Echoes of Aincrad

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...

it bad.

While the gameplay is rather repetitive itself, Also followed by a few bugs such as enemies either disappearing just before you reach them or suddenly appearing after you have already defeated them. These issues are quite minor as the bugs aren't game breaking(From what I have found so far) and the gameplay is the expected gameplay of this type of game and while not exactly innovative, does hold to the standard of these game types. The story so far from what I have played is interesting enough to keep me entertained and interested with the only negative being the length of the tutorial, But it is built to teach you the game, as well as set up the story, So it does it's job as it should. If you are a fan of SAO or Rouge style games, I would recommend.

Please Optimize this for the Steam deck. There's no reason this game of all should be unsupported.

boring, enimies reused everywhere. way to overpriced. Wasted opportunity for a great SAO game..

Finally a SAO Game that deserves glazing. Yet all i see is bad reviews, why tho? First SAO Game that actually is graphically not in the PS2 Era AND outshines all the other anime games bandai namco publishes. The biggest plus it gets for me is Unreal Engine 5 and good performance. Finally a studio nailing it. I can play an Unreal Game on Max Settings, 4k Resolution, No DLSS, No TAA, (there is TSR but im using FXAA) and i get minimum 90 to 120 FPS (120Hz Tv) probably could get more without VSynch but dont care if i get this performance as constant as this has been. If FPS drops i dont notice it. Input feels great both keyboard and controller, has Playstation Symbols when using PS Controller (And steam input system not messing it up), but keyboard controlls are hella weird. You can customize it, but i rather stick with controller on this one. Fighting System once understood is super. Conter, Blocking and dodging feels great. Bandai, please. Learn from it, teach your other Studios to do it too. Switching actually has something to do with the anime version where you lure an monster dodge it and your partner absolute smacks it. Even if you dont want to use the switch system, your partner actually has a brain, fights decently and doesnt feel like a weight once played on higher difficulty. I play on very hard on my first playthrough rn and its really enjoyable to have an Ai Partner not dying constantly, cuz you play on very hard. World Design overall super good, a bit lacking when it comes to how lively it is human wise. Then again its a death game, you play on the first two floors, Kirito and the others doing their stuff and you do your own, which i love. People here say its too empty, but think again most are stuck in beginner town cuz they crap their pants and the rest is with Kirito and the gang rushing the tower. I get it thats empty. Performance wise they probably could make it more lively as the intro showed an absurd amount of players once you reach the actual launch of SAO without any performance spikes on my part. Tho i do have a bifi pc. Story wise could be better from what i played. More consistent too. Had a character say SAO has no magic. i open my map and the legend sais Magical Seal........ Stones with elemental attributes from fire to poison, holy water and the likes, like comon xD Tho with that being said id rather have a bomb gameplay, performance and graphics which it all has and have a rather lacking story which they can easily improve with dlc or updates. For instance could replace the Magical Barrier with Technical Barrier or just Barrier. What i dont understand is why they dont tell you that higher difficulty also means more rewards, cuz the differences are insane. Played the demo on PS5 Pro, which also runs super well and looks decent, on normal difficulty and now on PC i play very hard, killing enemies is much more satisfying on very hard and the loot difference is quite significant. Progression felt pointless at first, till i hit the mobs lvl cap, then i gained lvls but the mobs didnt which was good. I was stuck at a boss and it kept lvling up with me till a certain point, had difficulties getting him, but then i firstly understood the fighting system and was higher lvl than them so it was payback time. The boar bosses tho are a real pain. I was 5 LvLs higher than the boar boss at the second village and jesus it still stun locked me, toooooooo big aoes, spawns elites that also stun lock you and it genuinely felt like RE3 Remake Nemesis inferno fight. 5 Lvls higher, maxed gear for this point in the story and i still got obliberated till i had everything up and then smacked it. Map is BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG. It took me 10h to reach the SAO launch lmao cuz i was exploring everything, killing everything and looting everything. id say im half way through the first floor, i think, and there is still so much more map to be explored. Genuinely thought its only the first floor in this game, looked it up and a second one is there too. Now thats pretty big. Game Size is small, yet so much to explore? This game feels like a massive slap to the devs and publishers not able to handle UE5 ngl. Overall good game. Love it, enjoy it, works wonders on UE5 and finally it feels like i got a RTX 5080 not an GTX 680. I do wish DLSS 4.5 would be a thing as in terms of anti aliasing its the best tech iv seen there, would also boost performance too, but its definitely not needed. Still gotta try Smooth Motion on it. Deserves it a full price? More than the other UE5 Games thats for sure. Get it on a sale tho. for like 50 Bucks its a great game. DLC is coming too. I only wish more weapon types. Guns, Scythes etc. may not be SAO friendly, but there are more physical weapons than this. Lets see what they understand from a curved sword. Also if Kirito is allowed to dual wield a sword i want a scythe :P Also: Sasuke is in there :P

