Let's be real. This isn't a very good game. Give it a negative review.

[Chip]

I like anime style action RPGs, and I want all of them to succeed and be good so we can have more of them.

Unfortunately, this game will not succeed because it isn't very good. Yet, it has a Mostly Positive review on Steam (edit: as of November 2024, it has a "Mixed" review), which, not only does it not deserve, can make the developers complacent that they can get away with continuing to release games of sub-par quality and bank on the IP to make them at least make marginal profits. This is the first SAO game I've played, but some researching has led me to believe all of the prior SAO game installments were pretty much like this, and there was very little improvement done over the course of so many installments.

My main reason for writing this is to make the case that games like this need to have its negative reviews visible to the devs. It won't necessarily mean that the devs will listen. But it'll be a lot better than them being convinced they can make yet ANOTHER one of these games and get away with it. I honestly think it's better for the long run of the IP that games of this quality actually just don't really get made at all. Who knows, if we lived in a world where a single SAO game didn't exist yet, perhaps a more competent developer team might've taken up the challenge?

Another reason for writing this is that I don't really see people talking about how bad the general gameplay is. A lot of complaints seem to be around its grind and systems, but a much more fundamental problem exists: the combat and gameplay. And that is precisely the reason why a game like this will never have broader reach. Here are a couple of things the game has done very poorly at:

Camera lock on
The camera lock on is absolute jank. They do not properly center enemies on your screen if you fly past them with a skill or if they fly above you. The tracking is really slow and doesn't ever snap responsively when it should. When you use a skill, the camera zooms in on your character, making enemies above, below, and behind you out of your vision. When you do this during a boss fight, the boss will end up out of your camera EVEN WHEN YOU'RE LOCKED ON. Getting hit by boss attacks, missing skills, all because of a peripheral game issue like a bad camera is really frustrating and off-putting.

Movement
The characters feel animation locked and movement is generally very clunky. A couple of reasons why this happens is:
1) your characters do not actually move while attacking much. They feel static and locked in place during animation. However, in a game like this where you have flying enemies, enemies perched on top of high floors, ranged enemies shooting at you from afar, it is very important that the character can actually move and cover distance while he is attacking. It creates for less frustrating situations and more versatlity in gameplay. If you compare the attack animation of Kirito to Gran/Djeeta from Granblue Fantasy Relink, a full normal attack combo barely moves Kirito forward at all. But the same normal attack combro from Gran can make him move from one ranged enemy to the other.
2) the game says you can cancel out of animation to do a dodge/block, but that's not really the case. I don't know why they did this. This isn't Dark Souls or Elden Ring. You attack a lot in a short frame of time and the bosses attack very slowly. Between one boss attack and the next, the obvious and natural thing a combat system makes you want to do is to squeeze in as many attacks as you can during this time frame, yet you are punished for doing so. We're not playing a game like this so we can do time calculations in our head. We play games like this to feel epic and awesome.
3) the game's dash, which also acts as a dodge, makes you dash forward when you do it without pressing any directional keys, instead of backwards. Most action games default dodge without a directional input is backwards, because common sense would let you believe you would dodge things backwards, not forwards. But this game wasn't made with much common sense, apparently.

Map Design
Exploration can be a great source of enjoyment. If you are going to have exploration elements in your game, they have to feel fun. If they don't feel fun, they feel like a drag.
Unfortunately, the maps, while the general scenery and aesthetics are good, are rather uninteresting and empty. There are things to collect in the maps during quests, but the game does rather a poor job (or rather, it doesn't do it at all) of actually guiding you towards them in one way or another. You literally have to just mindlessly run around the entire empty, repetitive map to find these. What they give you also is not well explained. After a quest is done, and you see those collectibles marked as incomplete, all you feel is a sense of conflict as to whether or not it's even worth running around 20 minutes again just to pick up that one data fragment you missed.

Immersion
A lot of the bosses make no noise. They have no sound. No growl, roar, effect sound before a special move, nothing. Audio is a gigantic part of the immersion, and it's clear the devs have absolutely no understanding of it.

Progression
There is virtually no sense of progression other than you unlocking the next quest for the story. You don't gain new skills, no passive skill tree of any kind, new gear is just practically the same gear just with higher levels. You can unlock characters to play in multiplayer as you do the quests, but that's only for multiplayer. Once you're at Chapter 5 or so, and you've unlocked all of your characters, the only thing you're doing at that point is homework: finish the game.


Conclusion
When I think about these really fundamental gameplay design flaws, the only thing explanation that comes to mind is that these devs don't really know how an action game should work. It feels like they've just made a game that imitates an action game.

So, in conclusion, if you haven't already, make sure to give the game a negative review. If your review was positive, I strongly urge you to change it to negative. This isn't to just hate on the game and SAO. It is to increase the chances that the next game becomes a better one.

Thank you for reading.

[TwinChops]

reeeeeeeeeeeee stop having fun the game is soooooooo bad reeeeeeeeee

litterly you right now.

[Rizo the Hunter]

Not the best game out there, for sure. But am I having a good time? You bet your ass I am.

