Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment Review
Platform: Play Station Vita, PS4
Developer: Bandai Namco Entertainment, Aquria
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Author: Z.M.
Welcome to Aincrad, an iron castle floating high in the sky, full of fantastic creatures, adventure and much much more. In this fantasy world, magic isn’t something that is used at all. Combat is focused around sword skills and arts. Which leads us to the name of this game: Sword Art Online. The year is 2022 and this VRMMORPG(Virtual Reality) has hit the shelves and sold out instantly. After playing the game for some time our hero, Kirito, and other players, find themselves unable to logout of the game. All the players are brought to an opening event where they are told not only can you not logout until the game is beaten, but if you die you will die permanently. That is how the death game Sword Art Online begins.
Suddenly gaming has taken a sudden turn for our hero.
Now that we’re all caught up on how we got to this point in the story of the Japanese Light novel and Anime that this game is based on, we can really get down to business. The story of SAO: Hollow Fragment follows a more “what if” story where beating Heathcliff, (the games creator) on floor 75 didn’t end the game as originally stated and the players had to continue to the 100th floor as originally planned. You’ll take control of Kirito, the hero of SAO as he fights his way to the 100th floor to save everyone. Only now there is an additional area that only he is able to get to, where he meets a mysterious girl who has been fighting on her own, like him, in this strange area.
Straight out of the gate you’ll be met with all the familiar faces you’re used to from the story so far. You’ll have your harem of love interests of Silica, Liz, and Asuna (your in game wife) as well as the insertion of characters that shouldn’t be met until after the happenings in Aincrad.There’s also Klein who’ll help in the field and Agil who runs the Inn and shop where you’ll be spending a lot of time when not trying to save everyone.
Our trapped cast.
Gameplay is pretty simplistic for what an MMO normally would be, but that is to be expected when it’s being turned into a single player format. You’ll be able to go into the fields and dungeons solo or with a single partner that you’ll be able to guide but will be controlled by the in game AI. Combat in general is also pretty simple. The system will auto attack at a fairly regular basis, allowing you to to control your character for things like moving into a better position or dodging an attack last second. You could also chain simple strikes rapidly to kill small enemies faster. However, the most satisfying moments come from your special abilities. Nothing is more satisfying than performing sword arts, which are special sword skills available to your character, wherein which you and your partner may unleash a combo against a demi or full boss with triggered command prompts.
The sound mixing is done quite well in all aspects, ranging from cut scenes, ambient background, and battle music. The game also has all the Japanese voice cast for the characters, helping those of us who have watched the anime feel right at home. .
At the end of the day if you’re a fan of the anime, or anime games in general, this is pretty fun. It does fall into some of the tropes of RPG’s like grinding for hours to get levels to where you want them for a boss battle, or collecting monster drops to craft a specific weapon upgrade. It also adds the ability to raise friendship with other characters to increase your teamwork as well as romance the female characters for date scenes in later game states. Now the dating could add to re-playability if it wasn’t for being able to do so with everyone in a single play through.
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