Echoes of Aincrad (SAO)

This SAO-inspired and fresh take on the Sword Art Online experience places you as one of the thousands of players who were able to log in on day 1 of the launch of the game. The game takes place at the start and during the 'Incident' in which all the players who logged into SAO on day one were eventually trapped in the game. This includes Kirito, the main character in the SAO Anime and Manga. 

You, unlike previous titles, however, do not play as Kirito; instead, you are your own character going about your own story in the SAO world. Your story runs in conjunction with Kirito, with reports indicating that you will eventually meet up with Kirito, but your paths only cross. The story focuses on your character and your interactions with a set of characters that develop your storyline. 

I recently played the demo, which they portray interestingly. The demo is portrayed as you being one of a thousand Beta Testers participating in the first beta test of the game. They make reference to Kirito and one other player who has reached further in the game than any other player in the demo. The demo puts you in the game as a new player/beta tester in a dungeon in an attempt to meet some friends to explore the dungeon, when, through some unfortunate circumstances, your part is killed off, and you end up meeting Iorai, a solo player who was attempting to run the dungeon himself.

The demo takes you through the basic understanding of the combat system and introductory of the story arc as well as introduces you to several characters, both good and bad. It also allows you to go into the 'Town of Beginnings' and introduces you to the different shops and inn where you will stay and use as a base for your character. 

My Opinion

The graphics are decent; they are a bit better than some of the other games in the franchise, such as Fatal Bullet, which I'm not going to complain about the graphics simply because, in all honesty, I'm not too concerned with the graphics when it comes to this game. Due to the type of game it is and what it is based on, I think the graphics, in my personal opinion, are fine for this game. My only complaint when it comes to the graphics isn't really about the graphics, but some syncing issues with the cutscenes and the audio for those scenes. I noticed that in intense fight cutscenes, the graphics and audio would not sync properly. Now it could have been my system, but considering that all other cutscenes did fine, I can assume that it was due to the large amounts of information causing a sync issue.

Combat is a bit clunky in my personal opinion. The RB and RT attack method in some games seems a bit clunky. I find games that focus on the standard and heavy attacks with simpler A and B or even X and Y buttons to feel more natural. While I agree that RB and RT for FPS-style games make more sense, it doesn't feel right to me in an RPG. They also attempt to spread actions across multiple panels, which, during fast-paced combat, can feel a bit burdensome. Overall, the combat does flow well for the most part, and using heavy attacks to one-shot lower-level mobs is quick and efficient. The killing of Floor Bosses or Area Bosses has been made overly complicated in my opinion, but to some more hardcore players, I can see it not being much of a problem.

Sound-wise, the game does a decent job at supplying music and voice. Honestly, audio is one area that I don't focus heavily on because, in my opinion, as long as they have some music and voice to match the scenes, then they have done their part. While I admit that if they had some 2nd rate music playing or the voice didn't match the character, that would make me pause and give the sound a bad review...they didn't do that, at least not in the demo. I also didn't notice any sudden audio spikes that made me cringe or throw my headset, so that is a plus...Yes, I have had that happen before.

Leveling seems to take time and effort. I know that in the couple of hours I played, I was only able to reach around Level 4. This slow grind might increase in the actual games when you're doing story-based quests along with side quests. I don't have a huge problem with slow grind games, but in an RPG focused heavily on story and immersion, I think that leveling shouldn't take too long, or you're going to push out a lot of your player base. I can see some incentives to going out and farming exp, but the cons currently outweigh the pros. Again, just being a demo doesn't mean that it won't change when the main game releases.

The Story is currently hard for me to really say anything about, as I have only really experienced the demo. Though the fact that they took care to make the Demo put you in the role of a Beta Tester before the actual launch of the game (both IRL and in the game) does show some foresight into getting its audience into the mindset of the game. Currently the story is focused on your experience as a Beta Tester and the people you meet during that time, the character you play as for appearance's is preset but the game has shown customizing your character at some point which leads me to believe that at launch when you reach the point in the story where you are asked to retrieve the 'Mirror of Truth' (I think was what it was called), you will be able to customize your character at that point. I am still not sure how I will feel overall about the story until the game actually releases.

Overall, I have some hope for this game, and there are a ton of things they can do for this game to make it a huge success, but that said, there are things they can do that will ruin the game and experience altogether. The biggest thing is the lack of content and story, as well as the removal of some aspects of the SAO experience that made it for the Anime and Manga. While I don't think romance will be in the game, I'd personally love to see that as an option between your character and some of the other NPCs. I also think that one thing they should embrace, which they are supposedly doing, is to focus less on Kirito and his group and more on you and your group. Customizing is key for this game as well, and creating new downloadable clothing and accessories would improve the chances of keeping people.

I also think that it should be seen if allowing button options to be changed so that players like myself, who would rather have the A and B buttons be more for attack than for item usage, should be able to do that. 

Until the launch of the full game, though, I can not say much else on the story or other parts of it until I am able to play the actual game and see how things develop. I will create another blog post once the game is released and I am able to do a decent play-through.