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In Which I Play Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment

Unless you count Chat dialogue, no. She's just a powerful bonus party member as a reward for beating her and going into NG+.
 
Nox said:
Aww, boo! Lazy writers, lazy!

...does she at least have custom scenes and events and such?
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Notice that this game only has happy endings. There cannot be an ending for Yuuki, for it will be bittersweet at best, and downright saddening at worst.

Why that is the case is a spoiler for Mother's Rosario.

Also, Strea and Hollow Kirito are alive? Whoa.
 
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Ah well guys. Look at the brighter side, Sword Art Online: Lost Song was announced, which might come to the West.

Zerban's suffering isn't over yet! :)
 
LupineVolt said:
Do you have any final thoughts on the game you'd like to provide? How would you rate it as a video game, and do you think that its worth experiencing?
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And now, final thoughts on the game. Since this delightful person asked.

Story

For the most part it's garbage. As you quite thoroughly saw in this LP, 99% of this game was written with a literal ham dipped in ink. The 1% of course being the Hollow Area stuff and a few choice moments near the end of the Infinity Moment arc. The voice acting's good though. Philia was great (the fact she's played by Mikasa didn't hurt), PoH was phenomenal, and Strea actually turned in some really good performances once she was given some good scenes - taking the sword for Kirito and saying goodbye to him before being deleted for example. She doesn't seem to have the large resume of most Japanese voice actors, but she's been in Accel World and Aldnoah Zero, so at least she's moving on in the world. I talk about the voices so much because they're basically the only thing you could get from the story by playing yourself. Otherwise, hold down L and SKIP THAT SHIT.

Graphics

It's a next-gen port of a PSP game, so it's not going to win any beauty pagents any time soon. The models are low-poly and simplistic, the Aincrad areas cramped and repetitive, and the less said about what the frame-rate does when there's too much happening onscreen the better. The Hollow Area, however, shows a great deal more size and variation and even grandeur at times. Additionally, Sword Skills just look great. The animations are great, the special effects are great, it just feels good to fire one off. Why do you think I used Starburst Stream 9700 times?

... Jesus that puts that into perspective.

Sound

I can't say much about this. I confess, I normally play handheld games at my computer desk with the sound completely off so I can multitask. However I did turn the sound on for certain moments (key Philia and PoH scenes, some boss battles, that sort of thing) and what I heard was pretty serviceable. I'm surprised I didn't hear Swordland being spammed everywhere. But anyway, the music does a fairly good job, and the sound effects of combat are appropriately meaty.

Gameplay

186 hours clocked and I still haven't actually seen everything this game has to show me. The combat is fast-paced and fun. You're given a vast array of options for how you'd like to play Kirito. You can take a break from the grind of Aincrad any time you want to experience the Hollow Area in all its diversity and variety. The Hollow Mission grind becomes a means to an incredible amount of tangible rewards - new items, new systems, new skills, new everything. A vast array of endgame challenges waiting for you once Aincrad and the regular Hollow Area become too easy for you. There is just so much to see and do in this game that I don't even begrudge its $60 Australian price tag that much any more. I've extracted more than enough time for my money here, not even taking into account the absolute blast I had doing this LP.

Honestly, in the end, I'd recommend it if you already have a Vita. It is a lot of hours of fun action-lite JRPG gameplay on the go, and skipping the shitty story is easy as pie. Obviously it's not going to be a system seller, but still. In the end I had a lot of fun.
 
FoxOnPie said:
Apparently. I bet this surprises everyone.
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Not wrong there. I'm surprised by the fact, frankly. I'd gotten the impression that it wasn't that good of a game, going by Zerban's LP. Well, the non-HA stuff, anyway.

Would this game have a safe transfer function for that ALO sequel being developed, ya think? Also, what Vita firmware version did you need for the game to work (I'm still on 3.0.1 for homebrew hopes)?
 
Just finished reading this off and on between working on my NaNoWriMo.

Given that the chances of ever playing the game myself are somewhere about zero, it's been a great look at part of the SAO brand I'd never otherwise see. So thanks for that, Zerban.

Also it's sparked story ideas for me, but that's just my muse being the faithless hoyden that she is.
 
Zamio said:
All they have is a trailer with that sister of Kirito's whose name totally escapes me. I would guess no though. Unless Yuuki is in more than just Hollow Fragment.
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She's in Mother's Rosario, but that happens after GGO, so it's still a bit further.

The anime's current arc is mother's rosario if you want more Yuuki, though. Let's just hope they don't ruin the character like they did with Sinon.
 
Does Argo have any alternate costumes?

She fights with claw-weapons, right? But you didn't have the option of using that kind of weapon. How does she fare in combat?
 
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