Recent reviews by 420

Review based on my mindset after playing 100h, without rushing the Main-story (basic game finished at 50h, DLC 1 with all its Dungeons at 65h, DLC 2 at 100h) , seeing some Side-story , testing the affection-system and fighting Raid/-bosses a few times.

+ / positive / things i like
*Character Creation - Create your own Avatar
Solid design variety
Eyes in different colours (optional)b
Hairstyles from Asuna , Leafa , Silica , Sinon , Yuuki - but you can't change color for these ones
(You can see that the characters are mostly defined by their hairstyle/color +- Boobies)
*Character Edit anytime in your room with all settings like in the beginning, even gender / name

*Short nice Story Recap for Aincrad and Alfheim (optional)
*VN-Style Cutscenes , fully voiced, skipable , hideable text (hold RB)
*Main Story so far interesting but not mind-blowing, you should like the SAO-World / VR Theme
*Loads of Sidestorys / Events
*Few Dialogues even made me smile

*Most parts of EQ are visible/ Outfits can be worn over it
*A Tailor to change the outfit of NPC , even a few shop-NPC (all friends)
*Monsters / Avatars looking pretty neat
*Solid Monster / Avatar variety
*Map-design looks good
*Texture / Animations look great (for a Port)
*Beautiful Sky / Background
*Visuals for status effects
*Visuals when casting de/buffs/heal - simple but ok
*Nice SAO-disappaering / shattering Effect
*HUD looks like FF XIV
*Fully customizable pallets / sets / skill-item-command Assignments
*Seperated pallet-assignments for every weapon type, so no need for rearranging
*Pretty fluent menu navigation / world is still active and you can move
*60FPS

*BGM is awesome
*Fully adjustable volume for BGM, BGM-Voice-over, Voice, Effects, Effects-Voice-over
*Japanese voice (-only)

Combat is fluent / smooth, fast paced, profounded and just awesome, including:
9 Weapon types
Combo Attack, Sword Skills, buffs / debuffs, heals, potions
Combo Attacks can end in a Sword Skill of your choice
Sword-Skill-Chains
AP based Sword-Skills (no cooldown)
Team Skill-Connect / Combo Attack
Status-Effects like Paralysis, Bleeding ,.

*Raid / Boss / Big Mobs fights are memorable fun:
Choice of Solo - 2 - 3 groups - Full Raid with random MMO-groups or Solo-MP-Raid with 7 NPC
First time (in the story) preperation talk about the Raid-Boss like a strategy
Learnable Attack Patterns
Can last pretty long
First Raid Boss Kobold Fang-Clone
Weakpoints / destroyable parts for Raidbosses and some Field-Bosses and big Mobs
*Satisfying Amount of Mob and Boss Spawns + good distribution over the map

*Online Coop + Item Trade
*PVP - Ranking earns perma buffs

*Party with up to 3 (SP) or 7 NPC in solo MP lobby
*Nice control of what your party is doing
*Roles / EX-Skills for the NPC, only 1 active / switchable
*Random MMO-NPC groups outside on the field fighting monsters / bosses (voluantary tanking them for you) or stealing your mobs
*Their Partys joins you with Names and LP showing up above yours while fighting and they hear on your commands like your party. Up to 3x4 NPC groups

*Skillsystem is great :
Sword Skills - working only for the specific weapon type
De-/buffs / Heals are spread out trough the whole skill trees, you can combine them all
5 Roles / 5 EX-Skills = a group of skills designated to eg. healer, tank, as a seperate skilltree
Hidden Roles / EX-Skills for every Weapon type - unlocked by certain requirements
Only 1 active / switchable
*Weapon Skill-Level / Mastery as requirement for Sword Skills
*Sword Skills getting better by using them

*Huge field maps to explore - don't feel stretched for me
*Raids
*Dungeons + 1000 floor Dungeon
*Field Quests (eg. Kill x of x)
*Extreme amount of Board-Quests (gathering, killing)
*Flavor / Event Text for Bosses and Field Quest (1-2 sentences)

*Good Mini-map options
*Glossar of the available monsters in an area
*Fast Travel to all city-areas and teleport stones from anywhere
*Connected Map-Areas you can teleport to (once activated local) or going from start to end

