Developed By: Artdink
Published By: Bandai Namco Games
Release Date: November 17th (North America)
Platforms: PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Playstation 3, PlayStation Vita
Price: $60
Some time earlier this year, I was on Twitter. (That’s not surprising as I’m always on Twitter.) A former writer from another site tweeted about Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, claiming the game to be underwhelming and boring. I told him I was checking the game out, that I was considering purchasing it on my Vita, that I was excited to play a Sword Art Online (SAO) game since I love the anime of the same name. He said not to pay attention to this one, that there was another, more exciting and faithful game adaptation coming. This one titled Sword Art Online: Lost Song. So, I reconsidered and saved my heart—and wallet—the disappointment. After watching copious amounts of YouTube videos (Sword Art Online: Lost Song released in Japan on March 26th for Vita), I was sold. “This is the game I was hoping Hollow Fragment would be,” I uttered to myself, in complete glee; I eagerly awaited its Western arrival. Unfortunately, with Holiday 2015 jam-packed with games, my backlog ever increasing, and Sword Art Online: Lost Song landing at the tail end of the year (it released in North America on November 17th for PS4), I never got the chance to trudge through the virtual reality massive multiplayer online (VRMMO) world with Kirito, Asuna, and the gang. The cold of December embraced me, I found some time, and was able to pick up and thoroughly experience the world of Sword Art Online. And after spending some 20+ hours with the game and fighting the exact same enemies hundreds of times, I can confidently say this is not the Sword Art Online game you’re looking for.
Sword Art Online: Lost Song is based on the light novels of Sword Art Online, but touts an “original story” and an “original location”; though the game is set in ALFheim Online (ALO), it takes place in Svart Alfheim. Instead of rehashing the events of SAO or ALO, the game takes the setting of ALO and attempts to tell a narrative about a young pop star/scientist looking to use virtual reality as a way of experimentation. Sound familiar? Well, that’s because it is. Though “original,” the game takes many cues and situations and events from the anime: the events of SAO are frequently referenced, many events that occur in SAO occur in the game, and the narrative structure is set up strikingly similar to that of the first season of SAO. There is nothing wrong with borrowing ideas from the source material; however, there is something wrong with borrowing ideas, slightly changing them, and calling them “original.” Substitute Akihiko Kayaba, Sword Art Online‘s antagonist, with whiny little Seven/Nanairo Alsharvin/Dr. Rainbow, Sword Art Online: Lost Song‘s antagonist, and you get the exact same story.
Of course, because this is Sword Art Online, you can expect to play as Kirito. Unlike the game preceding, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, you can play someone other than Kirito in Sword Art Online: Lost Song. In fact, there are 19 characters to choose from, all of which come from Kirito’s existing party from the anime. It is perplexing, then, that the party limit is three; out of the 19 available characters, you can only have three members—including yourself—in your party at a time. And because this is a game about a game, there are specific “gamey” moments: so-and-so cannot join your party at this time, only this person and that person can be in your party, you must complete the quest with what’s-his-name. Perhaps this was a necessity to create “excitement” because you’re venturing with someone new, but it only creates exasperation because not all party members are particularly useful. That is not the fault of the characters, but the fault of the AI. Party AI is absolutely imbecilic, getting stuck in dungeon rooms, standing in doorways, and just lounging around chit-chatting amongst themselves while you do the heavy lifting. This is odd considering enemy AI is more intelligent and engaging (but not by much). Enemies will charge your position, overwhelm and prevent you from attacking, and flank you and your party. Sadly, the enemies are not too much smarter than your party AI. In the 20+ hours I played the game, I died twice. On normal difficulty. Because of my hubris. The enemies become far too easy.
