How to Get Resurrection in Sword Art Online Lost Song

Familiar Tune

Ask most folks who watched the Sword Art Online anime series, and they'll likely tell yous that the prove'south weaker moments commonly coincided with events set in ALfheim Online (ALO), a fairy-themed virtual reality MMO that protagonist Kirito and his friends motility to after the titular Sword Art Online game is shut downwardly.

That sentiment'south generally held true throughout both of the anime's seasons so far, marking ALO as a curse of sorts for the franchise's narrative integrity. This puts Sword Fine art Online: Lost Vocal in a bit of a pickle since the whole damn thing is set exclusively within ALO. Can Sword Art Online'south 2d game outing survive the bad omens and bear witness itself where its cousins in print and on Goggle box stumbled?

Sword Art Online: Lost Song (PS4, PS3, PS Vita [reviewed])
Programmer: Artdink
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
MSRP: $39.99 (Vita), $59.99 (PS4)
Released: Nov 17, 2015 (NA), November 13, 2015 (European union), April 28, 2015 (SEA), March 26, 2015 (JP)

_{[Notation: This review is based on the English-linguistic communication version of Lost Vocalreleased in Southeast Asia on April 28, 2015. While at that place may exist some differences between this version and the North American/European union ones, we wait the core experience will be highly similar, if non identical.]}

Let's not mince words: Like its predecessorSword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, Lost Song is meant for existing fans of Sword Fine art Online (or at least of Hollow Fragment), and few else outside that sphere. In fact, Lost Song's primary plot virtually ensures that only those invested Kirito and the gang's adventures and interactions volition notice fulfillment from the game's narrative.

Merely beginning, an aside: When it came to the anime and novels, the reason the ALO-set up story arcs felt so weak was the overriding sense that the show was treading water. In dissimilarity to original'southward g hook of "dying in the game means death for real", the goal of Kirito playing ALO to search for Asuna carried non nearly every bit much weight. This was exacerbated in the second flavour, which followed upwards an splendid murder mystery ready in Gun Gale Online with Kirito and his pals literally just doing a raid and some quests in ALO for a nice sword. It came to pass that when ALO was onscreen, Sword Art Online became less nearly heady adventures and speculative future game pattern than essentially watching a agglomeration of nonexistent Let's Players play a nonexistent game.

Lost Songfalls afoul of ALO'south curse besides, with even its central story afflicted with the same sense of meandering and lack of stakes. Still placed inHollow Fragment'southward culling timeline (which saw the cast stuck in SAO for much longer than in the "canon", and adding characters similar Sinon under unlike circumstances),Lost Song sees Kirito and his posse moving toALfheim Online correct on time for the game to debut "Svart ALfheim", its first expansion, consisting of five massive floating islands. Being the top-class gamers they are, the coiffure resolves to exist the get-go to burn through it.

The quest for "globe-kickoff" (a motivation familiar to anyone who'south played an MMO) somewhen brings them into conflict with Shamrock, a massive gild run by 7, an idol/scientist (!) who's taking the opportunity run a big social experiment within ALO. If the whole premise of Lost Song'southward plot sounds like the kind of inter-society "drama" that plays out on forums and social media feeds for actual games today, i wouldn't exist too far off.

This puts the majority of the game's narrative appeal in the interactions between cast members new and onetime, told via entertaining Tales of-style vignettes, in-game events, and lengthy personal quests, some of which adjust storylines from the canon similar the well-received "Mother's Rosario" arc. In a nice affect, these events are by and large encountered semi-randomly and often without explicit prompting. A minor affair, to exist sure, but one that channels the "alive" qualities of MMO play, where impromptu encounters and stories grow even against otherwise static environs and content. Ultimately, though, those invested in seeing the characters of Sword Art Online again, sporting their ALO-styled redesigns and touting long-running in-jokes, volition get their fill, but players seeking epic adventure or the kind of JRPG saga that ends with the heroes saving the world will come away disappointed.

