Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment transcends its license to become a truly engrossing portable role-playing game. Unfortunately, this lengthy adventure is far from perfect, with problems ranging from bad translation to simplistic missions. But none of that gets in the way of one of the most ambitious anime games ever constructed.
Great game! love the story, and has over 100 hours of play. it would be my favorite game if it wasn't for the horrible translation but besides that i love this game, cant wait for a sequel
What we have here is the first Sword Art Online to arrive to our coasts, and it is a 2x1 including PSP's adventure. A game that fulfills its task, entertaining the player for hours with plenty of main and secondary missions. It will delight those who demand original Japanese dubbing, however, we won't hear it in our language and it arrives only in English.
Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment does its best to provide a comprehensive experience, featuring online-style combat and dating sim aspects. Unfortunately, while it does a decent job of presenting the Sword Art Online world, the game itself is only good, not great. Sword Art Online fans will probably have fun though.
Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment isn’t just a bad game. With its awful story, tedious combat, and inexcusable translation, it’s an out and out insult to anyone who might buy it – fans of the series especially.
If you're a fan of the SAO series, this is almost the perfect game! If you're not a fan... but enjoys a good rpg/adventure game, you will love as well! Great game for a handheld!
Aside from a questionable translation, getting used to the Circle button acting as the "confirm button" (a habit I admittedly struggled with until the end of the game and until early in my second run), and your teammates not referring to your character by the name you assign (they will always call you Kirito), this game has a good balance between the final 25 floors of Aincrad, and the Hollow World with Philia. I find that the "what if" scenario is a novel concept for a game to explore when the SAO storyline didn't explore these remaining floors in the anime. The game does combine aspects from MMORPG's and single player RPG's pretty well. The multiple endings do give it replayability, though you do always have to start from scratch with every heroine in the game, which could lead to some tedium.
A good first outing for the SAO series in video game form, and a decent diamond in the rough.
The only problem this game has is the translation. Everything else in it is a dream for Sword Art Online and MMO fans. The game feels like an MMO, with FREE DLC and FREE Content Updates, there is a ton of stuff to do. The combat is amazing once you get used to it and the story is what all SAO fans wanted, to complete the remaining 25 floors of Aincrad and beat the game.
But that's only infinity moment, this is two games in one, the Hollow Fragment story is even better. New characters, returning characters. Truly a game fit for fans of the series.
For those who are familiar with the chronology of SAO, Hollow Fragment starts when Aincrad ends. It’s at the same time an extension and an alternative ending to the first part of the anime.
Let’s check the battle system. You always play as Kirito, while having in your party a girl (or a man, for that matters) controlled by the AI. The game mechanism is close to Xenoblade’s in the way there’s an auto-attack and cooling down when you use some skills. During battles, you have five palettes that you can switch between with L and R. Two are for giving instructions to your partner (retreat, defense, offensive, congrats, etc.), one regroups your attack skills and the last two your healing/support magic. Your partner will regularly ask you to perform certain actions (attack skill, switch, paralyze the enemy) by which both characters will launch a powerful joint attack or relay. You also have to watch a «risk» gauge : the higher, the less effective your normal attacks will be. You therefore have to ask your partner to «switch», which sends her/him on the front without cover, but recovers the risk.
While it seems attractive on the paper, the execution is not always good. The IA of the girls tend to ignore the situation time to time, stopping for no reason or ignoring your switchs. But the biggest concern about them is that they are fairly weak at the beginning of the game. For example, Kirito starts at level 100, Silica only at lvl 70. They naturally reach Kirito’s level as you progress in the game, but it causes lots of irritating game over in the first hours. Furthermore, most of the fights can be done with only pushing the circle button and waiting for some sign from your partner. You’ll have to wait to have at your side partners at respectable level and in front of you some really though enemy if you want to experience the thrill of battle like it was thought by the devs. Technically speaking, the game is not even average : the 3D are neither that good nor that bad, animations are kinda stiff, and the game has quite a few annoying frame rate drops and graphics bugs.
Let’s examine Aincrad now. Climbing your way to the 100th floor feels a bit humdrum : at every floor you’ll have to complete unappealing sub-tasks while in search for the boss’s room, and then beat the boss itself. The level design is nothing special, the floors look like each other too much. True, it’s pretty large in total, but most of time you’ll be going from point A to point B. There is no proper «exploration» and puzzles are scarce.
You can still spend a bit of time with your harem for a change, sitting at the café with whoever you want to have a little chat. That said, the dates are nothing exciting because there are precious few topics and the answers are completely random. There is no logic to infer like you would you do in a real dating sim.
Fortunately, the game includes a lot of events really close to the anime in terms of humor and atmosphere. And when I say a lot, it’s nearly a dozen per floor, with sometimes sub-quests that will make you go back looking for special things in previous floors. Events are a LOT more focused on fan-service than the anime’s average, which you can easily figure out from the numerous beautiful and juicy illustrations.
The Hollow Area is organized very differently from Aincrad : it’s a very large surface divided into smaller areas you to clear one after another. The comparison with Xenoblade is clear, «exploration» becomes the keyword. Navigating is pretty tricky as the rough map you have at your disposal is about as precise as a pirate’s treasure map, and just going trough a couple of zones takes hours. The game helps out a bit but not too much, which leaves you really searching your way forward and think like you should always do in a correct JRPG. Note that the environments are a lot more refined, and level design improves a lot.
Battles had become increasingly intense in the last stages of Aincrad, but here in the Hollow Area, they’re pure enjoyment. This is thanks to several things, the first being the thunderous boss battle theme that makes confrontations tremendously dynamic. The second thing is the perfectly balanced difficulty, which makes battles really rewarding. You have to be constantly swapping between palettes and item list, and at the same time having an eye your your partner’s situation. And believe me, the boss monsters’ design is something…
Third thing is the scenario. While the story in Aincrad only begins in the upper floors (and actually merely copies what happens in Fairy Dance), the story that takes place in the Hollow Area is full of original and clever ideas, with some moments easily matching the best parts of the anime. The cutscenes are of really good quality (as good as in Fire Emblem Awakening for instance) and really help building a fascinating atmosphere. The sad thing is that it’s quite shorter than Aincrad : I rushed it within 20 hours, while Aincrad lasted 50h.
Do NOT waste your money on this game, the game is in Japanese with English subtitles, however the text might as well be gibberish and half the time you wont understand what they're talking about. The battle system is engaging but poorly optimized. With encounters ranging in levels 70 to 150 in the same area (many times right beside each other) you can easily die in one or two hits. There is absolutely no coming back from the dead, you or your companion dies its game over. No way to manually save (it auto saves EVERY time you load into a new area). Total wast of money unless you are a mega fan of SAO and don't care if the game is actually decent.
SummarySword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is a Role Playing Game based on the novel, manga and anime, Sword Art Online, and reflects the charming characters and breathtaking environments from the virtual reality world called Aincrad. In a simulated Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game setting, players find that they are captured within...