I like the game so far

I'll be honest here I wanted to post this review AFTER I finish the game, but currently there's something wrong with my file that forces me to crash every time. Overall Rating: 4 out of 10 [h3] [u] Storyline [/u] [/h3] Without Spoilers, the Storyline is great, but it does have it's flaws. I've come to realize the story revolves around Iroi. Like you can just remove the player and the story still works, all because us the player, is a SILENT Protagonist. [h3] [u] Combat and Progression [/u] [/h3] The combat is good, but needs a few changes. [olist] [*] Add animation canceling There are some animation where you can charge and hold, but this leaves you wide open for attacks. It would be nice to be able to dodge to animation cancel out of it. [*] Level progression here is a problem Everything from Level 1 to 30 is easy combat. Meaning everything dies in 1 shot unless it's the boss, but even then the boss still dies faster than they could sing the SAO anime intro. Once you reach level 40 and reach the 2nd Floor, everything starts to hurt alot more. We have ZERO ability to upgrade our Armor. It makes almost no sense as to why we should shove Defensive stats into our weapon and not into our shield and armor. Most people who's playing Hard mode during this point are putting some stats into HP and stamina for the 1st time, which isn't a bad thing. The damage we deal is almost no difference compare to when we min-max, and the boss is now surviving alot more which is fun....But this is near the end of the story.... [*] Sword skills are nice but we are missing that one skill slot We could have had 4 sword skills instead of 3. [*] Healing is a problem At 1st we start with 2 Healing crystal, we get 2 more with side quest. The problem is, we don't get this side quest until the middle of the game and end game. Then there's the healing potion we drink, this one takes a while to heal you. The Dev expects you to avoid all damage during this time, if you get hit once you're back to the same HP you were before you drank the potion. There is nothing to help this healing to speed up, but there is double the healing received with weapon mod. [*] Weapon blueprint chest So far I've notice some blue rarity blueprints drops near the end game....why??? Sure it's nice that I have it late then never but I farm for these weapon in a dungeon way before I got the blueprint. By this time I already have a purple or gold rarity weapon and moved on from the uncommon weapon. [/olist] [h3] [u] Environment and Music [/u] [/h3] The music is great, but sometimes there's silence when we're out in the fields. The map is ok. There's only 2 Floor yes but I've manage to take more screenshots than I did in Once Human. Sadly the place we're allow to go is limited, so not a true open world sandbox. They do have some lore here and there base on the Aincrad world, but some are useless information like "The back ally way" and the "Lovers Tree" Some area of the map is COMPLETELY LOCKED OFF until you get a side quest for said area. You won't get these side quest until you're near end game. [u] [b] Side Rant [/b] [/u] My main problem with this game at the moment is a bug or corrupted file (not sure which), which is preventing me from enjoying this game. The crash file states: "Could not decompress shader group with Oodle", from what I've known alot of people is having this problem. I didn't get this problem until i reach a certain point of the game. The "Beta" portion of the game was fine, I didn't get any crash until few quest after I made my character. The problem goes: Start game->90% Chance to crash If I didn't crash->Go to Main screen of game->60% Chance to crash If i didn't crash->Load into game->50% to be stuck in loading screen If I pass that, taking a quest and loading into another map forces me to either crash or freeze. If I'm out in the open field and at the save point, I get a 25% Chance to crash, because you guess it, it's loading screen of death for me again if I save the game. If at any point I get a cutscene, it's 100% crashes I've tried all the solution to fix it but one, that one is DELETING THE SAVE FILE which I will not do until I finish the game. From that point I would probably never touch this game again.