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.

[Uzkniso o.o]

Publicado originalmente por Lestrad:

when people don't have to work together (see a game like Dark Tide that penalizes lone wolfing), and others rush through the content that's there.

I dunno, but I'm against making things needlesly complex, though.

[Stj.Srex]

Yep lack of content is what killing this game. Lets be real, game is rly fun and have fun combat plus it looks amazing. I cant remember how many times i stopped just to look at scenery and to admire Artwork.
But who ever thought in Dimps that releasing game with just 1 mission for rank 100 players deserve to be demoted to waterboy role in the company. And not to mention that we dont have any hint that something is going to change in near future.
I dont think we will get any rank 100 mission this year, maybe ever, because by the time they decide to release more r100 mission game will be as dead as online game can be.

[Sage Pirotess]

I just finished the story. I had positive experiences on 3 older SAO games. This one, online only, few toons, no real world.
Even the online question g was a joke. So I do 1 daily, I am put on a map with 5 to 20 others. I am lvl 18, so I cant do anything but beginning area, no players there. They warped further in. AMD unlike story no 3 npc helpers.

This game was trash, especially for its price. But I am grateful it is. Way to many games to play to give this game any more time.

Just finished metaphor refantazio before I beat this, will move on to ys x and dq3hd.

[MikuruX]

I'll be honest but for most of it, I rather agree with the OP. Maybe it's just me but I really liked the RPG aspect of the past SAO games. This game being a very linear live service looter grinder has put me off so much that I barely play now after completing the game story and doing a small bit of the online content.

Outside of grinding for levels and hoping for cosmetic drops (which has extremely low drop rates), there isn't much else to shoot for. You're basically just waiting for the new characters and story plots to drop, that's it. The fact that we lost all sense of exploration, adventuring from area to area (although in some if not most games, the areas were bland) gives me no drive to play. No skills to unlock, no secret items to adventure to look for, nothing but play this stage, complete it, pray to RNGsus that you get what you want, rinse and repeat. It gets stale really quick.

Exploring in the worlds like Re:Hollow Fragment, Hollow Realization, Fatal Bullet, Alicization Lycoris, & Last Collection are what drew me to the SAO games in the first place and with those elements gone, I have no drive to play. Again, these are just my feelings and opinons on the matter. I honestly feel Bandai Namco dropped the ball on this one. Select Gameplay Elements & Story is good but everything else boring.

Before anyone say anything, I have the game on PS5 (not Steam).

[Chip]

I'm really surprised this thread is still up and alive. Whether you agree or disagree, thank you for joining the conversation.

The game's store review is now "Mixed", which I think is a much more appropriate review for the game than the original "Mostly Positive". In spite of the hubris, I can't help but think perhaps this thread had a little something to do with it?....A tiny bit, maybe?

Anyways, BandaiNamco also put out a survey for the game! Did they do this for the previous releases? Are they actually going to listen to player feedback?

Though, even if they did, I doubt this game can actually be "fixed". I think it's more collecting data for their next potential release, or perhaps it's going to be used as a part of company assessment on the project's performance.

I've seen games with bugs get fixed, games with performance/server issues stabilize, and games with bad live-service management turn around. But I have NEVER seen a game completely rework a fundamental component such as movement and combat after its release.

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

Publicado originalmente por Chip:

Anyways, BandaiNamco also put out a survey for the game! Did they do this for the previous releases? Are they actually going to listen to player feedback?

They did. And they never listened, even to their own japanese playerbase they always aim the most.

Publicado originalmente por Chip:

Though, even if they did, I doubt this game can actually be "fixed". I think it's more collecting data for their next potential release, or perhaps it's going to be used as a part of company assessment on the project's performance.

