Recent reviews by ElementalLeopard

Now, to start with, at the time of this review, I have not completed everything in the game. But at the moment, sure, I recommend the game for those who love the series and wanna play a game that is based on the world of SAO. Though, for the price? Maybe wait for future updates, or when the game is on sale.

The world looks amazing, truly is immersive and feels like you're in Aincrad.... MAJOR!!!! Missed opportunity though with the lack of free-roam. This is not an open world RPG. Very linear story/ exploration styled game. The Map of the floor is HUGE, don't get me wrong, and there are signs of it meant to be open world... Except for the fact that every quest in the game is locked to a small explorable area that requires you to find all of the chest and unlocks during said quest. Because 9/10, you will not be exploring those areas again in future quests.

Combat is enjoyable with there being some range of enemy types. Yes, there is definitely some re-skinning that happens, but combat patterns do generally change between enemies within the same type, let alone the different types of enemies. Combat is relatively smooth, there is a learning curve that you have to overcome during the start, especially with unlocking combat skills. But once you've gotten to the second town, you'll kinda have the combat down-pat.

Gameplay loop is tedious... I don't see how death game mode could work. For starters, this is NOT a short game... could complete the whole main story in a couple of hours if you only did the quests and non of the exploration. But as you can see with my play time, and most others writing reviews. Exploring and finding everything takes time. Getting the levels needed to reach better gear takes time. Death game would completely ruin that experience since we ONLY HAVE 2 FLOORS ATM!!! and it taking 30 hours just to reach some progress would be painful.... if you had to start ALL OVER again because of a simple death that happened. Plus, quest types do NOT change. Every quests plays out the same... explore area, reach the end, fight boss, repeat...

No ones made a note of this, so I will.... Progression feels really off. I know this is probably to allow people to experience the game and all it's features and equipment. But, it feels wrong having quests and areas being locked and set to specific levels... For example, to reach the third town, you need to be level 15. To reach floor 2, town 1, you need to be level 30.... idk if it's just me, but I feel we're gaining wayyyy too many levels for this only being the VERY START of Aincrad. For example, Kirito on floor 75 was only level 96.... We are already 1/3rd his level on floor 2.... so not unless our leveling scaling is VASTLY different to everyone else in the world of Aincrad (Because supposedly we are doing everything with the MAIN STORY happening in the background). We are going to be GODS in levels by floors 5-6. Now I know the cardianal rank is supposed to help with the difficulty scaling of the enemies, but I feel this is going to make power scaling feel really wrong, very quickly. Since one cardinal rank change makes your equipment feel good, to absolute garbage. Also, noticed that equipment stats/ bonus's seem to be getting a little tooo good... too early... makes me wonder what kinda of equipment we're supposed be getting on floor 10, let alone the higher floors.

Doing a full 180, and heading back to my first topic of the world building. But, I feel this needs to be stated. For a universe that supposedly has 10,000 trapped players, 8000 by the time you actually get the story (Because for some UNKNOWN reason, you completely miss out of the first 2 months of story [Don't ask what happened, no one knows. We have the launch announcement, then we are told 2 months have passed, and we're still at the same level we were since the "Beta"]), THE WORLD FEELS EMPTY! and not in a good way. Like, there is supposed to be 8000 trapped players in floor 1, let alone the ungodly amount of npc's that are in the towns. And yet the ONLY human life that is found is within towns... Logically, for a game based on a MMORPG, you would have hundreds of parties out in the fields outside the town of beginnings.... and yet we have the whole floor to ourselves?!
Plus, there is no interactions... what-so-ever. The only people you can chat with outside of obtaining quests is your party members in the inn of the town you're supposed to be at for the story.... Or the merchants/ blacksmith. Every other NPC/ "Player" is a background character that wonders aimlessly in the towns, making them feel populated. And tbh, you will spend most of your time out in the open, empty world of the floors than in towns.

I won't be making a comment of the story, as it's still too soon to say whether it's good or not. Though I feel we should've been able to start from the launch of SAO, not 2 months into the games release... which does scare me for what the future story will hold, as this could mean we will only be getting up until the "you know what's" completion

To finish off, yes I have enjoyed what I have played so far. I did buy the mega pack which included everything. No, I do not regret my purchase, as there is potential in this game. And I truly do want to see it reach the level of quality that we are all hoping for. That being said, I do not believe the game in it's current state is worth the price tag. It has missed some major marks that I was hoping for. And to be truly and brutally honest, what I recon what we were all hoping for was an actual Open world rpg styled SAO game, where you have free rein of the world of Aincrad. Story is background... Yes, you'll have to complete some story quests to make progress (Like reaching floor 2 with the raid party), but I feel progression, expoloration and side quests should be up to the player and what they want to do. Not forced into a set quest line that is mandatory to get anywhere.

Make spheres, use spheres to catch slaves, use slaves to make spheres. Life is good!

Been loving re-playing the cookie clicker game. And finally having the ability to stick with one save :D
I can finally strive to achieve every achievement in the game and have the best cookie factory to ever exist

This is fun, especially when playing online with friends in a server without randoms

Hella fun game, Addictive too. Would suggest getting it just to relax and play, or play with friends

Amazing game, especially when big group of friends and all on vc, man is that chaos XD

Enjoyable game to play with friends, great story and great content to keep a gamer entertained for hours. Ik it kept me entertained all night once XD

YES!!! FANTASTIC GAME!!!! Would very recommend, Honestly prefer this game over Minecraft coz of the amount of mobs and bosses to fight. But will always go Minecraft for the building XD

Great game, found it more fun with friends. Also found the game very therapeutic. Would recommend

Such a good game, Love this so much. Also is great to play with friends, especially completing a campaign with a good friend. And some good laughs getting killed by a friends nade in campaign XD