Written by 420 on August 30, 2018 @ 5:30 pm

Taken from my Steam Profile: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198095722247/recommended/607880/

Review based on my mindset after playing 130h - completed main story without rushing it, doing all sidequests, test all chararcter's movesets, and simply watching my party fighting.

+ / positive / things i like
*Japanese Voice (-only)
*Nice big Roster from Accel World and Sword Art Online

*Great merging of the two anime storys, with only minor unlogic notes.
*Nice integration of Burst Link in the Cardinal System
*VN-Style Cut-scenes - full voiced log, skippable, hideable ui, on wish auto text progress, looks great
*Player and Monster models looking pretty neat + good animation overall
*Awesome SAO particle effects for wounds and death
*colorful race distinguishing wisps - while waiting for resurrection
*BGM is overall nice
*Fully adjustable volume of BGM , effects , voice
*All DLC included
*New Game+

*Multiplayer - 2 PvP Modes : Arena 1vs1 / 2vs2
*Multiplayer - coop mode :
Free roam
ExtraQuest/Sudden Bosses
Infinity dungeon - with up to 16 players
*you can heal and buff others



Fighting / Gameplay is fun and satisfying, it includes:


Sword Art Online Characters:

Magic : Elemental-Attacks , Heals, Buffs , Debuffs - with nice spell mumbling visual or instant casted

Sword Skills : 1h-Sword, dual-1h-Sword, 2h-Sword, Dagger, Brass Knuckles, Rapier, Mace, Ax, Spear, Bow with selectable elemental and status-effect-arrows
+ as secondary either a shield or staff - exceptions are:






Some Char-specific Unique-Skills unlocked by sidequests
Flying and Floating



Accel World Characters:

Original AW Attacks, and Skills made up by the Cardinal System x Burst Link
Activables / Form changes
(Self)buffs / Modes
Equip can give your attacks debuff-ability / status-effects
Combat and Ranged chars - All feeling unique
Accel Move and Accel Jump + multi jumps




*Unique Moveset for every character + different weapon types and skillsets accessible
*Different (Online) Roles, like healer or DD
*Different Movement of SAO and AW chars - pretty fast paced
*Ground and air battles - fluid stance change - offers different play styles - close combat and ranged


*3 Party member - you can quick-switch anytime
*Switch-attack-feature in the midst of battle - for combining diff. char's attacks
*Skill-link for building up damage
*Skill-level upping system from SAO, ranks up by using it
*Order your party to attack, get behind you, go in formation
*Elements and 9 status-effects: sleep, curse, etc + (De)buff effects eg. atk up/down
*Items like heal / buff potions - SAO-style item select-motion by your char
*Equipment gives special effects and boosts certain things like cooldown-reduction instead of raising stats / STR-DEX-WIS


*Upgrading your weapons at Liz' forge - Loot system for materials
*Burst Points and diff. Equip-system for AW and SAO chars
*Alternative Level-up for Characters with Burst Points - seems to be affordable, if you're not interested in raising each of them by yourself

*New Character unlocks seems to be graduating over the whole game - keeps you motivated
*Multiple outfits for most of the SAO chars

*Boss fights are memorably nice
*Satisfying amount of enemies spawning in a group + health / strength of monsters
(on hard difficult + lvl diff. seems to have more impact on higher levels)
*Field / Dungeon mobs variety is solid
*Field Bosses
*AW Stages with mobs (later)
*Monsters also use magic
*


*Dialogues when first pairing 2 chars together and going out to the field
*Side Storys, also with AW x SAO chars
*Kirito and Haruyuki -dialogue between hardcore gamers
*Even a few funny moments / dialogues which made me smile

*Data log / Information about all characters, their groups and more
*Titles contain statistics

*Neko-Sinon
*Running as in the city is hilarious
*Gestures / Emotes



o / neutral / acceptable for me
*BGM can be annoying over time, especially main menu and the snow world for me.It ain't bad though

*normal light and heavy attacks lacks variety / combos - only row attack with either light or heavy attack with possibilty to throw in heavy attack to end the "combo"/row with normal heavy attacks and vice versa, like there are two attack rows and you can switch once between them when performing one. - though not as bad as this sounds, really. BC Sword Skills are supposed to be combos

*I highly prefer to play with the SAO over the AW ones, mainly bc of their lower skill pools
+ the normal attack statement reasoned above
*AW chars running faster even in the city, what i dislike bc of the point above

*can't order your partymembers to focus on healing and keeping up buffs/debuffs - although they heal you often and sometimes pop out de-/buffs
*no option / difficult where you can turn off that your party member uses their own items, like they use heal-potions and ressurection-drops even when you dont own a single item
*KI can be dumb when following you to higher levels (stuck beneath platforms)

*Design of the merged field stages - too much AW influence for me here
- but still fine
*(Design of AW Duel Avatars - I like the anime but any robo-mecha avatar anywhere isnt my cup of tea)
*Dungeon design looks great, but I would prefer closed dungeon-style rather than this
space-nebula-like ambient outside the corridors
*Many species-mobs in the Dungeons as already seen out on the field

*Flying enemies can be annoying - due forcing of mid-air combat
-mostly for AW chars and their movement - altough you can stay in the air infinitely
-SAO chars can treat them with magic / bow from the ground or while floating
*I would prefer some bosses to be ground only. The Gleam Eyes would've been great

*can't hide UI - no customizable UI - atleast SAO UI is great
*can't zoom in or out - only in the city
*Party Display shows only 4 buffs on your active char and 2 on the other ones
(ALL are active - I tested it)

*No fast-switch between chars in the city
*No-fly zone - not even a double jump
*Only 1 city - npc population rate is good


*No lootable-changeable: clothes / visible accessory / Armor
*No custom-chars

*When sprinting while flying / floating, you can only use the skills assigned to the the same button you use to sprint, so for example as DEFAULT : RB on xbox controller for sprint and RB + X/Y/U/D/L/R for magic / skills
(you got 2 profiles for the RB + " " skills, which you can cyle trough via R3 - or whatever you set.)
IMO this is enough space, bc mostly magic skills are suitable for attacking in fast motion.
*Control Scheme is hard to get used to, even with controller
*Targeting for some Boss' parts is unkind



- / negative / things I dislike
for me there's no real negative things, although few points from above could disturb you more than me



= my 2 cents

One of the very few games i bought on full price in my lifetime and
I dont regret it



Sidenotes:

Technical

Launcher working fine for me
60 fps on max setting unless there is a boss with big fire skills ->turn off ssao ->no more problems
slight frame drop when debuffing ALOT of mobs at once


Specs

R280x with Accelero Xtreme IV
Xeon E3-1231 v3 @3.40GHz
16 GB DDR3-1600
Win 7 64-bit
Xbox360 Wired Controller

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