Sword Art Online Re Hollow Fragment Strange Fruit Garden Paradise North

Aquria's interesting take on the always-pop anime IP proves to be a fun, if grindy, action-RPG with an absolute tonne of content.

Developer	Aquria
Publisher	Bandai-Namco
Franchise	Dengeki Bait-and-switch; Sword Fine art Online
Genre	Action; Role-playing
PSTV	Yes
Physical English	Yep – AS merely

Globe-edifice & Story

Anime necktie-ins unremarkably accept ane of 2 types of plot – they either re-tell the events of series in video-game format or take a side-plot that's adequately inconsequential to the overall story. Hollow Fragment does neither of these things, instead following an culling continuity based afterward the events of the fourteenth episode of the anime that veers off in new directions. It's an inspired idea that serves to feel familiar plenty for players returning to Aincrad yet makes perfect sense as a style of adapting the IP for gaming.

I would suggest at to the lowest degree watching the start 14 episodes of the anime before playing as it'll requite you lot a adept background for the events here, simply if not then y'all at least need to know the following – Sword Art Online follows a group of VR gamers who find themselves trapped in a virtual world (Aincrad) and told that if they dice in the game, they die in real life. To escape they need to make it to the 100th floor and beat the dominate – after clearing 75 floors, the hero Kirito challenges a man known equally Heathcliff to a dual just to find he is in fact the game'southward creator Akihiko Kayaba and – after besting him in gainsay – frees those trapped in Aincrad and ends the virtual world early.

Hollow Fragment splinters off only before this part and imagines that a strange virus hitting merely before Kirito beat out Kayaba and as such the players accept to clear the remaining 25 floors to gratuitous themselves. It's such a simple idea that slots perfectly into the narrative, feeling like an essential continuation of the plot rather than a poor excuse to revisit the anime'southward earth as seen in some of its contemporaries.

The actual story beyond this is fairly interesting – at least in one case information technology gets going. The mystery is centred around a new character named Strea and her connectedness to the events that occurred on the 75th floor – there's also a storyline involving a new identify chosen the 'Hollow Area' and a woman named Philia who is trapped there and y'all'll work to unravel the secrets of both of these newcomers.

That is, when the game lets you lot. A lot of your fourth dimension in Hollow Fragment will be spend in mundane conversations involving clearing floors to reach the top level of Aincrad. While there can be some interesting grapheme development in these parts, the majority of the time is spent in weird pandering chats – SAO is undoubtedly a harem anime and a large chunk of the game is spent flirting with the many, many women who want Kirito. You'll feel a better connexion to them if you've watched the anime, but fifty-fifty then it's not the nigh stimulating of chats.

I get the feeling these conversations are just tedious in general but they're non helped past Hollow Fragment's god-awful translation that has get the stuff of infamy at this point. The corporeality of times I was asked to help with 'penetration' (meaning flooring-clearing) was frankly hilarious and other chats flat-out don't make sense unless yous really stop and focus on what is trying to be said, the linguistic communication is just that garbled.

Which is a shame, because the earth synthetic hither is both true-blue to the anime and fantastic in general. Y'all get a real feeling of being function of a living, animate community – the game's primary town (Arc Sofia) is total of people busying around and this extends to the fields, where you'll run into gamers only out completing quests. Each area is quite well crafted as well and at times I was reminded of my experience of playing Globe of Warcraft and running through a variety of dissimilar zones, significant Hollow Fragment actually does succeed at bringing its source cloth to life.

Presentation & Sound

Creating a dynamic world that evokes the feeling of an MMO can't be an like shooting fish in a barrel chore, yet somehow Aquria managed to get awfully close with Hollow Fragment – each landscape is unique and a joy to explore, meaning that immigration flooring after floor remains an aesthetically enjoyable chore.

This positivity extends to the character models – they're what I'd describe as 'acceptable' in the sense that they do cypher spectacular and don't feature a tonne of particular but expect fine for the nearly part. Similar to other Vita games similar Tales of Hearts R, they don't feature rima oris animations and things like dress and hair are somewhat blocky, merely they animate well (particularly in combat where each has unique movements for each dissimilar special assail).