And they are easy because they are identical. There are, perhaps, a total of 20 different enemy types. Again, this is a game about a game, so there are “gamey” enemies: flying one-eyed bats that look like puffballs, standard dragons, lizard men, skeletons clad in armor, winged felines, forsaken angelic knights—you get the picture. A number of “MMO” clichés make their appearance in this game. And there’s nothing wrong with “gamey” enemies; however, there is something wrong with fighting identical “gamey” enemies multiple times in identical dungeons. Even bosses are the exact same “gamey” enemy, just bigger, emitting a purplish-red aura, and with four health bars instead of one. These bosses are found in the biggest, most spacious room in a dungeon—and there are plenty of dungeons to explore. It’s unfortunate that the dungeons all end up looking, feeling, and playing homogeneously, creating “gamey” dungeons: the door is locked, so you’ll have to unlock it by finding some arbitrary pad to step on or switch to flip; the door is locked and you can only progress by defeating all enemies in the room, which the enemies sometimes respawn incessantly; the door is locked and you can only get through by finding the key hidden in some chest in another part of the dungeon; the door is locked and requires a particular item to open it, trigging a fetch quest during a main mission. Every single time. Backtracking is sometimes essential for a game, but Sword Art Online: Lost Song abuses this, exacerbating any frustration the game already elicited. As a game about a game—or a game about an “MMO,” rather—you can expect to collect gear and level up; regrettably, leveling means absolutely nothing. Perhaps you have more health, perhaps you can use more mana, perhaps you don’t run out of stamina as quickly, perhaps you do more damage. All of this is superfluous when you can take on enemies that out level you. There was a level 457 boss I defeated at level 237—it took a while, but it ended up exploding in a cascade of glass shards a la classic Sword Art Online fashion. Just starting the game has Kirito and the gang beginning at level 100, and leveling is a chore.
It’s a shame combat makes leveling even more of a chore. As you may know, Kirito is the only character in the Sword Art Online universe to dual wield. (Until Rain/Karatachi Nijika, an original Sword Art Online: Lost Song character, shows up.) The anime features enthralling fights with fast actions and even faster attacks. Unlike the anime, the game does not feature enthralling fights with fast actions or faster attacks—it’s the complete opposite. Sword Art Online: Lost Song devolves to a button-mashy hack-and-slash based around two buttons, a few skills, and some magic spells. For the first couple of hours combat is engaging, requiring some sort of skill and strategy; enemies move in briskly, attacking in numbers with succession, prompting you to dodge, block, and plan when to attack. After encountering the same enemies over and over again, enemies are easily exploitable, and combat becomes stale and repetitive. By the time I reached the final third of the game, I deliberately began avoiding enemies as to not get in battles—too bad the game forces battles at certain moments. Each character gets a total of six sword skills for their three different weapon types, and weapon types are specific to races. Speaking of races, character customization is in the game, but it is the most contrived, tacked on feature in the entire game. There are a total of nine races to chose from, each with two hairstyles, two hair colors, two skin colors, and three voices. Do you want to change the color of your Spriggan’s armor? Sorry, that’s not an option. Do you want to give your Cait Sith a katana? Sorry, that’s not an option. Do you want to change the gender of your Undine? Sorry, that’s not an option. Do you want to make your Gnome taller? Sorry, that’s not an option. Why include choices if they are predetermined?
