Echoes of Aincrad

Do not buy this game. Bandai Namco should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this mess. You fight the same mobs and bosses over and over again, the weapon scaling is nonsense, & the story honestly doesn’t make sense within the Sword Art Online universe. Save your money and stay away from this blatant cash grab!

Absolutely disappointed with this game. I played the demo and bought the game based on potential, but the game didn't improve on the demo at all. Most frustrating was the boundries on the maps. You're limited to zones that they let you in for whatever segment of story you're in. You cant even leave the city unless you are doing a mission, and you have to teleport out and in. I really enjoyed the combat and weapons system (though i wish there was more options for weapons), but it wasn't enough to overcome my frustration with the inability to explore or do other things. That and the world was extremely underused. The framework was there to build something great, but then nothing was implemented to make the world feel like a real place.

Movie simulator You jump into the game with no freedom of choice. All quests are instances of the overworld. Items and progress carry over between Beta and Launch (the games story line beta, not IRL beta) which isn't normal for any game. Runs just fine, enemy variety is OK at this point, but not impressive, movement of the legs looks funny. You cannot fall very far. Exploration is a joke. I wanted this game to play through Aincrad, not to be the personal ***** of some NPCs, would refund but fell asleep mid gaming.

Juego terrible en varios aspectos, graficamente esta bien pero es raro pq los personajes tienen un aspecto anime, pero el mapa y el mundo en general es mas realista, creo q habria sido mejor hacer el mundo se parezca mas a un anime. Lo del mapa de este pacing de este juego me tiene dando volteretas, es un simulador de correr por prados/desiertos hasta pillar un checkpoint, para luego recorrer otro prado y con suerte una cueva (las cuevas son todas iguales, a veces cambian la iluminacion los cabrones para q no sea igual. Otro cosa q comentar son las misiones secundarias, practicamente todas son iguales, consiste en ir a un lugar matas un jabali o una avispa de mierda y completas la mision, con suerte a veces te piden q recogas un material despues de matar al jefe de esa mision, Los enemigos es una cosa loca, una cantidad pobre de enemigos para lo grande que es el mapa, sin contar q los jefes q hay los puedo contarlos con las manos y no son una cosa del otro mundo, practicamente son copias boosteadas de los enemigos normales. Los personajes q hay no me parecen la gran cosa, me parece que tienen un buen diseño, pero salvando unos pocos me parecen vacios y con una personalidad muy pobre, y a mi personalmente no soy muy fan de los juegos donde el prota es un personaje q te haces tu y tiene 0 lineas de dialogos y un desarrollo de personaje inexistente. Las pocas cosas q puedo salvar del juego capaz son la variedad de armas q hay, y las habilidades de cada arma y que el mapa por lo menos hay edificiones o construcciones para q no se vea tan feo, Si aun asi se van a comprar el juego no lo hagan por menos de 20 euritos y si se lo compra otra persona, pobre de esa ella por pagar 70 palos por esto. PD: Se me olvido comentar q la historia no me engancha en absoluto lo veo muy aburrido

I was so excited to play this game only to be severely let down, this game had so much potential but the repetitive combat, and the same enemies over and over and over. If you like to kill the same boar and bats for hours and hours then this is the game for you.

