Recent reviews by archer

This game makes you feel like a Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist (when your opponent isn't playing meta).

Really fun game though! Until tearlaments ishizu gets added at least

I held off on doing a review for this game for about three months. The reason as to why I held off on reviewing this was because I wanted to compare Hollow Realization to other games in the franchise such as Fatal Bullet and Alicization Lycoris. Although I was unable to play the latter due to optimization and bugging issues, I was able to play through Fatal Bullet and gauge Hollow Realization's story and gameplay through the scope of what is to be expected from a Sword Art Online game.

To get an idea of this game's length, I have only played through the main story. I skipped most of the visual novel sections as it got to a point where it was more tedious than refreshing, which I will touch on later. In one playthrough where I maxed out all weapons skills except Scimitar and Daggers, it took me a little over 30 hours to complete HR. If game length is a deal breaker to you, I would advise buying this game on sale (I got mine for $15) or not buying it all. However, if you care about quality of gameplay over quantity, I recommend reading further.

Hollow Realization from start to finish has the best gameplay out of any Sword Art Online game I have played. Weapons feel powerful, have real weight behind them, and are constantly evolving through sword skills. Each weapon skill tree has a hidden skill that you have to complete certain unspecified challenges to unlock such as dual-wielding or fanged guardian. On the way to unlocking those hidden skills that significantly alter the gameplay's cycle you will receive other weapon skills as well. Dashes, thrusts, cleaves, and poison attacks are all at your disposal as you get more proficient with each weapon. The best thing about the gameplay is that its weapon leveling scales directly with how good you are at the weapon. Starting from level one you will still be learning the weapon's combos, so you level slowly until you figure out the combos. Once you understand the core rotation of your weapons, the experience you gain for each weapon increases tremendously, sometimes gaining seventy points per fight (the max level for weapons is 500). The combat section of the gameplay feels extremely satisfying and rewarding, and was one of my favorite parts about the game.

A part of gameplay that felt somewhat lacking was enemy and level design. By the time I got to the third region of the game I had already seen at least four monsters that are reskins of older monsters with a different color and a higher health bar. Same attack patterns, AI, and sound design all contributed to the enemies feeling more like sponges than actual threats, and sometimes even the bosses were severely lacking in difficulty. Level design was no better - invisible walls everywhere, linear areas and loading screens every five minutes all led to an incredibly frustrating experience at certain points, especially ones where backtracking was so necessary like the forest region. After playing through Fatal Bullet, it became apparent that level design was a big problem for the team at Bandai Namco, as that game's level design was worse than HR's. However, although the enemies and level design are major red flags, that's about as far as the game gets with those. Almost everything from this point on is me praising the game, so if you don't want to read about it, you can skip ahead a few paragraphs.

Sword Art Online has some of the most potential for interesting stories to be told due to its diverse cast, and the video game timeline only expands that unique cast further. Being able to take every character from the show was a major help, and gave a lot of fleshing out for certain characters that I never gave a second thought to (Leafa, for example). Working out team compositions to prevent wiping to a floor boss gave me a newfound appreciation for Silica and Lisbeth, and when it was time to check out a new region I adored seeing Leafa and Asuna alongside Kirito in the wild. These interesting interactions are only enhanced by the story's visual novel sections, which sideline the combat and leveling and instead prefers to take its time as it fleshes out the weaknesses these characters have alongside their fears and worries. Seeing Sinon finally open up about her trauma and welcome Kirito's assistance was such a beautiful scene, and seeing Leafa come to terms that she belongs in Alabama was compelling enough for me to enjoy. Despite the visual novels being the majority of the character development and storytelling, however, there is one major problem with them.

There are TOO MANY visual novel sections. There reached a point in HR where I could no longer explore the world. I had to sit through THREE. HOURS. OF. CUTSCENES. at one point just to finally be able to go out and stab things with my sword. I understand there are a lot of characters that all need their growth and time in the spotlight, but I do NOT need to watch as Asuna tries to find her lost house key or as Silica tries to buy a bread roll. These sections are unnecessary and do nothing to the overall story, and I would have preferred if they were just removed from the game.

Despite the visual novels being overbearing, I still think the story is fine. Cliche, absolutely. Cute, completely. I enjoyed it a lot.

Overall, I give Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization a 8/10. The gameplay and cast of characters make up for the weaknesses in enemy variety, levels, and abundance of filler, and I want to see more games like this in the future, as I genuinely believe there is a lot of potential with the SAO brand and cast, I just don't know if Bandai Namco can make use of that potential to its fullest extent.

I've spent 800 hours in this game so far and I still can't find Jurassic Park. Life did not find a way. Do not recommend.

There are very few games that are fun where the gameplay is so repetitive and non-intuitive, yet the Ace Attorney Trilogy hits all of the beats required to make it an enjoyable and fun game to play for anybody. Despite the fact that gameplay wise, you will not be doing much of anything aside from clicking and putting the pieces of a mystery together, the story, the characters, and the MUSIC are all factors for what makes this an enjoyable, memorable, and one of the greatest games I have ever played.

Highly recommend for everyone. You will not be disappointed by picking this game up.