And this is not the only “illusion of choice” the game has. In battle, you can give your party members “gamey” commands: attack, defend, help, focus one enemy, heal, and the like. Since party AI is utterly daft, these commands blow over their heads; they will acknowledge the command with a trite “You got it!” affirmation, but never actually follow through with the command. Or, they will follow through with the command, but only for a short while. During chat sequences, sometimes “dialogue choices” present themselves, offering some sort of player agency and narrative impact to the game. Unfortunately, these choices do absolutely nothing: they devolve to binary options, with either option progressing the story with the same outcome regardless of what was chosen/said. Again, why include choices if they are predetermined, if the outcome will remain unchanged? To make us feel part of the story? Touching on chat sequences, the cutscenes are jarring. You’ll go from elegantly rendered 3D visuals, to static 2D chats a la Tales games, to an awkward amalgam of static 2D chats with a 3D model in the background. Do the main characters get the 3D treatment during chats? No, the NPCs and bosses do, which is puzzling; if the stars of the game are Kirito and his pals, why are they 2D? Why are the NPCs 3D, not Kirito and his entourage? And not even all NPCs are 3D: only certain NPCs get the 3D face lift. Because the chats are delivered in this aberrantly shaped package, the narrative loses its impact. By the time the final confrontation gracelessly arrives, all sympathy and empathy for any of the characters is gone. Hell, you won’t even care about what’s happening in the story about halfway through the game, instead skipping through all of the dialogue just to get the bland battle over with so you can reach the end of the game. It doesn’t help that there are no English voice options, which is bewildering considering both season one and two of Sword Art Online have English voices. This isn’t a complaint so much as it is a problem with translation: the game has Japanese voices with English subtitles, so you’ll get the hilarious mistranslated word or sentence here and there. (One of the characters called a hammer “delicious.”) In the first few minutes of the game, Yui, Kirito and Asuna’s daughter (long story; watch the anime), gives you a tutorial. The tutorial is fine, but there is one contradictory moment that stood out to me. Because the game takes place in ALO, and every single player is a fairy, you can fly. Pressing left or right on the D-Pad puts you to float mode; pressing up on the D-Pad puts you to flight mode. You can ascend and descend, but don’t ascend too high: Yui makes it apparent that each “zone”—there are three “open maps” with about five or six dungeons in each, and a town that acts as a hub area—has an altitude limit, and if that altitude limit is exceeded, flight controls are disabled and you will plummet to the ground. There is a seeming threat of injury should the altitude limit be exceeded—that’s a joke. If you exceed the altitude limit, you’ll plummet to the ground, sure, but you’ll plummet to the ground unscathed. (Another “gamey” moment.) This altitude limit is rendered unavailing in the final third of the game, as you’ll eventually come across an item that revokes the altitude limit, making you wonder what was the point of it in the first place. It is moments like these that break the immersion of the game.
It’s not all bad though. The game is very beautiful. There are stunning vistas to gaze at atop the clouds (which are somewhat nonexistent), with the sun creating a natural light that blinds if you look directly into it. Each zone is unique: Woglinde, the Island of Meadows, is lush with green grasslands and flowery fields; Wellgunde, the Valley of Sand, is clad with browns and mountainous desert hills; and Flosshilde, the Ring of Ice, is covered in hues of blue and snow and icebergs. Each of these particular locales provides an atmosphere that is lulling and alluring, evoking a sense of awe and wonder. Because these environments operate as “open maps,” there are hidden items in cracks and crevices, tempting the explorative tendencies. The art is vibrant with colors reminiscent of the anime, and the 3D animation is fantastic, with subtle details to make the moment feel real. When in flight mode, there is a palpable sense of movement, and combat offers a sort of punchiness in its “after-attack” animations. (Combat itself is not punchy, but the effects that happen after an attack are punchy.) It is all novel, but the novelty and overall fun wears off after a short while.
And that sums up this game: everything is fun, for a short while. If you’re a fan of Sword Art Online, Sword Art Online: Lost Song will provide enjoyment for a few hours. If you’re new to Sword Art Online, Sword Art Online: Lost Song will leave you perplexed. If you’re unfamiliar with Sword Art Online, Sword Art Online: Lost Song is too uninviting to be compelling. The combat grows stale, not requiring much thought or real action (I killed a few bosses with one hand). The enemies are far too repetitive to be interesting, with many of them repeating, simply donning different colors. The locales, though beautiful in their appearance, are bland in their execution and overall depth. The narrative is uninspired and not impactful, taking far too many nods from the source and attempting to call it “original.” Many of the game’s mechanics are rendered redundant or frivolous. During one static picture scene, Kirito says, “There’s no reason to quit any game.” Well, when you have a game as boring as this, there is plenty of reasons to quit. Honestly, I would have preferred a game based on the real lives of Kirito and his friends. Hell, I would have opted for an actually MMO with real character customization based in the Sword Art Online world than what Sword Art Online: Lost Song gave me.
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