[Sazu]

Yeah Ima be honest, Compared to prior games this is a massive leap. You're expectations are just too high, and therefore, you've excluded yourself from the target audience. The only way to fix your problem now is to get a refund and play something more your style. The rest of us will continue to like the game they so kindly made for us. They literally could have stopped at lycoris, but they decided to try and make something enjoyable. That's enough for me.

[Lapinoire]

It's a pretty bad game, but i'm enjoying it, I guess. Something to pass time and whatnot.

[RooeeZe]

Some people cant get over the fact that the combat isnt elden ring or granblue its it's own thing, once you get used to the systems and out of the just "roll mindset" of say elden ring and stop spamming light attack the combat is fun and the abilities link together well for the heros.

If you dont enjoy the game thats fine, telling others they shouldent enjoy it is just silly.

[ramuno-parume]

imo it's intentional about combat, but I do agree combat like this just make a lot of player pissed off (me as well)

especially boss very frequently attack and cast skill, you have to pay attention carefully for every boss's movement otherwise boss will kill you while you cast a spell(even hold light/heavy attack)

it's very weird when you have to play slow but boss very fast, doesn't make any sense at all

compare to Relink it's much better 100 times, didn't talk about QTE that you can't cancel your skill

and another thing about danger area before boss cast skill(not sure what it called) the skill effect is not match with visual effect, a lot of time I didn't stay on red zone but got hit for no reason

tbh I'm not sure this game will keep me playing how long, I'm not a fan of SAO series but only one reason I'm still playing this game because of Quinella

[Dariken]

The ally AI actually does something in this game, that alone gets a positive review from me. Is this a perfect game? Heck no, but gameplaywise it's miles better than the rest of the games in the series except maybe Fatal Bullet.

[Chip]

Originally posted by Friskybits:

The rest of us will continue to like the game they so kindly made for us.

I cannot for the life of me comprehend this. What the hell do you mean "kindly"? They charged you over $60 for this. This wasn't a charity. And they certainly, certainly did not go out of their way to provide an experience that's worth beyond $60.

look past the "i like it so it must be fine" logic. Objectively speaking, the game is below current industry standards.

I know my post was long, so people selectively only respond to the parts that they find easy to respond to, but my original point was not to stop playing this game. I said give it a negative review. But, in order to do that, you fans need to first realize the negative aspects of the game. You can do that and still like and enjoy the game.

We all enjoy fast food now and then. But we all recognize it's not a healthy product. You can recognize that and still enjoy it. It's the same with this. You can enjoy this, I have no problem with that. But can you at least recognize that it's a low quality game? That shouldn't cost over $60? That should've been much better after this many rehashes of the IP?

[Uzkniso o.o]

Okay? What are you trying to say here? That it's not a masterpiece and will not win any GOTY awards?

That's obvious. And even if it was THAT good, it would still not win anything, as it's a niche game. This series will never be as big as GTA or Monster Hunter.

[Pitty]

game is out for a week and people crying their asses off xD

[Ceru]

Other than running the same thing over and over again alongside fighting the same boss 3984038942 times, the game has been fine. I thought the lock on targeting of enemies was bleh at first, but then I realized it just took some getting used to.

[null]

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

Okay? What are you trying to say here? That it's not a masterpiece and will not win any GOTY awards?

That's obvious. And even if it was THAT good, it would still not win anything, as it's a niche game. This series will never be as big as GTA or Monster Hunter.

He's trying to say it's inferior to adjacent competitors across the board.

Nobody's expecting it to be GOTY or compete with titans build over 2-3 decades (like GTA or Monster Hunter). It should compete with games like Space Marine 2, Granblue Relink and games in the same broad genre.

[Uzkniso o.o]

Originally posted by null:

He's trying to say it's inferior to adjacent competitors across the board.

Well, the way he phrased it, made me think he means this game should be able to compete with upcoming MH:Wilds. So ya.

[Chip]

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

Okay? What are you trying to say here? That it's not a masterpiece and will not win any GOTY awards?

I thought I was being pretty crystal clear in what I wanted to say. Here are the main points from my OP, which was clearly stated in the introduction and conclusion. I thought public education at least teaches people to read, but looking at a lot of the replies here, I guess not.

Originally posted by Chip:

My main reason for writing this is to make the case that games like this need to have its negative reviews visible to the devs. It won't necessarily mean that the devs will listen. But it'll be a lot better than them being convinced they can make yet ANOTHER one of these games and get away with it. I honestly think it's better for the long run of the IP that games of this quality actually just don't really get made at all. Who knows, if we lived in a world where a single SAO game didn't exist yet, perhaps a more competent developer team might've taken up the challenge?
[skip]
So, in conclusion, if you haven't already, make sure to give the game a negative review. If your review was positive, I strongly urge you to change it to negative. This isn't to just hate on the game and SAO. It is to increase the chances that the next game becomes a better one.

[Nepnep]

Originally posted by Lapinoire:

It's a pretty bad game, but i'm enjoying it, I guess. Something to pass time and whatnot.

This. I don't need something amazing anyway since I game hop alot.