Sword Art Online Hollow Realization Do I Need the Dlc to Get More Levels

Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization was originally the fourth major game in the Sword Art Online video game franchise and was starting time released back in 2016 for PS4. The updated deluxe edition for the Nintendo Switch includes the DLC questline Completeness of the Shrine Maiden and the large-scale free DLC Warriors of the Sky, which adds the Stalvatos Ruins.

Hollow Realization takes place in the Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online (VRMMO) game, chosen Sword Art: Origin, which is based on the servers for the original Sword Art Online'due south Aincrad.

In this virtual earth of the newly minted Ainground, Kirito meets Premiere, a mysterious NPC who has not been coded into the game. Kirito and his allies decide to protect Premiere while uncovering the truth near her null coding. However, they must too contend with "Blue Cursor" players killing NPCs who cannot respawn after death, like to the victims in Aincrad.

"Combat is by far the nigh enjoyable part of Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization."

The game starts with character creation, which is pretty straightforward. You tin change skin tone, gender, hairstyles, torso types, and choose a weapon. I soon found a hiccup: darker pare tones are poorly implemented and quite frankly hideous and I was forced to utilise a lighter skin color instead. From at that place I moved on and believed that to be the end of my troubles. Cue awkward laugh.

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As those familiar with the anime are aware of, the lead character in about of the franchise is a beau named Kirito (technically that'southward his online handle merely all the same). So when you customize the grapheme model, you're actually augmenting his own base of operations model. Which is fine except that the game itself does this weird thing where information technology treats your hero equally Kirito in the main story, whether or not your finished protagonist looks anything like him or even if they don't share the same gender.

Although well-nigh of the Sword Fine art Online: Hollow Realization's dialogue plays out surprisingly neutrally, there are moments in which the hero is referred to as he/him/his or boy regardless of the gender you chose, which was certainly jarring for me and my very female protagonist. Also a word of advice: if you choose not to play equally Kirito, you might want to turn off Kirito's vocalization acting in the options menu (yes, there is a specific choice for that) or you're gonna have a bad time during every single voiced cutscene.

Combat is by far the most enjoyable part of Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. While the environments themselves are visually lackluster with constant pop-in and often dingy textures, fighting enemies as you complete both mainline and subquests is surprisingly satisfying. When engaged in a sortie, you get-go off past executing a basic philharmonic where the speed and range are dependent on the weapon yous chose at the game'south start. Once the combo is finished, you immediately get right into a special skill philharmonic for bonus damage.

From here, more strategic elements open up. For instance, timing your philharmonic properly nets a harm bonus that continues to multiply, even between your political party members. Stunning your enemy by parrying their final set on opens them upward for complimentary impairment. You tin can likewise switch places with political party members in order to continue building combo chains.

During all this, it'south imperative to pay close attention to the foes' trunk language, which forewarns when it's charging a special attack. Not to mention the AOE (expanse of effect) indicator that denotes the range of said special moves. Of form, there are commands to force party members to disperse and avoid these attacks, mimicking the intelligence of players who would normally exist playing equally your teammates.

Hollow Realization also fixes a major event within the anime IP itself — the fact that the original Sword Art Online has simply the DPS (the damage dealing course) available. There are party commands that permit you give orders to your allies, such every bit reminding one to heal while having some other draw aggro. Information technology's a great way to work effectually the lack of course diversity while still remaining true-blue to the source material.

However, there is a noticeable blemish on combat: the targeting system. Targeting an enemy is simple enough, one button and they're inside your sights. The outcome though is that your histrion character still misses almost just as ofttimes when attacking a targeted foe, which is extremely un-MMORPG like. Thus you recollect that yous're playing an Activity-RPG instead and the illusion is temporarily lifted until y'all eventually adapt to the imperfect arrangement.

Then there are the random events and raid bosses, which play out nigh identical to an bodily online MMO. Similar in style to the manifold subquests, y'all must target a prepare quantity of a certain type of foe inside the time limit. Random events in this vein normally grant XP bonuses and may even lead to even rarer monsters with rarer drops. It's simple and addictive, giving players ample reason to explore the massive number of areas and sub-areas.

