Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet continues the Sword Art Online universe, but in a story not based on the original IP. Sword Art Online has become as much of a platform as a story or defined set of characters, and Fatal Bullet shows the way forward for the series.

The problem with this approach though, is that the original Sword Art Online was so damn good.

Its story of a life-or-death MMORPG in near-future Japan was compelling, gripping viewing. To make a game that lives up to the Sword Art Online name, it needs to be just as good as it was. This is no easy task. Neither is sticking true to the mechanics of a game within a game – you playing the Fatal Bullet as a gamer playing an MMORPG. Fatal Bullet attempts both. With a surprisingly good mix of gun-based combat and a somewhat standard RPG, its a unique combination that for the right person will be exactly what they’re looking for.

You start Fatal Bullet as a new player in the VR MMORPG Gun Gale Online. While there are characters crossing over from the anime, for a large part there is a whole new host of original characters. This gives the developers Dimps the freedom to tell a story not beholden to simply copying the anime. The game opens at the release of a new expansion to Gun Gale Online, which introduces a new area and a new AI companion, both of which your characters gets involved with rather quickly. It largely mirrors the Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization story arc, but gives it enough of a twist to keep it interesting. While you think you may be able to influence the narrative through dialogue choices – they don’t seem to actually make too much of a difference in the story, but they are a nice way to be a bit more interactive.

The third-person combat take place in real-time, and gives you access to a wide variety of guns. By default there’s a rather generous aim assist, but you can aim down the sights to target weak points for a lot more damage. It’s quite a unique system, and I enjoyed not worrying about targeting lower-level enemies while retaining the ability to play a bit more carefully when it mattered. Sometimes I felt that deaths could be a bit unfair, but the solution, as in any JRPG, was to grind.

You have a number of AI players with you, but I found that they’re generally useless.

At best they do a small amount of damage or an alternative enemy target. Sometimes that’s all you need, but when an enemy takes you out and you’re waiting for them to revive you it can seem infuriating. There’s also a wealth of customisations, upgrades and modifications

The entirety of Fatal Bullet is in Japanese with subtitles. There’s no English audio at all. Not likely to be a problem for the target audience of this game, but it may perhaps limit the reach of new gamers. Nevertheless, I imagine that re-recording all the audio into English would have vastly increased the cost of localisation and perhaps stalled the entire project, so the exclusion of English audio is an acceptable compromise. Yet strangely, not all Japanese voice audio is subtitled. And the small amount of in-world chatter that is translated, are repeated endlessly. I wish there were a way to turn these off, perhaps with a future patch.

There aren’t many issues with Fatal Bullet, but there are some areas where it could have been improved.

While the loading times aren’t long, there are many of them, each door, teleporter or gate will lead you into a short loading screen. There’s also a long tutorial where you have to page through literal “lectures” about how to use and understand the games’ systems. These are exceedingly boring, but at least they’re honest about what you’re getting yourself in for. Menus are relatively complex to figure out, such as how to attach skills to weapons, but Fatal Bullet is hardly unique in this regard.

Fans of the series will be pleased with Fatal Bullet – and the deep combat, outfits and romance options will keep players interested. It’s a game for a niche audience, but the developers know who its for and have done an admirable job with what appears to be a small budget.

While it is one of the more accessible games in this sub-genre, it’s appeal will still be quite niche. Nevertheless, it’s worth picking up for a distinctly Japanese game that knows exactly what it is, and who it is for.

The post Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Crossovers in any media is always a gamble, whether it’s films, games, or TV shows, to provide enough fan service for both without eating into what contributes to each franchise’s identity. Fortunately, in the case of Accel World Vs Sword Art Online this isn’t such an issue, with both being set in Virtual Reality online worlds, this game about the fusion of two games inside the game world, works perfectly, it’s too bad the game itself doesn’t always work.

I’ll be the first to admit that the story is a bit of a mess, to the point that I struggled to follow what was going on most of the time. This may have been due to only a light knowledge from some anime of Sword Art Online, and next to no knowledge of Accel World, which it turns out would be greatly helpful. The story is mostly told through the character’s heads with text dialogue which is not uncommon for limited budget JRPGs, but despite it having a good crack at filling the gaps in player’s knowledge of the previous story, I found this storytelling method only consulted the story.

Basically, the plot of the game is the two online worlds are being merged by a big enemy. This needs to be stopped, while the pixie daughter of Kirito and Asuna needs to be saved. It’s messy, which sitting back I can appreciate as a comical anecdote, but when you are playing it’s rough.

The real appeal to this game is its aesthetic and gameplay. Aesthetically it’s a gorgeous attempt at gamifying anime, and most of the time it looks gorgeous. This is thanks to years of Sword Art Online games perfecting the aesthetic, if you have played a SAO game you’ll know exactly what you’re in for, it’s significantly better. Gameplay on the other hand is a bit of a mixed bag.

You can fly around environments which looks gorgeous, attacking enemies in the wild as you see fit. This for the most part is a lot of fun, as with its simple hack n slash mechanics it feels good to play and easy to control, until you try to hack n slash in the air. I regularly found my character head first in the ground while I was trying to attack enemies, all disjointed from what I was trying to do. Getting a hang of using the lock on circumvents most issues here but it does get frustrating, especially early on.

Accel World Vs Sword Art Online’s JRPG elements aren’t its strongest element, as collecting quests while interacting with people isn’t all that great, but that is likely linked to its weird plot. The gameplay is at its most entertaining when you are switching between characters on the fly and hectically slashing away at masses of enemies. Using the combos, linking them as they become crazier on the screen is very entertaining and even more satisfying.

Surprisingly Accel World Vs Sword Art Online has a decent multiplayer allowing you to do co-op quests, or have PvP battles, all of which are more of the fun parts of the game so it’s worthy of being in the package. Throughout the times I played I never had issues getting into games, though thanks to some skilled player, I would regularly proceed to have my ass handed to me.

For the most part Accel World Vs Sword Art Online is a great, nonsensical, anime, hack n Slash game. People without a vested interest in either game would be better to look elsewhere, but fans of either series should find something great in this game. So long as you don’t get stuck thanks to weird flying control issues then it’s a fun hack n slash game at a minimum.

The post Accel World vs. Sword Art Online (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe has announced to us at StG that Accel World vs. Sword Art Online, a dream anime crossover between two celebrated franchises from the mind of Reki Kawahara. The crossover action RPG title will be releasing exclusively for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.

The worlds of Sword Art Online and Accel World have begun to merge!

In the midst of the chaos, Yui has gone missing. Kirito must challenge the Seven Kings of pure color from the Accelerated World to gain access to her location. Players from both groups come together in a war of the worlds where the strongest Burst Linkers and ALO Players are on a mission to save Yui from the hands of Personna Babel. This all-new original story comes from Reki Kawahara, the creator of both Sword Art Online and Accel World, for an interdimensional adventure between two popular anime franchises.

Players will build out three-person teams with their favorite characters, all with unique special abilities, from both the Sword Art Online and Accel World series. Sword Art Online characters will be able to utilize the fairy flight mechanic from Alfheim Online as well as magic, while Accel World characters will have access to Acceleration and special techniques. By mixing and matching characters from both worlds, players will be able to create an unstoppable team as they take on an epic action role-playing game adventure. Players will also be able to team up with three other friends to battle rivals in fierce online multiplayer modes.

Accel World vs. Sword Art Online will be available physically and digitally for the PlayStation 4 and digitally for PlayStation Vita in 2017.

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