Echoes of Aincrad

Best game ever

so far these game are very good but certain parts are bores me. imagine spend 2 to 3 hours just to walking simulator in the whole map. i wish i wish and i wish the next content about getting new floors gotta be free hehe

Big fan of hack and slash games and also games with a good story so I find it really fun. Also I have been waiting for a good SAO game for forever sooooooo...

I'm a SAO fan. I'm a souls-like fan. I enjoy a game that's combat heavy, with some good lore, and some solid challenge. This doesn't feel like that. Aside from the obvious gripes - no co-op, no multiplayer aspects that would elevate this game heavily, it's... dull. At a certain point, even on Very Hard, there's a lack of challenge. The mobs are recycled, and aside from certain bosses, no real variety or challenge. I cleared the game, including the extra boss at the end ( NO SPOILERS, GOOGLE IT ). Aside from the VERY last possible boss in the game, it was simple, and easy. I enjoyed the sword skills, sure, but literally overall meh. So much running, so much bland story line, and rather limited despite my hype. I still enjoyed the game, but not at full price, not at it's current state. Maybe if after the DLC, or something, or they add a multiplayer function, I could get behind it more.

baffled by the decision not to open up the map. the design is great and exploration could have been good. finished the campaign but it doesn't even finish the story they're building up to. quite disappointed, hopefully with updates this becomes something better but I'm not keeping my hopes up.

I'm enjoying Echoes of Aincrad. I'll minimize spoilers for those who aren't familiar with SAO. [h3] Story [/h3] It's set during the Aincrad Arc so you come across familiar faces and you play a unique character in the story. What's cool is you're a player from the Beta which is a nuance for the story. You get some idea of how SAO was during the Beta which is glossed over in the anime. But for the main story, 10k players are stuck in a VRMMO, and in order to escape the game, all 100 floors of Aincrad have to be completed. From my understanding, Echoes of Aincrad covers the first 2 floors. As a nuance for those unfamiliar with SAO, the anime and original light novels skip a lot of floors. For example, after the first floor boss is cleared, the anime and light novels skip like 40 floors. So far, I believe up to the 8th or 9th floor is written with details, but through the SAO Progressive novels. [h3] Gameplay and Mechanics [/h3] I think there's some confusion...Echoes of Aincrad wasn't marketed as an open world game. It's an action/adventure game. Also, if you're familiar with the light novels, it gives a bit of perspective of how the world works. When you perform a quest, you're inserted into an instance of that quest with your party. Therefore, only your party is on the map during that quest. Think of it this way....imagine having to perform a quest with thousands of other players in a shared instance. It would be chaos and mass waiting. Lastly, you're limited to a certain area of the map during a quest. In regards to the fighting, it's pretty standard. There's light attacks, strong attacks and abilities that are unique to each weapon class. As for the weapon classes, there's swords, rapiers, dagger, axes/blunt, two handed swords/axes/blunts/scythes. Each weapon class has 10 abilities, with 3 allowed to be used at a time. There's a dodge and block mechanic. [h3] Gripes [/h3] There's a couple gripes I do have with the game. - Quests follow a similar flow; there's no real variety. Deploy to a map, fight monsters, explore, fight the boss. It does get tedious. - No option to turn off auto climbing when sprinting. It's an annoying feature to have your character auto climb a small rock when battling a monster. I prefer having this kind of option off, and using the jump button to do it myself. FYI - auto climbing only occurs during spriting. - If there's steep terrain, your character slides. However, I've slid on almost level looking terrain. It's very annoying, especially during a fight. - Partner doesn't draw aggro enough. When you get to the second floor, there's a spine dog monster that can pin you to the ground and chew on you. Your partner can shorten the pin down by attacking the spine dog monster but there's plenty of times when the partner does nothing...even when there's no other monsters around. It's downright frustrating. Also, your partner isn't aggressive enough in general. - When falling down while sprinting, your character perform a roll. No matter the height, you will always roll. It's a weird and somewhat annoying mechanic. It's initially cool, but becomes an incredibly frustrating mechanic. - Can't restock items at a checkpoint. It's a weird feature and I'm not sure why it isn't allowed. You'll have to "pause" the quest and return to a town. There's no penalty for "pausing" a quest so it doesn't really make sense why you can't restock items at a checkpoint. [h3] Conclusion [/h3] As a fan of SAO, I think this is the closest and best experience to the original SAO anime and light novel to date. I especially like the game because it's not from the perspective of Kirito. There are some annoying gripes, but I think a patch would be able to fix them. With that being said, I'd definitely recommend the game to SAO fans. For gamers looking for an action/adventure game, I think it's great, too.

amazing game love it so much plan on playing a-lot more

Frustrating missed opportunity. Incomplete product, not worth 70$, and possibly worth maybe 20$? Protagonist desperately needed a character beyond head nod, and shake head. Play the demo if you want to try it, but do not expect greater things from the game versus the demo. The gameplay loop ultimately ends up very repetitive, and the bossfights are between anti-climatic and frustrating due to poor visibility of mechanics. Most frustrating of all is that there is no clear story arc. There are objectives being worked towards, that are ultimately left for a future dlc or sequel without any foreshadowing that might be the case, and the game ends very abruptly with no real conclusion. Bonus content, like the soundtrack are locked to a separate application, which is a disappointment.