Information technology doesn't help, either, that Lost Song doesn't work very hard to introduce players to the characters themselves. In some ways that'southward to be expected, seeing equally this is a sequel to Hollow Fragment and mostly features the same faces (with a few more added), but curious folks who just want to know what the fuss over Sword Art Online is all about would be better served by picking upwards Re: Hollow Fragment (the "Director's Cut" PS4 port of Hollow Fragment), or just watching the anime.

Narrative pitfalls aside, Lost Song is at least less of a slog to play, mechanically, bringing some new, entertaining gimmicks to the tabular array. The gainsay system ditches the auto-attacks, casting times, and menus of Hollow Fragment for a straightforward, directly-controlled action-RPG setup.

Players can string together combos of lite and heavy attacks, controlling any three of up to seventeen playable characters (they tin even supervene upon Kirito as the leader!), each wielding a number of weapons with signature skills and magic. Special moves and magic tin can be triggered by combining shoulder and face buttons. New attacks, spells, and passive effects can be unlocked by leveling up their weapon skills through use, and assigning them to preferred push button combinations. A Marriage approximate fills up in battle, and when triggered enables devastating "Switch" attacks involving the whole party.

While simpler and arguably less deep than Hollow Fragment, the new system is more engaging and wastes less time. Most low-level foes tin be dispatched in seconds, and fighting large bosses rewards mobility and effective use of buffs and debuffs to chop abroad at their massive, stacked wellness confined. AI companions fight and support effectively, and demand picayune in the style of handholding unless severely under-leveled.

New gear can be constitute in the field, or bought, identified, and upgraded at Agil and Lisbeth's shops while Side Quests and Extra Quests can be accepted at the hub town'south tavern. Side Quests normally fall into the "Kill 10 number of Y enemy" category, but Extra Quests usually pose an additional challenge, involving large takedowns of one or more boss-form foes for better rewards.

And so there's the flying. Being a fairy-themed game, ALO plants wings on all its characters to enable long-distance travel and a level of verticality rarely embraced in the RPG space. Lost Song gladly obliges, featuring huge, open-world maps populated by roaming enemies and dotted with dungeons at varying altitudes. Players can switch from running on the basis to hovering to racing through the air with a flick of the D-pad. While a bit fiddly at first, this mobility quickly becomes second nature and makes a genuine deviation when fighting outdoors, as aeriform dashes can be used to set upwards powerful charging attacks, and hovering upwardly high can put safe distances between players and ground-bound foes.

Fighting indoors, however, is more of a task, equally most dungeons prohibit flying and often take identify against large numbers of enemies spawning in ways that cause the combat camera and lock-on part to freak out unpleasantly. Worse nevertheless, the dungeons themselves are so banal and unimaginative that I initially mistook them for being procedurally generated. Having players visit these dungeons in order to progress just hammers dwelling house the blah level design.

And there's even multiplayer, making Lost Song the only Sword Art Online game that'due south really, well, online. Local and online play sessions are available, including a PVP versus manner, and team battles against roided-out versions of the single-player bosses. It's an alright option to accept, but there's lilliputian compelling reason to engage with it. Players can utilize custom characters, but the customization options are so express that annihilation created only resembles the generic NPC characters littering the hub world.

For better or worse, Sword Art Online: Lost Song replicates both the highs and lows of its predecessors. Existing fans of the serial will find plenty to similar in the further adventures of Kirito and his MMO pals, despite a boring main story. The revamped mechanics besides back up a steady drip-feed of Sword Fine art Online fan service mainly by not getting in the style too much.

Unfortunately, Lost Song stumbles hardest when trying to engage players exterior that sphere of pre-existing investment, and in some ways ends up an fifty-fifty less suitable jumping-off indicate for newbies who want to get in on enjoying the franchise. My advice to those folks would be to sentry the anime or try out Hollow Fragment first. If they're even so jonesing for some more of this motley crew of irredeemable MMO nerds when they're done, and so Lost Song will be music to their ears.

_{[This review is based on a retail copy of the game caused by the reviewer.]}

Fallout 4 (PC, PS4, Xbox One [reviewed])
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
MSRP: $59.99
Released: November 10, 2015

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Source: https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-sword-art-online-lost-song/

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