RECOMMENDED ONLY TO FANS Who is this for? SAO fans: Yes, if you understand what you are buying = 6.5/10 Everyone else: No. There are better action RPGs available for much less money = 5/10 Fair value in its present form: Approximately $30 to $40. I completed the story on Very Hard, played part of the game on Normal for comparison, spent about 85 hours in total (Steam has wrong time played), and earned 50 of the 52 achievements. I also purchased the Deluxe Edition, so I put my money where my mouth is. I am recommending Echoes of Aincrad because I am a longtime Sword Art Online fan and found enough here to value the experience. That recommendation comes with substantial qualifications. The current $69.99 price is absurd for the amount and variety of content provided. Fans may find something worthwhile here. Players without an existing attachment to SAO probably will not. THE GOOD Fully voicing the main story and side quests was a fantastic decision. This is the first unequivocal 10 out of 10 decision I have seen from the SAO game series. The English cast performs very well, and Jessica Peterson deserves particular praise for making Iori emotionally engaging enough to carry scenes in which our protagonist contributes almost nothing. The character models, towns, menus, rainbow blood, slow motion impacts, dismemberment animations, and finishers capture SAO extremely well. The artists understood the assignment. At times, this is the most convincing recreation of Aincrad and its interface that the series has received. The original story also explores the human consequences of the Death Game. Fear, isolation, harassment, social breakdown, and the ways ordinary people cope with being trapped are more interesting than simply replaying Kirito's greatest hits. The friendships are wholesome, and I appreciate the absence of another harem structure. The story contains genuinely good writing and gives its voice actors opportunities to shine. THE COMBAT Combat has excellent visual impact, but the character often feels slow, stiff, and disconnected. Heavy attacks have awkward recovery, normal attacks do not flow as naturally as they should, and limiting the player to three equipped Sword Skills becomes needlessly restrictive across an 85 hour game. Kirito and the protagonist are presented as fast and adaptive fighters, yet the mechanics often make them feel less capable than the enemies. Weapon classes offer some build variety, but legendary weapons rarely feel legendary. A special weapon should represent an achievement, possess a memorable ability, or require an interesting challenge to discover. Here, many come from ordinary chests near the road and differ mainly through numbers and passive effects. I could feel the distinctions while testing builds, but many players will experience a pile of interchangeable loot. The difficulty also varies between dull and unfair. Normal becomes very easy, while Very Hard often relies on enemies with extreme tracking, long pursuit ranges, repeated knockdowns, invulnerable states, or enormous speed. Difficulty should test timing, positioning, preparation, and knowledge. Relentless tracking and overlapping control effects test patience. THE WORLD The Second Floor contains some of the worst overworld exploration design I have encountered in a modern RPG. Artistically, the landscape is quite good. Structurally, it resembles a linear corridor folded into the shape of an open world. The player can see plateaus, roads, caves, objectives, and Safety Areas across a large environment. A Safety Area may sit directly above or beside you, yet the terrain prevents every sensible approach. The required route can send you around nearly the entire map to reach a place that was geographically adjacent from the beginning. It was maddening. Reaching a Safety Area reveals the map and collectibles, which then encourages you to backtrack through the enormous region you just crossed. The loop becomes simple: run around the map, reveal it, learn that you passed several collectibles, and run around it again. Long travel can work when the route contains discovery, danger, hidden quests, rare equipment, environmental stories, or meaningful choices. Much of this travel contains haphazardly placed enemies and the only legal road forward. Exploration is further restricted by missions. You cannot freely leave town, revisit the complete world whenever you choose, or investigate every visible path. Walk beyond the assigned quest boundary and the game teleports you backward. Aincrad is presented as an enormous world of secrets and discovery, yet the player experiences it as a collection of fenced routes. THE REPETITION Dungeon layouts are copied constantly. The same small collection of rooms appears with new colors, enemies, and chest placements. Enemy variety is similarly poor. I fought Ilfang the Kobold Lord around six times and encountered enough varieties of cow to wonder whether I had become a Midwestern farmer. Larger health bars and altered colors cannot carry dozens of hours. Main bosses need distinct mechanics, silhouettes, finishers, and narrative importance. Dungeons need unique architecture, puzzles, hazards, visual themes, and memorable landmarks. Quest design follows the same pattern: accept a mission, run down a road, gather something, kill familiar enemies, fight a larger familiar enemy, and return to town. Side quests rarely alter the world or matter after completion. The campaign consequently feels rushed and padded at the same time. Important character developments receive too little room, while errands and travel consume hours. THE PROTAGONIST AND PRESENTATION Making the protagonist nearly mute was the second worst design decision in the game. The character already has a voice during combat, yet remains silent throughout the story. Iori and the other characters make decisions, conduct conversations, and receive the development while our supposed protagonist stands nearby like Iori's unusually well armed luggage. The game also suffers from static conversations, repeated animations, pop in, stuttering, audio problems, floating objects, clipping enemies, poor pathfinding, and occasional arena problems. Fully voiced dialogue deserves expressive body language, facial animation, and varied camera work. Several quality of life restrictions make matters worse. Equipment can only be changed at the inn even though SAO itself allows players to change equipment elsewhere. There is no true pause option, partner customization is shallow, repeated animations become exhausting, inventory management is tedious, and returning to old areas often requires replaying a quest. VALUE AND VERDICT The base game costs $69.99, covers only two floors, repeats a limited pool of content across roughly 85 hours, and ends without adequately resolving the story it spent that time building. An advertised expansion costs another $19.99. Expansions should continue a complete story rather than appear responsible for finishing one. Echoes of Aincrad contains the foundation of an excellent SAO game. It has strong voice acting, beautiful character work, an interesting original perspective, satisfying combat presentation, and several characters worth caring about. Considerable talent is visible throughout the project. That talent is trapped inside repetitive content, restrictive exploration, shallow progression, technical problems, and design decisions that waste the player's time. I recommend it to committed SAO fans who understand those limitations, preferably at $30 to $40. I cannot recommend it to anyone without that attachment, and I cannot defend the current $70 price. Rather fitting for a game about being trapped inside Aincrad, I suppose.

