Hollowed Fragment How to Get Married Again

Information technology'due south e'er difficult to gauge your expectations for anime tie-in games. On ane mitt, if y'all're a fan of the series in question, the idea of being able to collaborate with the characters, lore, and action of a world yous love is intoxicating. So on the other hand, what if the game itself is a cobbled-together mess, using your pre-established amore for the content as spackle to hide the cracks in its pattern and execution?

In the case of Sword Fine art Online RE: Hollow Fragment, a Playstation iv port of a Vita game which itself was ported from the PSP, it's pretty safe to call this entry a firmly mediocre success. The game isn't bad past any means, but really falls short of what information technology could accept or perchance even should have been.

The floating castle of Ainclad is the setting of Sword Fine art Online RE: Hollow Fragment and the beginning of the anime series it's based on. It's even bigger on the inside.

For those few who might have an interest in the game merely know squat about the series it's based on, Sword Art Online (or SAO every bit it's called in curt both in the series and past fans) is an anime series that starting time debuted a few years ago to great success and acclamation. Since 2012 it's already had two 20+ episode seasons and a movie adaption, and is still going strong alongside the light novel series it'due south based upon.

Sword Fine art Online RE: Hollow Fragment takes place within an alternating plotline beginning at the stop of the anime'south first story arc in the middle of season one (Episodes ane-14), but it still includes characters from the franchise'southward entirety. In an attempt to avoid spoilers for the show (which, as a alert, is really impossible while playing the game if y'all hope to understand it at all) I volition not get into details regarding RE: Hollow Fragment's inciting incident and summarize.

After being inescapably trapped for years within a fully-immersive MMO game where the decease of your avatar executes your living body, our hero, Kirito, finally corners the large bad responsible for it all. Nether the belief that defeating this adversary will free the players he challenges him to a duel. However, despite his apparent victory, the game continues with the original objective nevertheless intact: At to the lowest degree one of the players of Sword Art Online must clear the final 100th floor to activate the "Log Out" option and ready its population gratuitous.

The cause of this failed attempt at salvation appears to exist a glitch, which not simply nullified Kirito'south deed of valor, but also summoned players from other similar games into SAO, corrupted the information of SAO's pinnacle players, and granted Kirito access to a special hidden expanse called the Hollow which merely he can freely enter and leave.

Characters like Leafa are actually from later on in the anime'southward story than the game covers, just are included for fun and fan service.

The haphazard reasoning for the appearance of the serial other characters notwithstanding, the story of Re: Hollow Fragment works well within the confines of SAO's original lore. Kirito gambled and for reasons beyond his control he failed. This re-established the original goal shared by himself and the other members of the Assault group, who'd taken it upon themselves to lead the charge and clear all of Ainclad'due south 100 floors to set everyone complimentary. It's a sad tale for our heroes, but makes a pretty interesting story. It's more or less immediately later on the plot of SAO RE: Hollow Fragment is established that it shows its larger hand, and that's a mixed bag to be certain.

When the game begins you are given the option to create your own character starting with Kirito every bit a base. This character generator is considerably robust, including male person and female options, dozens of presets for eyes, lips, faces and heads, and even color sliders where applicative.

At first it's: "Oh, awesome! I get to make my own character and correspond my own tastes and interests in the earth of Sword Fine art Online!"

However, when the game begins, you will chop-chop find out that your time and effort in this regard doesn't matter. Well, no… they practise affair , but just for about half of how much yous probably thought they would.

No affair what voice y'all picked or eye color you lot cull – Kirito, is Kirito, is Kirito . Your customizations will only appear during the battle scenes and world map explorations. All the cutscenes will show Kirito as he was originally envisioned for the anime.

Merely so it becomes: "Oh, I'm all the same Kirito? Well, that'southward absurd too. I mean, I wasn't that attached to that avatar I but spent xv minutes on anyway. I gauge."

This direction with customization makes sense for the multiplayer aspects of the game, which are limited to online co-op once unlocked. Well-nigh players prefer controlling unique avatars over pallette-swapped but otherwise identical ones. Simply considering this game's multiplayer options are far from immediately bachelor and the majority of the experience is a solo affair, these options by and large succeed in disrupting your immersion the further from the original Kirito yous get. And, in RE: Hollow Fragment, immersion is more important than you might await.