Raid bosses, meanwhile, are scattered around at random and are normally very powerful. In a proper MMO, yous would be fighting alongside many other players equally they all support each other while slowly whittling down the superboss' HP in a grand battle. In this game, the other ally characters all die within a few hits due to shoddy AI and then yous and your political party are left to tackle the superboss on your own. This means that you must fight these bosses at higher levels instead of having the freedom of defeating them by simply using strategy.

For general fans of Sword Art Online, Hollow Realization has a articulate advantage over the animated series. Due to its very nature as a game, it's able to much better replicate the immersion and feeling of beingness in an MMORPG than the anime tin. However, that aforementioned immersion is hampered past the delivery of its overarching plot and the overly complex mechanics that ultimately accept very little impact on the gameplay itself.

Addressing the plot, seeing the characters generally happy and costless-spirited — especially juxtaposed with a mirror image setting of the original death-game MMO — is fun and refreshing. Y'all witness their everyday routines, character interactions, personality quirks, and other bones hallmarks of those playing a normal online game. And I did enjoy the inclusion of the party members discussing the finer details of data bartering, detail drops, and the like as information technology aids in fleshing out the earth. At first.

Somewhen, every bit the plot moves along and yous go increasingly buried under unrelenting walls of text, it becomes almost a chore to stay focused on the abiding stream of dialogue and cutscenes. The story does pick up a bit once Premiere drops in and the real meat of the game opens up. But it'south withal difficult to stay invested in the happenings of Ainground for the same reasons. Other than Premiere, you're essentially dealing with the "deaths" of computer code, which doesn't lend itself well to emotional touch or tension.

Funny enough, an like shooting fish in a barrel fix to this consequence lies in one of my favorite mechanics. Along with the main party members, there are enough of named PCs scattered effectually the main hub. If you antipodal with them plenty and raise their affection toward you lot, yous can recruit them as party members. Since the chief plot deals with an NPC killer that y'all must protect Premiere from, it could have instead incorporated these fleshed out characters into a loftier-stakes plot instead since existent, living people are backside each avatar.

In terms of complicated gameplay mechanics, the worst offender of this issue, bar none, is the Affection System. Substantially each playable character has a set up of personality traits and, by conversing with them, you can influence those traits and somewhen command what moves and beliefs they prioritize in battle.

In that location are three major problems: ane, there is no detailed breakdown on how this exactly works; two, the applicable effects of said influences have nigh no bearing on battles equally a whole; three, the menu interface is and so cluttered that it's difficult to even shift through, let alone effort to understand the finer details.

An even more important, and similarly poorly handled, mechanic of this game is the Skill Tree. Its interface is difficult to parse and navigate and the descriptions are too abbreviated and contrary to make much sense. Unfortunately I couldn't merely ignore something as vital every bit skill progression and then I instead opted to but ignore the descriptions and make assumptions based on the skill names and my past experience with other RPGs.

"Sword Fine art Online: Hollow Realizationis filled to the skirt with tons of content and story details that makes information technology more than than worth the reasonable cost tag."

Sword Art Online has plenty of content to proceed players busy for quite some fourth dimension, with well over 50 hours in the principal game itself. And for completionists, the 12 dissimilar endings for each of the chief ladies that are a part of your political party is quite the bonus. The endings tin can only exist unlocked for each girl by ranking up their friendship meter to level five, and then choosing them every bit a partner in the final battle.

After the mainline story, there's tons of new content to explore. Non only is there the free DLC expansion that adds an entirely new expanse to play in, but the title as well offers another DLC questline — a three-chapter long redemption arc for Tia: Explorer of Illusory Mists, Tuner of Causality, and The One Who Resists God.

Sword Fine art Online: Hollow Realizationis filled to the brim with tons of content and story details that makes it more than than worth the reasonable price tag. Fans of the Sword Art Online franchise take a lot to do and tons of easter eggs to uncover with allies from across the anime, and will undoubtedly enjoy this new foray into Ainground.

For those not familiar or fond of the IP, it'south harder to recommend Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. In the instance of the latter, your enjoyment of the game will boil downwards to whether y'all can overlook the bromidic story for the rewarding gameplay.

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Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/sword-art-online-review/