Game Night #7: Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment

[owsf2000]

Yeah, I should stop mulling over what game I might play on gamenight. It'll save how many times I change it. Still not started on Utawarerumono - seems like I'll probably be waiting until I have both halves of the game before I start at this rate.

So this weekend I started on SAO: Hollow Fragment. From what I know of the manga continuity, this game breaks from it. It takes place in the upper levels of Aincrad that the players never actually go to in the manga. It also adds in a "Hollow Fragment" world that you can travel to. To completely burst continuity they basically teleport in a couple characters that are in later storylines after the life-or-death game in Aincrad. I'm assuming I'm typing that name correctly. Basically a 100 floor world and the players had to go to the top and beat the last boss to be able to log out. Dying in the game resulted in death in RL. (By the VR headgear players were using nuking their brain with intense microwaves.)

Anyway, yeah, it takes place in the upper layers. I'm only about to reach the second floor boss (floor 77) myself so I can't say too much about the storyline for the game.

The battle system seems a bit similar to the earlier .hack game series, although you're rarely locked into a room/bubble until you defeat an enemy. It also doesn't have 1st person view like the first .hack series did. Unfortunately. I use to enjoy running around in first person mode in the first series...

It took a while to grasp the battle system, and even now I know I'm not using it all that great. Only died once though. (Luckily no microwaving going on here. :P)

In addition to the main combat and relatively limited exploration (Areas have been pretty linear so far but again I'm at the beginning of the game.) there's a quest system where completing some quests unlock tips for fighting the floor boss and a relationship system with the other party members. You can help train them during combat to adjust their AI and apparently to learn new skills and carry on conversations while running around the hub town.

While I'm liking the game so far (I tend to like Sword Art Online overall anyhow) I'm glad I got this game on sale back in the golden week sale.

I'm likely going to keep playing this for a few weeks so I'll type up more later after I get a bit more use to the system and see more of the story. I've yet to go back to the hollow fragment realm for instance.

Comments

[kane_magus]

I've had the Sword Art Online anime downloaded for probably over a year now (maybe two at this point), but still haven't gotten around to watching it, yet. I went on a huge spree and downloaded Sword Art Online, Accel World (which is by the same guy as SAO and, supposedly, part of the same universe?), and everything I could find of .hack. Mainly because all of those deal with the idea of "trapped in a virtual world" and that sort of thing.

Then I later downloaded and actually watched JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (up through Stardust Crusaders, anyway, since I don't think the Diamond is Unbreakable anime was out or at least not finished yet at that point), and started reading the JoJo manga (currently up to a little ways into part VI Stone Ocean). Maybe whenever I finish all of that (still have Steel Ball Run and JoJoLion, if I can find the latter, to go), then maybe I'll finally go back and watch the stuff I downloaded earlier... I dunno.

(And actually, in the process of writing this comment, I paused to check BakaBT and saw that they finally have a non-shitty version of SAOII available now. Just queued it up in qBittorrent.)

[owsf2000]

Have you ever checked out Crunchy Roll? While it's a paid streaming service for anime, they also have a lot of anime available to view on their website. Granted it's lower-res than what their paid users have but at the same time it can be useful for checking out a series.

I've got so many freaking anime series on bluray/dvd at this point I can't say I have time to browse Crunchy for even more recommendations. >_> (Having HMV go out of business was good for the backlog buildup I suppose, but that leaves me with Amazon or something if I want to make the collection grow further...)

I need bookshelves.

[kane_magus]

All the stuff that I have now I got from BakaBT, both anime and manga scans. I've heard Crunchy Roll mentioned from time to time but haven't ever looked into it yet.

I think I have enough to hold me for a while yet, though I know I don't have even a fraction of what you have.

Right now, what I have:

Anime (I had JoJo prevoiusly, but deleted it for space after I finished watching it):
-Pretty much all of .hack as far as I'm aware. I'd seen .hack//SIGN and the stuff that came with the first game series perviously, but nothing beyond that.
-Accel World
-Sword Art Online

Manga (of these, I've only read JoJo so far):
-Attack on Titan
-Berserk
-Death Note (I watched the anime years ago, but never got around to reading the manga)
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
-One-Punch Man
-Sailor Moon (Seen the anime, but haven't read the manga)
-Sailor V (I vaguely recall maybe reading some of this years ago, but not entirely sure)

[owsf2000]

For manga, I'd probably also recommend Claymore. It's not the same as those mentioned in your list but I enjoyed the 27 volume series a lot. Your standard series about women turned into half-human/youma hybrids in order to fight full fledged youmas on behalf of humanity at the beck and call of a mysterious organization.

At least that's how it starts. It has an anime as well which is 26 eps long I believe. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it it overall as while they stay fairly close to the manga storyline (Except for a couple of slight but annoying changes) for most of the series, at the very end they decide to do the standard "OK LETS END THIS OUR ON WAY SINCE WE AREN'T DOING A SEASON TWO!"

And the ending is ugh. Let's just say the last boss in the anime (which ends at about the half way point through the manga) is nowhere near as weak as that.

The other main manga series I'm following right now is A Certain Magical Index, and A Certain Scientific Accelerator. (Two different series, but both taking place in the same City. Both are related to an earlier A Certain Scientific Railgun)

Oh, a manga you might enjoy is Black Cat. Like Claymore, and for the same reasons, the manga is superior to the anime. But I found the anime enjoyable enough on it's own until Creed is defeated. That's when they go do "their own thing". An annoyingly common trait for anime these days.

[kane_magus]

I just checked BakaBT and they had scans of Claymore, so I added that to qbittorrent, since I remember you mentioning it a few times in the past as well. I'll look into the others later, as I think I have enough to hold me for a while now already (and don't want to eat up too much HD space, since Claymore alone is 9.5GB).