The majority of RE: Hollow Fragment's exposition and narrative takes place in the class of animated slides with vocalism-overs – and there are a lot of them. Depending on how much y'all enjoy the combat arrangement, you can hands spend about twice the amount of time listening to what Kirito and his allies take to say about their situations as opposed to being in the situations themselves. Even if you try to skip through these sequences it can still take a while depending on where yous are in the game's larger narrative and what events might be taking place. This creates an inescapable scenario where even if you lot similar the story RE: Hollow Fragment has to tell, you tin can easily go bored with how it tells information technology. This issue is exasperated by RE: Hollow Fragment'south auto-save feature which, among the many other elements, operates in an awkward fashion in an attempt to ameliorate engage you with SAO's theme.

Sword Art Online RE: Hollow Fragment does include elements of narrative strategy, where assisting other characters better prepares them for the big scale boss battles and progression through Ainclad.

The characters in SAO: RE: Hollow Fragment are supposed to be players trapped in a game of their own. Their options and capabilities are limited, and in turn, so are yours. RE: Hollow Fragment takes a method approach to this, and limits your user control to better reverberate the plight of the characters. Autosaves are generally fired whenever you transition from one screen or surface area to the next, and once they happen your previous data is overwritten and in that location is no going dorsum. There is only ane save available per PS4 profile, then mistakes are not forgiven and bad situations stay that fashion unless you can escape them in game.

This as well means that if you read and mind your way through 20 minutes of story and don't walk into another area, y'all better promise you glanced that autosaving banner in the corner of the screen, otherwise next time you play you're going to be doing information technology again. This also applies for catastrophe your Sword Fine art Online RE: Hollow Fragment playing for the solar day, considering since the characters can't only log out, neither can you. You either have to hike your way back to a relatively non-descript journal object to exit to the title (I never got a tutorial for this, I literally just stumbled over it.) or y'all demand to just close the program and jump back in wherever yous last left an impression on the title's memory.

Still, as weird as it is, Sword Fine art Online RE: Hollow Fragment does seem like it was aware of its ain oddities when information technology was being designed. Saves are frequent, simply they are also pretty quick. It might be a bummer if you have to go through a long cutscene for the second (or third, or fourth) time, only it does keep you up-to-date with what's going on without having to scroll through a mission log. And the characters, although they can overstay their welcome, are nonetheless their charismatic anime selves. Too, the tiresome pacing of the storytelling does counterbalance that of the combat – which is full steam ahead.

Battles can be five second beat out'em ups, or protracted fights of compunction based on your party selection, timing, and mastery of your diverse abilities.

When Sword Art Online RE:Hollow Fragment puts you in battle, information technology'due south pouring bottled lightning into your easily. The action is fast paced and complex, requiring you to find a rest between push button mashing and existent-time strategy.

Combat is conducted using a combination of auto-attacks, push button-activated class skills, and timed squad combinations with your partner. There is a lot to master hither, and experimentation is greatly rewarded with feel bonuses and special item drops for excelling in boxing. Enemies who have proven unstoppable juggernauts and have wiped you lot out time and fourth dimension once more tin can topple in minutes with a simple change to your party and tactics. The feeling of crushing your opponents is thrilling, albeit a bit redundant once yous've mastered the tricks and the challenge starts to diminish. Fortunately the Hollow area, which largely works every bit an advanced challenge map and where you start the game, exists almost specifically to address this.

In the Hollow area Kirito and a partner of his choice can battle all manner of strange enemies from all across SAO'due south lore, including scaled down variants of the powerful flooring bosses that must exist defeated to proceed through the game. There are too special items and systems that can be unlocked hither, and RE: Hollow Fragment'south arroyo to pattern requires yous to find a lot things out every bit a histrion by finding them out in the game equally a character. This can potentially include entirely new ways to play.

Although it's existence a handheld port buys it some latitude, Sword Art Online RE: Hollow Fragment still falls beneath the visual standards you'd expect from a game borne in either of the past two generations of consoles.