With all due respect, they are in a freefall for last years (!) and it's a very naive thing to do to believe that "this time they surely will change".
Nope, they won't. Just think about it - in 2020 they released Alicization Lycoris in a VERY bad state (someone still remember 15 minutes long loading times after EACH cutscene or entering new location, etc.?) and they positioned it as a live service game too with SAO Shop and all of that. Then they released Last Recollection, a very short and dull in all aspects DLC-like "game" for a full-fledged AAA price that was literally AL, but with some unreasonable tweaks (like changed battle system). Then they released Variant Showdown for smartphones and after a couple of months they've sent it on hiatus because of it's problems (spoiler: it's problems were severe lack of content, general boringness and repetitiveness - remind you something?). And, oh sweet irony, it's hiatus was till "summer 2024", yet summer ended months ago and now it's "winter 2024". But the most ironic thing is that in their messages to players they literally say "We didn't change anything really, but we hope that you will continue to play the game!".
So, there already were 3 flops in a row (two of it - LR and VS - were huge flops, especially from Scamco's earnings perspective). And now they release yet another live service attempt of a game. But now they decided to literally remove everything that really worked and made it, just as MikuruX said above, a "looter grinder". No REAL open world, no proper leveling up system, clunky fighting system, very short and even worse than mediocre story, no bots "training" or romancing - nothing.
Like, you do know that second season of GGO Alternative just started airing the other month? Imo, it's very hilarious that Scamco forced developers of a great TPS game (aka Fatal Bullet) to develop not a FB2 - just bigger, deeper and better than the previous game, - but THIS. It's not on the level of shooting yourself in a leg (pun intended), it's also throwing a grenade at your own feet as well. Yet they still went this route - and already failed. And there is not a single reason for them to suddenly do things differently. The only other thing they can do instead of creating even more worse SAO games is to drop creating such games at all and, sooner or later, that what will happen.
Also, a fun fact that clearly illustrates something - I finally completed the story and during one of the Story missions (not sure if it was Main or Side Quest) Agil, Sinon and others go to the GGO location and there Agil tells that he "loves post-apocalyptic setting" and "would like to try playing GGO". This game *&^% on previous games lore and generally SAO gameverse (yet they still added Strea and will add others too), so yeah, he never was in GGO during Fatal Bullet's events. But the problem is that Agil already played GGO in the original ranobe/anime - at the very beginning of the season 3 (aka Alicization arc) there were a moment were Kirito's group were fighting Subtilizer's group and during one moment you could see that Agil were there among other (if I remember correctly he firstly rode a car while Klein was shooting with his rifle and then he was shooting with minigun too). So Scamco failed twice - they firstly hired someone so unprofessional, who doesn't even care for the most basic lore and can't comprehand title's events and then noone never noticed that it happened.
So, yeah, noone there cares about SAO and it won't ever get better.

[Kirisuma]

honestly I am probably the only person that enjoyed the previous games more then this one... I dunno, I prefer games with actual good story over a stupid forced online multiplayer game where you mindlessly bash an enemy... hell the fact some players solo the raid bosses makes me even more doubt that the forced online for free roam was necessary...

[Sage Pirotess]

Publicado originalmente por Kirisuma:

honestly I am probably the only person that enjoyed the previous games more then this one... I dunno, I prefer games with actual good story over a stupid forced online multiplayer game where you mindlessly bash an enemy... hell the fact some players solo the raid bosses makes me even more doubt that the forced online for free roam was necessary...

I liked the last one average. But the previous one alot and the one with a horizontal world was cool.

[XaXa]

Publicado originalmente por Kirisuma:

honestly I am probably the only person that enjoyed the previous games more then this one... I dunno, I prefer games with actual good story over a stupid forced online multiplayer game where you mindlessly bash an enemy... hell the fact some players solo the raid bosses makes me even more doubt that the forced online for free roam was necessary...

I loved the previous installments. HF,HR,and FB all are amazing. This game in certain aspects is a step forward, but still has the problems with the last two titles.

[Lestrad]

Publicado originalmente por Uzkniso o.o:

Publicado originalmente por Lestrad:

when people don't have to work together (see a game like Dark Tide that penalizes lone wolfing), and others rush through the content that's there.

I dunno, but I'm against making things needlesly complex, though.

True, but when you have one group soloing the boss fight before half the other groups even make it to the boss room... that's a problem. At the very least, it's a signal that the bosses for 20 player dungeons and raids if you only need 4 people.

Publicado originalmente por XaXa:

I loved the previous installments. HF,HR,and FB all are amazing. This game in certain aspects is a step forward, but still has the problems with the last two titles.

Hollow Realization is the gold standard of what a SAO game could be in terms of exploration/map size, loot that actually alters your appearance, party size, skill trees, fully open world coop...

This is such a step backwards overall, even by Lycoris and Last Recollection's standards. They need to start getting some more dungeons and raids out there fast. I mean, christ.

