to do. You then get ported to the Hollow Zone, and area that shouldn’t exist that you later find out whats its purpose is for (just reached that point actually) and you meet Philia a new female support role, but shes an Orange player. Anyone who has seen the show, an orange player is someone that’s harmed another player, its kind of like a PVP Flag. Its not the best but it works, the game is defiantly for the fans.

The plot is given to you via a VN style with dialogue boxes and cutouts of the people. I for one like this. Its all voiced in Japanese as well. Bringing me to the terrible translation. Sometimes you will find yourself reading the same section 2-3 times trying to figure out what the hell the person is trying to say, I really hope they patch the terrible translation.

The controls are done well enough, though the lock-on system took a little getting used to and got me killed a few times. seeing that I explained combat earlier, with the L and R button you also have your companions commands, like switch, like, heal, use skill, ect. its fairly well done. The main 2 Switch and like are also in the lower left and right corner and can be used with a tap of the screen. The AI is concomitant enough, but I often have to tell them to use skills as they sit on a full SP bar.

The whole dating sim portion of the game feels lame and tacked on, partly due to Kirito still acts Loyal and what not to Asuna, yet I just took Silica to bed. The mini-game for dating is pretty lame, its basically the girl says something that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and you hit R (positive) or O (Negative) and there bar fills up, when its full there mood progresses to the next level. When there mood reaches level 3 you get the “bridal carry” yes using it at level 3 usually resulted in me getting shot down, but at level 4 they are okay with it. Basically you go to the tavern, hope one of the girls aren’t in the tavern, you bridal carry her to your room, and walk to your bed.

That’s all it is, I for one don’t mind a dating sim thing in games, like Akibas Trip, and Persona 3/4, but this one feels cheap and lame. To make things worse in order to give the girls better armor and stuff you have to do this with everyone. Well you don’t have to take them to bed, but you have to play the stupid mini-game. I just take them to my room, talk to them and spam R for best results, usually works I don’t even pay attention to what they are saying anymore cause its just nonsense.

Then actually taking them to bed gives you a CG and a little dialog. But its funny because you talk to Asuna like you are so in love RIGHT AFTER YOU JUST SLEPT WITH [Insert girl here]. I just found it silly, hell while picking Silica up to carry her to my room she even says, “I hope they don’t see us”, because if they do, it breaks the event and you have to start all over. For the Sis-cons out there, you can take Leafa to bed, Kiritos cousin/little sister.

Pros:

+ 200+ hours of game play

+ Tons of skills and weapons

+ Good feeling of exploration

+ Fun and engaging battle system

+ Massive map in 2 worlds

+ Variety in the areas in the world

+ Skill progression

+ Fast load times

+ the little things

+ Autosaves very often

Love/Hate:

-/+ Loads of Fan Service

-/+ VN Style story progression

-/+ Asuna

-/+ Kirito

-/+ Not as grindy as you might think

-/+ Optional incest

-/+ New female support, Philia

Cons:

– Pointless Customization

– No online play

– Not much to offer for non fans of the series.

– Framerate issues in the main city, bot nowhere else so far

– Can feel overwhelming in the beginning

– Terrible translation

– Terrible Explanation of everything

– Events are confusing and hard to figure out

– Lock-on can screw you sometimes

– Crappy dating minigame

– Digital only in US and 3GB with another 500mb content update coming soon

TL;DR: Should you play Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment? Yes, but it’s mainly for the fans of the Anime.