Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment
A review (PSVita)
Story
SAO: HF story starts where the main Aincrad arc ends.
Kirito beat Heathcliff but the players aren’t logged off. They’re still trapped in SAO. Plus a whole new area opens up though it seems only Kirito can go there, bringing with him just one friend at a time.
It’s the Hollow Area, a place where powerful monster dwell.
Here Kirito meets Philia, another player that has been stranded there.
She has an orange cursor and she can’t leave the Hollow Area and teleport back to the safe town of Arc Sofia.
Gameplay
Gameplay for SAO: HF isn’t complex but I’ll break it down into:
- game progression
- combat system
- dating game
- multiplayer
Which are SAO: HF four major features.
Game progression
Progression for the game follows two paths that can be tackled in parallel: the clear game path and Hollow Area path.
The game can be cleared without beating the Hollow Area, so there’s no need to do that on your first playthrough.
The path to clear the game is just as it sounds, it’s the rush for clearing Aincrad and free the players from the game of death.
After failing to do so in his battle with Heathcliff, Kirito and the remaining players are teleported to Arc Sofia, floor 75 safe town.
From there they figure they should be able to end the game if they go up to floor 100 and beat the last boss. Yet, the Cardinal System has become unstable, errors keep accumulating, so they don’t know how much time they have left until Aincrad breaks down. Better hurry!
The Hollow Area path has Kirito exploring the place together with Philia, to unravel the mystery behind it and find a way to free Philia from her anomalous condition. It can be done in parallel to the main story quest but clearing it isn’t compulsory to finish the game.
The Hollow Area bosses are formidable so there’s lots of grinding to do in order to beat them. It can be really frustrating, but also rewarding.
Combat system
The combat system is designed to mirror that of the series of the light novels and anime. There’s no magic whatsoever in Aincrad, so players don’t have spells at their disposal. They do have Healing Skills, though.
However, potions and healing crystals are a better choice for a quick and powerful heal.
Fighting is based on the use of Sword Skills assigned to the PSVita buttons and onto two sets of palettes that can be called forth by using the L and R buttons.
Grasping the use of the skills in combat and assigning Skill Points on the skill tree can be tough and confusing at first. Unfortunately, it’s entirely possible to allocate the points to the wrong skills branch and mess up the character build. Plus, the skills point aren’t acquired by simply leveling up; they are related to the growth of the skills themselves so be careful when using those points.
I know I’m being vague here but I haven’t grasped it myself.
SAO: HF is an action RPG so enemies are visible on the map and battles are in real time. The player only controls Kirito. The movements of his partner are left to the AI, which can be nurtured to make the partner a better fighting companion; but it can never be controlled directly (and sometimes I wish I could do so).
K.O. means Game Over and the death flag can be triggered also by having the partner dying, not just Kirito.
Another important aspect of combat is having the right gear equipped. Better gear makes for better protection and a boost on fighting power.
There’s no crafting skills except for Lisbeth’s smith shop (though there should have been according to the light novels) so armor is acquired either by buying it in shops, as rare drop from monsters and bosses or treasure chests. Weapons can be bought, acquired as rare drops, from treasure chests and also crafted by Liz. Lisbeth can upgrade them too to boost them.
Dating game
One of the most annoying feature of the game (at least for me) is also a major feature of SAO: HF. It’s not a mini-game, it’s deeply tied to the other mechanics, so if you’re not a fan of dating sims, well, swallow it.
There are quite a number of partners Kirito can interact with. The most obvious one is Asuna. If you want relive Kirito’s and Asuna’s romance this is your chance. But the choice isn’t limited to Asuna, since the female cast is all there at your disposal, from Lisbeth to Sinon. Even Klein can be dated and … actually, I have no idea what happens if you date him. I stayed on the safe Kirito+Asuna path.
Anyway, playing the dating game has his perks, it can be rewarding and it’s the only means of relaxing in a game that otherwise is bent on combat.
Multiplayer
SAO: HF has a multiplayer feature. There are two types of multiplaying, real multiplayer (or co-op, I guess; never tried it) and simulated multiplayer.
Simulated multiplayer is a mode where you can bring more than one partner at a time in the Hollow and Discard Areas. It’s useful to complete a map or for grinding, since you can revive dead characters and even if Kirito is KOed, you can just teleport back to the Control Area.
Issues
SAO: HF, the PSVita version, at least, has issues. The most annoying have to do with the localization of the game in the West. The speech is in Japanese and the text in English.
But the translation isn’t very good. It looks like it has either been done with a translator like Google’s (I haven’t nothing against Google translator but, meh, have you ever got something that made sense out of it?) or by someone that has serious issues with either the English or Japanese language, if not both.
There is a large amount of text to read in SAO: HF, plus Argo’s info which is sort of the user manual for the game. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense and this is reflected on the gameplay.
It doesn’t prevent the game to be played but it’s mind-boggling when you have to make sense of what a skill does or how a skill is obtained and the explanation doesn’t make sense.
To sum it up
SAO: HF isn’t a bad game. Given that it is a niche game (you have to know the series to really enjoy it) it makes for a good game.
The story is interesting, there’s a whole new area to explore, you get to control Kirito and relive his love story with Asuna, or have him date Klein instead — just joking.
It can be frustrating at times, it requires a lot of grinding and you’ll likely spend most of your time fighting mobs; but it can be rewarding.
If you’re a SAO fan you’ll enjoy the fresh take on the main story and having the Hollow Area to explore.
It has issues, but I liked it nonetheless.
NOTES: this review is based on my first playthrough. There are many things I yet don’t understand about the game mechanics myself so if you see a refuse or something funny in my review feel free to let me know with inline comments! :)