[MikuruX]

Publicado originalmente por Lestrad:

Publicado originalmente por Uzkniso o.o:

I dunno, but I'm against making things needlesly complex, though.

True, but when you have one group soloing the boss fight before half the other groups even make it to the boss room... that's a problem. At the very least, it's a signal that the bosses for 20 player dungeons and raids if you only need 4 people.

Publicado originalmente por XaXa:

I loved the previous installments. HF,HR,and FB all are amazing. This game in certain aspects is a step forward, but still has the problems with the last two titles.

Hollow Realization is the gold standard of what a SAO game could be in terms of exploration/map size, loot that actually alters your appearance, party size, skill trees, fully open world coop...

This is such a step backwards overall, even by Lycoris and Last Recollection's standards. They need to start getting some more dungeons and raids out there fast. I mean, christ.

I'll say that with Blue Protocol going down the drain, I don't know why Bandai Namco doesn't use the BP Dev team to make the next SAO game in-house rather than keep using either Aquaris or Dimps. Yes, they have shown that they can make a beautiful looking game with good combat and they could probably do better with such an limited online experience rather than a live service game experience (which they've shown that they couldn't do for no more than a year).

Take the best elements of their old games in the series (Create a character from FB, World Exploration / Skill Building / Item that affect Visuals from H.Realization, Online Co-Op from Alicization Lycoris / Last Recollection, & massive online play from Fractured Daydream) and put them together.

Again, this is just me talkin.

Publicado originalmente por DEAD S.n.A.k.e.:

Also, a fun fact that clearly illustrates something - I finally completed the story and during one of the Story missions (not sure if it was Main or Side Quest) Agil, Sinon and others go to the GGO location and there Agil tells that he "loves post-apocalyptic setting" and "would like to try playing GGO". This game *&^% on previous games lore and generally SAO gameverse (yet they still added Strea and will add others too), so yeah, he never was in GGO during Fatal Bullet's events. But the problem is that Agil already played GGO in the original ranobe/anime - at the very beginning of the season 3 (aka Alicization arc) there were a moment were Kirito's group were fighting Subtilizer's group and during one moment you could see that Agil were there among other (if I remember correctly he firstly rode a car while Klein was shooting with his rifle and then he was shooting with minigun too). So Scamco failed twice - they firstly hired someone so unprofessional, who doesn't even care for the most basic lore and can't comprehand title's events and then noone never noticed that it happened.

Just wanted to put this out, but Fractured Daydream is making us play the cast from the anime universe while dropping in the gameverse versions of the characters as DLC.

This explains the reasoning behind why it seemed odd that Agil made the comment about wanting to play GGO as if he's never played it and yet he was in Fatal Bullet which means this isn't the gameverse version in the default cast. Strea's inclusion into the cast confirms this as no one knows her even though she knows everyone else. The next two GGO characters are more than likely going to be from the anime universe since we've never had them in a game.

If we ever get another DLC batch, I would love to see Sachi added again (She's my favorite female character in SAO outside of Sinon).

[Adi Kurnia]

i see some streamer playing for 13 hours straight just to repeat co op for some costume drops he want or smt, his eyes looks dead, in my mind i kinda skeptical "is this game really that grindy? or he addicted to this game sooo much that he able to grind for 12 hours"

[Lapinoire]

Fractured Daydream really is that grindy. Person might be addicted, too.

[MikuruX]

Publicado originalmente por Adi Kurnia:

i see some streamer playing for 13 hours straight just to repeat co op for some costume drops he want or smt, his eyes looks dead, in my mind i kinda skeptical "is this game really that grindy? or he addicted to this game sooo much that he able to grind for 12 hours"

The game is hella grindy but gets repetitive very quickly when as the rewards don't do nothing for you other than visual changes. If you like the combat and stuff, that's fine. To me, that's boring and not worthed the effort. It's probably why I stopped playing. With nothing to keep me engaged like in the other games, I see no reason to force myself to keep pushing through a boring experience.

[eternalyouth74]

The idea behind the game was a great one. It should of been the best game in series. But for whatever reason they chose to not invest in the part of game that they put most money behind. Like I love collecting the cosmetics and did enjoy the raids. But its the same ♥♥♥♥ over and over and over. They should of had new raids every other week patched to game with new loot drops if they wanted to keep people interest. I played Granblue Relink earlier in the year which is the closest example of that this game wanted to be. And it had so much more to do and had great individual character design and customization.