How to Get Off a Bench Sword Art Online Hollow Realization
Friendship, fan service, and fetch quests.
In that location are a lot of things that I want to appreciate about Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. I desire to appreciate the marriage of RPG action and visual novel storytelling. I want to appreciate the way it candidly addresses the past trauma its characters have been through. I desire to appreciate its devotion to imitating both the technical and social aspects of MMOs. Merely as much as I want to appreciate these things, I tin can't only wave a magic wand and volition myself to bask a game that exhausts me in the worst ways.
That said, if you lot only take a passing familiarity with the series on which it'southward based then Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization isn't necessarily the worst point at which to finally wade in. Rather than taking place in whatever previously used settings, Hollow Realization is set in the virtual world of Sword Art: Origin, a new game developed using assets from the titular in-fiction game of Sword Art Online.
While 2015'south Sword Fine art Online: Lost Song let you choose from several playable characters, Hollow Realization doesn't. You embody the principal graphic symbol, Kirito, and fifty-fifty if you lot utilise the character creator to alter the look, gender, vocalisation, and name of your avatar, you'll notwithstanding see Kirito represented in illustrations and cutscenes. Other characters will likewise still refer to you lot as male when they talk, and you'll even even so hear Kirito's voice in dialogue unless you specifically turn it off in the options menu. While the character customization is useful to distinguish yourself from others in multiplayer, it feels virtually pointless in unmarried-player.
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Every bit the proper name somewhat implies, Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization's combat is centered around melee weapons. They are your just option here, and although the inclusion of axes, spears, and maces means that yous're not limited to swords solitary, you can still expect to be upwards in your foe'southward face during combat. Y'all can attempt out as many weapons and specializations as you like, and the game absolutely encourages this with skill trees that overlap and branch into each other, every bit well equally skill points tied to raising weapon levels rather than your character level.
The fundamental to success in a fight is non just your proficiency with your weapon, though. Yous'll venture out into the field with a party of three other characters--either Kirito'south close buddies, friends fabricated through fetch quests and socializing, or ally NPCs. These characters can be given commands to attack, heal, dodge, and so on, besides as crucially chaining skills for increased damage. You tin also encourage your teammates when they do something y'all like, which influences their personality and makes them more likely to act similarly in the future.
Hollow Realization is also one of the buggiest games I've played all year. Completed events would pop back up in the list and vanish a few moments subsequently, and cleared quest boards would still prove an icon every bit if in that location was something left to turn in.
Combat can be entertaining at times, but it's not without its flaws. Once yous have multiple skills and items that y'all desire access to in a fight, yous need to make the pick to either get very adept at button combos or to utilize the skill palette--a window y'all navigate with the D-pad and select with the Circle push. That's all well and good, except the D-pad is too how yous select which character you want to encourage, and the Circle push is your default method of parrying. Unless you're willing to ready a ton of combos and avoid the palette system altogether so this will inevitably be awkward. Equally awkward? The fact that for every weapon you effort out, y'all need to place every individual skill and particular in your palette afresh, which makes experimenting with the dissimilar skill trees more tiring than it should exist.
Information technology's too infuriating how little a game riffing on the MMO genre has borrowed from it in terms of usability. The UI is curiously tiny with no obvious means of scaling it. Quests and events are as well tracked in the menu, without any option to select 1 in particular to track onscreen while you're out and about. If you kill or collect something every bit part of ane of the many, many fetch quests bachelor, it will only denote your progress in minuscule text in the chat/log window in the lower left corner. Explanations for major events that you need to follow are likewise sparse. You might get specific directions as part of the story, but if you stop playing and come dorsum looking for a refresher, yous're likely to have nothing more than a few vague words to go on: "Keep exploring."
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Hollow Realization is also one of the buggiest games I've played all year. Completed events would pop back upwards in the listing and vanish a few moments after, cleared quest boards would withal prove an icon as if there was something left to turn in, and the button used for basic attacks would occasionally cease responding until I jumped, which seemed to reset it. So there was the big boss fight that concluded with a cutscene, followed by utter blackness until the game was forcibly closed and relaunched from the PS4 menu. Most of these bugs were just weird foibles and mild inconveniences, but that ane legitimately had me sweating.
The AI of both enemies and allies leaves a lot to be desired, too. Ane of the almost familiar sights in Hollow Realization is an enemy standing perfectly still while y'all cleave it to $.25, staring or shuffling impotently until it finally falls. And in that location's nothing like seeing a party fellow member continuing in the path of a linear attack, yelling at them to dodge, and so watching them skip direct backward instead of to the side--leaving them still completely in the path of that same set on.
"Y'all gotta me more conscientious," one character told me. Another complained "took you look plenty" when they were kept waiting. "Time to caput back and fine her," said someone who was definitely non intending to levee a small charge against another grapheme for breaking the rules.
The game'due south typos are just as annoying. "You gotta me more careful," one character told me. Another complained "took you lot expect plenty" when they were kept waiting. "Time to head back and fine her," said someone who was definitely non intending to levee a pocket-sized charge confronting some other character for breaking the rules. This would be a lot more forgivable if non for what Hollow Realization truly is: half RPG and half visual novel. That's an idea that's worth appreciation, specially in a game that's as interested in examining personal relationships and the effects of shared trauma as this i, but the execution is a mess. And there are few levels of video game hell deeper than the hell of poorly written visual novels.
It'south also a perfect case of why "show, don't tell" is such vital advice for writers across genres. The general pattern of playing Hollow Realization involves running out into the world, clearing a few maps, and then coming back to bank check in with your pals. They'll pop upwards in forepart of set backgrounds, talking and describing various scenes. There are loads of instances like this representing various points in Kirito'due south relationships with the characters, only what they all have in common is that they take a long time to say and do very little.
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Some of these off-camera quests did actually sound a lot more than interesting than what the game has you doing, but the format keeps yous so far removed that these niggling events inappreciably felt worthwhile. They'll often accept yous out to fight a boss or do a quest, but at no point will you run around or enter combat. You typically won't even run into the enemies or items you're afterward. There'south a lot of "Hyaa!" and "Grraaah!" and screen-shake effects, Y'all're told something absurd happened, everyone'south excited, the cease.
And so, merely occasionally, the game will grace you with a partially clothed butt or some soapy elven breasts equally a advantage. Sword Art Online has a reputation for its fan service, after all, so if yous desire to come across the same picture of an elf lady taking a bathroom on three separate occasions, you're in luck.
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization tries to practise a lot of things, but it doesn't terminate up doing whatsoever of them terribly well. Every subtle adept thought that it has is countered by a glaring shortfall. The open and flexible skill system is held back by its clumsy implementation, and the winding faux-virtual earth by how piddling anything of interest really occurs in it. That's without even touching the fact that a game pushing the premise that A.I. and NPCs should be respected (tell me more!) makes your primary interactions with those types of characters a tiresome and neverending series of fetchquests (nevermind!) There are hints to what Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization is trying to be—information technology simply never gets there.
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Source: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/sword-art-online-hollow-realization/1900-6416587/