Enemies are also skilful – there's a large diversity of foes you lot'll run across ranging from bees and rats to more terrifying skeletal soldiers or gryphon-knights. They all look pretty impressive at starting time glance and also have unique animations – best of all, they're not repeated too oft when exploring (except in the maze areas) meaning yous're unlikely to become sick of seeing the same affair over and over.

The environments are arguably the best and worst aspect of the presentation, which has to practice with how the game was made. The new content created specifically for Hollow Fragment is gorgeous – the whole of the Hollow Area is full of sweeping vistas with gorgeous views; green fields that extend outwards into the skyline and ancient ruins overgrown with flora and brute. At that place'southward a few dull corridor-forests in there simply cypher to backbite also much overall as you'll e'er be rapidly moving on to something else.

Conversely, the content ported beyond from the PSP game Infinity Moment is incomparably less pretty – areas are smaller and more than enclosed, there's more browns and greys rather than bright colours and less inventive zones to run through. Each floor ends with a 'maze' that is effectively just a series of rock corridors with very little personality, which is a disappointing style to reward role player progress and fairly ugly to look at.

Elsewhere, you'll spend a off-white amount of fourth dimension in menus which aren't the most intuitive I've come beyond. In fact, the game's UI in general is a bit of a mess with data and icons everywhere and information technology is hard to keep up with – which is more than a pitfall of the way the combat has been designed than anything else, although pocket-sized text doesn't help. At least the visual novel style conversation scenes are fairly nice – although they're only blithe in a handful of circumstances, each character is well drawn and looks merely like their anime analogue.

Vocalisation acting is Japanese-but, which is fine and each bandage member puts in a decent operation (fifty-fifty if many of the women simply have turns in exclaiming "Kirito!" well-nigh of the time). Music is a mixed handbag – a lot of the time it's only background noise, yet at that place were times I was reminded of my time playing World of Warcraft where the soundtrack blended perfectly with the action on screen, creating a vivid atmosphere (there were definitely elements of the soothing 'Nagrand Night' theme at points).

Soundtrack highlight – Abandoned Surface area Theme

Gameplay & Content

Hollow Fragment attempts to capture the feel of an online MMO and succeeds in many ways – a varied combat system; a large explorable world and a hub full of NPC's help to immerse you into the experience. Some of its systems are a bit obtuse and overall it can get a bit repetitive at times, but otherwise at that place'southward a really solid game here.

You'll commencement out in the hub urban center – Arc Sofia – which acts as your base of operations. There are a few areas to explore only it's by and large pretty small – still, it provides everything you lot demand to ready for your run a risk with item shops, blacksmiths and a quest board. You lot'll also come across a variety of NPC'south – many story-related such as Asuna and Klein that you tin partner upward with in battle, while others are in that location simply to assistance the world feel like a living, breathing place.

Indeed, Hollow Fragment does a really good job of making you feel similar you're actually playing an online game at times. A postal service system means other characters can send y'all messages and you lot'll ofttimes hear from the side-cast who ask you to help with a certain quest on a sure floor – it'south nice to know that there's things happening outside of your own deportment. Indeed, when you venture out into the earth you'll often encounter groups of players fighting monsters and this likewise helps with immersion.

When yous're set up to go out Arc Sofia, you only head to the teleport stone and choose which flooring y'all'd want to get to. Each has a different theme – some might exist green open up fields; others might be waterside swamps meaning it'southward always interesting to explore them. That said, each flooring you spawn on is adequately linear – the zones are fairly minor and mostly have merely one route through, with the odd subconscious cave or tunnel with a bonus monster along the style.

You'll have two dissimilar tasks when out in the field – a variety of side quests exist which ordinarily involve killing sure foes or collecting a specific item, merely the master task is to find the maze area at the stop of the floor and progress to the dominate room where you'll challenge an almighty creature which – when beaten – grants admission to the next floor, which you rinse and repeat until you lot attain floor 100 and clear the game.

This brings me on to the combat system which is very unique in its implementation. For starters, you can opt to ever travel effectually with a partner and a clever 'switch' mechanic means you lot can bandy roles at any fourth dimension with one of you taking the impairment and the other providing support. This provides a lot of tactical opportunity which really is the theme of Hollow Fragment – a lot of options exist, which can get somewhat overwhelming at times.

