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

Let me just burst your bubble now.... if you are familiar with the previous iterations of SAO games published by Bandai, then this is no different. If you are coming into this game, expecting Souls-like-gameplay or an open world action RPG game, then you are going to be sorely disappointed, because this game is not it. I bought this game, fully expecting it to be like SAO: Fatal Bullet and I was pleasantly surprised and honestly, I'm quite enjoying it for what it is: a mission driven, action RPG that's basically the side story companion to the SAO anime. The majority of the negative reviews on here are just people who bought into Bandai's (false) hype about an open world SAO exploration game before release and didn't set their expectations (from Bandai) and were sorely disappointed. TLDR; No, this is not "open world" No, you cannot leave the towns without first taking a quest. Yes, you are going to be limited in places you can go when you are in a quest. Yes, this is very much like past SAO games published by Bandai. No, you cannot go through all 100 floors of Aincrad (I mean, seriously, the base game is less than 40GB). Yes, the prologue really is about five hours long to clear (just download the demo, if you don't believe me). Recommending because it's good for what it is.... another typical Bandai SAO game for those of us who liked the anime.

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...

Dem Game fehlt es am Inhalt. Wird das ein Live-Service mit regelmäßigem Content, kann das ein richtig gutes Game werden. Sonst erstmal nur 6/10. Würden in Zukunft mehr Floors, Storyerweiterung und co. dazukommen + die Welt nach dem Öffnen full Open World locker 10/10

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.

Dont even bother with all the negative reviews. If you loved the anime, then you'll love the game. Ive read through all the negative reviews and still played this despite that. If you are wary of buying the game, at least try the demo. After i played the demo, it left me wanting to play more. I am hoping that the game does well so that more expansion and development on the game can be made.