*Day-Night-Cycle - Events in the city are coupled to this
*Weather: dry, rainy, stormy
*Overall movement speed in the city and field is sufficent
*Overall nice MMO-feeling

*1 big City - seperated into 4 areas
*Enviroments looks great
*Many Players (NPC) like you would expect in a real MMORPG
*Dialogue with every single NPC (of course many short ones / unneccessary)

*Random MMO-players you can talk to, get befriended with and take them on your journey outside
*Gifting Equip to your NPC-friends
*Friendship / Romance system for maaaaany NPC - you can also be naughty - hold hands, carry your Waifu around the city towards your room for final pillow-talk
(you know SAO is a harem-simulator)
*Emotion / Mood System - they will react differently in battles and dialogues according to their mood
*Dating Spots like sitting at the café for intense-friendship / romance dialogues where you can react in different ways to influence it
*Date-Buffs after a succesful date to bring sheer manpower to the battleground
*Dinner-Date-Buffs for very close friends, can do a special attack together with you then
*Gestures

*Intelligent KI who is learning to fight in a way you like, influenced by:
Choosing the Traits and give them a thumbs up and in battles you can
treating them like a Pet and praise them when they behave in a certain manner (its also indicated) - so that they slowly begin to behave more often like the trait - they will even blush about it
Every trait-value is counted together for a rank, which determines the reaction speed
Change how often or even if a specific skill shall be used (in the EX-Skill menu)
Changing the mood (they tend do fight different)
*You can reset this or wait for new traits if you don't like the actual ones

*Different Blacksmiths you can you choose later on ( would YOU betray Liz'? )
*Loot - Material - Upgrade System
*Monster Drops
*Treasure Chests guarded by Bosses or groups of Mobs
*Random pick-up loot

*1st Person view - its confusing in fights but nice for seightseeing / exploring
*Nice ingame control of the camera (also zoom)
*Battle-log / chat hideable

*Login where you Logout, no need to go to the city to save

*Location of the NPC you want to see is visible
*Tutorial can be seen again anytime - quite extensively
*Nice overview of avaible events

*All DLC included + Season pass (more dlcs?)

*Feel like Ainz Ooal Gown when casting up to ~60+ buffs and ending up with 100+ buffs with passives


o / neutral / acceptable for me
*Controller don't work without a (simple) fix

*Can't respec / reset skill points - you're able to skill everything though, if you grind enough

*No Dialogue-Backlog in VN-Scenes
*No Auto-Text option
*Forced amount of VN-Scenes in the beginning when you just want to fight

*No wound animation like in the show
*UI / Screen can be a bit overloaded when char speech bubbles appearing in the top corners while fighting + skill effects + loot msg

*Kirito's voice only in VN (can be turned off), any female (Sinon) voice would been nice *Imagination*

*Loading Screens about 5-12 sec even with SSD - its ok but:
4 Seperated City Areas - like in DB:Xenoverse only 1 is loaded and you change by passing a line
also big seperated field-areas - but its nitpicking
*Animation length for opening Treasure Chest could be annoying over time

*No Option or emergency button to make the game pause when opening menu - I like it this way but sometimes its just convenient for the reallife to pause immediatly




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



= / my 2 cents
Worth the full price due great amount of content and Waifus




Technical
can possible freeze when alt-tabbing
Max Settings stable 60 FPS

Specsb

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

Review based on my mindset after playing 130h - completed main story50h 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
46 (SAO 25)
*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:
Heathcliff - 1h + his original shield fixed
Eugeo - 1h w special skills
Alice - 2h w sp. skills
Yuna - Voice as weapon
Rain / Kirito - Dual 1h
*Taming passive Skill /= (fixed) Dragon Pet for Silica + Sinon + Argo
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 like red king's "INVINCIBLE"
(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
5 able to fly/float - 1 on Motocycle



*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
*Treasure Mimics!
*Dragons/Wyverns

*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 Ash Roller in the city is hilarious
*Gestures / Emotesfew NPC react to or mirror some of your gestures



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

Personal
Fan of both Anime in terms of the VR / games they represent within the shows
it's my first review, bc i already love this game and want to support it, in hope for a large MP player base
*review will be edited during further gameplay - ON HOLD - planned to 100% soon*