When faced with an enemy, y'all'll machine-assault if yous're in range. Pressing 'o' will start a high-threat-level attack, which causes a lot of damage but makes the monster more than likely to target you (a bar will tell you how much threat yous're creating). You have two skill palettes which are activated past belongings a shoulder push button and pressing 1 of the face buttons – these tin be loaded with flashy sword skills or buffs and heals, all of which consume SP which is refilled by motorcar-attacking.

On top of this, you can result commands to your AI partner by belongings the shoulder buttons and pressing a directional central. They will act on their own however and you tin can praise their actions if they practise something you lot like, which will help shape their personality traits and brand them more than probable to take the same action once again in future combat. They're also capable of making requests of yous, which will help strengthen your bond if y'all do the activity they're request for.

If that all sounds similar a lot to take in… it is. There are so many systems at play — across this there are skill trees, equipment grinding, weapon tempering etc. It can be overwhelming to go on on top of everything that's happening, just this level of complexity creates an often enthralling title where there's always something to monitor. The boss battles are easily the highlight of Hollow Fragment equally y'all'll be in a fight with dozens of other players (as well as your AI partner) against a massive foe and it actually encourages you to test all your skills and ensure you lot're playing at the top of your game.

Outside of combat, there's a fairly juvenile dating mini-game that you can undertake with any of the heroines (and oddly, besides Klein). If yous accept any of these characters to a romantic spot, you'll appoint them in chat and accept to choose the correct response to what they say to raise your bond. Do this plenty times and you lot'll gain the opportunity to carry them up to your room and witness a short CG scene in bed with them before falling asleep (which are clearly pandering, but luckily nothing likewise bad). Sadly, this system is let downwardly by the abysmal localization which ways your responses will be more often than not guesswork unless yous use a guide.

The main thing that lets Hollow Fragment down bated from this is repetition – after a while, the process of clearing floors and fighting bosses gets tiring and you'll want to move on to something else. To convalesce this, Aquria included the 'Hollow Area' – an entirely new department that plays somewhat differently than the majority of Aincrad. Corridors are swapped for much larger fields and y'all're given a winding world map to explore with plenty of variety plant between each of the zones.

The Hollow Surface area also introduces 'Hollow Quests' – missions that appear on the wing as you're exploring and introduce new tasks such as stealthily making it through an expanse without being spotted or finding out how to open a locked door. They serve nicely to shake things upward and combined with the more open zones, assist stave off some of the boredom that might come up with Aincrad'south floor-clearing.

Immigration enough Hollow Quests will help unlock each sub-expanse'due south dominate, which offering a similar challenge to those found in Aincrad except without the regular army of other players to help deal harm. The trouble with the Hollow Expanse content in full general is merely how unfocused it is – while Aincrad was linear to the farthermost but you at to the lowest degree always know what to do, the new content offers you consummate liberty to go almost anywhere and do annihilation y'all desire – which is overwhelming, particularly when systems such every bit levelling up the console aren't really explained.

What y'all're left with so is ane of the nigh content-rich games on Vita – at that place's well over 100 hours worth of stuff to do hither and I'd barely scratched the surface after 40 hours. With that said, there's a lot of grinding and repetition and inevitably you'll finish up dropping it to play something else – but I found myself continually coming back toHollow Fragment after a chip of time abroad, which worked really well. I can run across myself returning to it enough in future to chip away at quests and level upwardly my character as well, making it one of the all-time games on Vita for getting your coin's worth.

DLC

At that place is DLC forHollow Fragment, but this is mostly free costume packs. The majority of the important new content was added equally a patch, significant that everyone will accept admission to it without the need to purchase anything.

Conclusion

In taking on the mammoth task of creating a video-game that captures all the elements of theSword Fine art Online anime, Aquria managed to create an enjoyable title literally teeming with content that somehow feels like a big online world despite the Vita'southward limitations. There are issues with repetition and grinding while the story veers off at points over the incredibly long run-time, just if you know what you're getting into before y'all start playing,Hollow Fragment offers a very enjoyable experience on the handheld and one you'll probable keep coming dorsum to.

seven.v/10

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Source: https://kresnik258gaming.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/vita-sword-art-online-hollow-fragment-review/