boring... just not what i was hoping it would be. basically SAO for people that have never watched SAO, and arent above the skill level of newb. safe zones every 4 minutes of game play, all the chests are on the map and pickups are every 3 steps... there's no real challenge involved, except for figuring the switch mechanics, but you cant even just solo the game... you HAVE to play with a computer partner. there's no other human players in the game, and the WORST PART is that every time you try to go somewhere "out of bounds, returning to mission area..." defeats the point of an open world... i honestly am rather upset i spent the extra money for the deluxe edition, 50,000 col is so easy to come by its not worth the extra money, and having the elucidator set you get anyway is not even something special, plus they are garbage( if you somehow manage to get to the end of the game carrying that, you are sooo addicted to being mediocre its just sad.) honestly i have more fun playing Final Fantasy III. play the demo, enjoy it and dont waste your money on the full game.

El juego se lanzó apresurado, recortado para asegurar expansiones y con una estructura que estira un chicle que no daba para tanto. 1. Rendimiento y Optimización Lamentable Pantallas de carga infinitas: Cambiar de piso, entrar a una mazmorra o incluso entrar a la base de la Orden de la Flor de Cerezo implica comerte pantallas de carga absurdamente largas, sin importar si juegas en consolas de última generación o en un PC con SSD de alta velocidad. Caídas de FPS en zonas pobladas: En los mercados de los pisos inferiores y durante los combates de jefes con muchos efectos visuales de área (como los shadow steps de Tezca), la tasa de cuadros por segundo cae en picado. Crasheos en el Modo Juego de la Muerte: Esto es lo peor. Al ser un modo hardcore donde si mueres pierdes la partida, ha habido reportes de jugadores que han perdido decenas de horas de progreso no por morir contra un jefe, sino porque el juego se les cerró inesperadamente ("crasheó") en medio de una carga. 2. Relleno e Historia Incompleta Un juego alargado artificialmente: Para justificar que el juego solo cubre los pisos inferiores, los desarrolladores metieron decenas de misiones secundarias obligatorias de tipo "recadero" (fetch quests). Te pasas horas recolectando materiales o matando 10 jabalíes solo para desbloquear la siguiente misión principal. El "Síndrome del Prólogo": La trama principal se corta de golpe. Te venden una escala épica, pero al final te dejan con un cartel de "continuará" en la cara. Cabos sueltos indignantes: Lo que mencionábamos de Carlos: que te dejen la subtrama del ladrón del espadón completamente abierta, sin darte la satisfacción de hacer justicia, se siente como un recorte descarado para venderte la resolución en un futuro DLC de pago. 3. Mecánicas y Balance de Juego Frustrantes Inteligencia Artificial (IA) de los compañeros: El sistema de sinergia promete mucho, pero en la práctica, tu compañero de equipo a menudo se queda parado recibiendo daño, activa habilidades a destiempo o estorba a la hora de hacer un parry. Inutilidad de ciertas Builds (El caso del fuego): Que el jefe final estándar (Red Mordred) sea 100% inmune al fuego arruina por completo a los jugadores que invirtieron toda la partida en mejorar equipo y habilidades de daño por quemadura (Burning DOT), obligándolos a farmear a última hora materiales para una build de aturdimiento. Falta de variedad de enemigos: Los diseños de los monstruos se repiten constantemente. Solo les cambian el color (recolor) y les suben el daño a medida que avanzas de piso, lo que acentúa la sensación de que el juego es un bucle monótono.

单机游戏削弱NMLGB啊？QNMD平衡性挑战，有过强的你不会把其他的加强吗，什么叫削弱SP获取和伤害倍率？真是CNM了