But getting right down to the nuts and bolts of Sword Art Online RE: Hollow Fragment, information technology never shakes that feeling of simply being an enjoyable novelty that only fans tin really appreciate. It's graphically sub-par, which might be expected from a Vita port, but is nonetheless only about as polished as something you would detect on the PS3 or even a high-stop PS2 championship. The camera is manageable, but still operating on a digital level of sensitively in dissimilarity to its largely analog interface.

The characters move with a similar level of abrupt severity, which conflicts with times you may exist trying to sneak past an enemy instead of cartoon all their aggression by charging direct into them.

As stated earlier, the action is a lot of fun, and it is too supported by a selection of crafting systems and full on customization for your Kirito. But you are playing as Kirito , and as such you volition be starting the game in his narrative world-state; which means you lot are married to NPC Asuna,y'all are the alone user of the dual-wield sword class, and you are the strongest player in the globe of SAO.

This means that although the game treats you like you're a newbie, at the same fourth dimension you are the best and unmatchable, and fifty-fifty though yous can change skills and talents, why would you? Simply like with the avatar customization in the outset, the more than unique you make your Kirito, the less unique you make him in the world of SAO, which feels awkward. What is likewise awkward is since Kirito is married to Asuna, and your avatar(at least in your head) may non be "Kirito," when yous have part in the dating-sim mini-games this championship is littered with, you're going to be in for a lot of strange encounters.

Kirito's graphic symbol plays up the role of the chaste male pretty well, but players may find the sheer volume of unsubtle romantic advances, fits of feminine jealousy, and the enviable grumbles of his scattering of male comrades exhausting. Particularly since there is lilliputian option to pursue these alternative relationships without breaking the standing lore.

The large bulk of Kirito's companions are women, and (in true-to-grade anime harem tropes) all of these women dear Kirito to some degree. These girls keep a veiled distance from Kirito out of a grudging "respect" for Asuna, but actually don't want to keep their altitude and are anxious to indulge in some form of unconsummated affair with him. This in itself may not bother you (every bit a fan of the show it was one of my less favorite elements, merely besides one I expected) but if you're a female person player who may have even fabricated a female avatar of Kirito, it might be irritating, especially during your ten infinitesimal cutscenes.

Sword Art Online RE: Hollow Fragment, is the kind of game I propose researching a skillful bit before you lot commit to buying, regardless of how much you like the show or how much fun an owner already says it is. There is indeed a lot of content hither, and equally a fan of the franchise myself, I can say it does capture a lot of the anime'due south free energy and way. But information technology does besides very much experience like a port, and non one that takes total reward of what the PS4 has to offer.

For every interesting choice there seems to be some sort of counter-pick that makes that earlier achievement moot. It has a great battle system, only you have sloppy camera control to engage with it. Information technology has an interesting story, only information technology'southward shoved down the player's throat in an exhausting way that complicates functionality. It has lots of customizable options, simply they often seem like weird or wrong choices. I often found myself wanting to play RE: Hollow Fragment as a fan, but and then once I started I wasn't entirely sure why I had or what I wanted to practise.

The world of anime-novelty videogames is a genre in itself, and mayhap in within that perspective alone Sword Fine art Online RE: Hollow Fragment is but equally much of an honor-winner as the franchise information technology's based on. However, in the larger world of videogames this title is only mediocre, and a very specific kind of mediocre at that. Exterior of the shoddy camera and twitchy control, the balance of the game'due south pacing, design, and over-indulged sense of immersion steer information technology down paths only the biggest of fans might enjoy.

PROS

• Captures the feel of Sword Art Online's anime heritage and characters.
• Splendid battle design that is fun and engaging.

CONS

• Although full of customization, the majority feels awkward and confusing to the lore.
• An over-indulged sense of immersion limits thespian options and brand the game needlessly birdbrained.
• Even though it's a port, it does take plenty advantage of the PS4'due south capabilities.

I've been a huge fan and critic of games and movies e'er since I had a vocalism to speak virtually them. I beloved power and influence of dandy storytelling, interactive and otherwise, and at present desire to be more just a consumer. My biggest forcefulness in this regard? Almost every time, I'm fair all the time.

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Source: https://gamingtrend.com/feature/reviews/in-need-of-a-whetstone-sword-art-online-re-hollow-fragment-review/

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