Also ich hab mir so viel nun zeit gelassen um ein urteil zu fällen... AM ENDE fehlt mir einfach zuviel im Spiel, das ich sage das es eine Empfehlung erhält. Das schlimmste ist einfach das Boss kämpfe keine Boss kämpfe sind sondern eher "erst Adds machen" dann werden neue beschworen in der Zeit kannst du nichts tun... Oh und Slow Kamera schützt dich nicht, nein du bist einfach ein Free opfer.... Also egal wer dafür verantwortlich war für diese Entscheidung, hat zuviel Geld bekommen.... Man kann keine Berufe ausüben, man kann nur Craften, wenn man Rezepte findet... Also kann man von sich aus nichts freischalten. Col sammelte man einfach nur, weil man nicht wirklich einen nutzen hat.... Weil Schmieden/ Waren Händler muss man nicht so oft verwenden und kann somit genug sammeln... Erkunden ist teilweise auch bescheiden, weil die Kisten sich einfach nicht lohnen diese zu erbeuten... für eine Mine... oder eine Granate brauch ich keine Kiste öffnen... Aber Die Story gefällt mir bisher recht gut, das ist der einzige Grund wieso ich weiter spielen werde. Dennoch der Preis ist das Game aktuell nicht wert und die Kritik ist in vielen Punkten gerechtfertig. Also auch als SAO fan, kommt man leider nur wenig auf die Kosten, weil einfach soviele Logik fehler enthalten sind. Z.B. "Stadt der Anfänge" hat ein Gebiet mit lvl 50 Gegner... das war definitiv nicht so gewesen und macht auch keinen Sinn das es so ist. Aber hey, wenn ihr wirkliche fans seit, freut euch auf die Story der rest wird leider sehr monoton werden...

65h+ Review: You're getting the "bones of a game" that was not finished. There are a lot of refined elements and a ton of missing, unfinished, or crude elements hastily touched up enough to sell. It would be worth it heavily on sale if they fix a LOT of things and add in some of the obviously missing / cut content. Combat Pros: Combat is smooth, actions are smooth, skill attacks are smooth and fun Combat Cons: All enemies are just teleport/charge AoE Knock down/Stun spam Combat Downfall: Skills/Items are in a queue system so unless you ani-cancel you're stuck in attack queue if you spam attack button. The worst part is that in very hard difficulty ALL the enemies are spamming teleport/charge knock down AoE attacks and YOUR skills/item uses get stuck in a queue for moves & healing where its greatly delayed OR nothing happens until all the NPC enemies actions are finished Enemies: If you played the demo you've fought 75% of the enemies you'll ever see in the game. Bosses are often just bigger versions of the regular enemies with knock down/stun spam. The dungeon boss you fought in the demo? Same one you'll fight 20+ times in other dungeons. Dungeons: They are big and beautiful but if you played the demo, you've seen 75% of the dungeons in the game. They did little things like switch some of the same map tiles around to break up the monotony. The 2nd floor adds a new one, but you guessed it - its the same one you'll then see over and over. World: The world is gorgeous and extremely large on both floors with picturesque views and large open plain/valleys. However, they appear mostly barren and the combat gets noticeably bad near rocks, slopes, or structures where you or the enemy gets stuck in endless rolls or constant posture resets that interrupt your attacks/skill moves. There are a TON of boss areas in all the maps that are empty where you can see they planned for something to be there but there is nothing. Having finished all the quests and cleared all the maps, I know its not just something I missed. Story: The story is decent, but you don't get into it much until 20+ hours into the game. There is a lot of story behind side quests (not main story) so if you're not doing side quests you're missing out because the main story is a little short (imo). Characters: You get all the top favorites from SAO as unlockable companions and they did each of the characters justice in personality, attitude, voice acting and attack animations. Truly a good job. Weapons crafting (or crafting in general): Its worthless and it even tells you that in the tool tip because you get so many weapon drops for your cardinal level that its pointless to craft unless you need crafted weapons to use as upgrade materials for your preferred weapon, BUT, if you're playing the side quests you will never be lacking in weapons to sacrifice to upgrade your primary weapons. Item crafting is similarly worthless as you make so much money, buying the items you need is super easy, and crafting them instead takes money anyways, BUT, you only truly need 8 items only for the whole game.