2037: I Killed a Volcano

Another Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment post, I’m afraid, but, well, deal with it; it’s good, I’m enjoying it, and I want to talk more about it.

I was describing the game to a friend earlier and the thing that struck me is how utterly different from your typical JRPG it is. It’s extremely non-linear at heart — that is to say, there are a number of parallel linear objectives to follow at any given moment, but it’s always entirely up to you which one you pursue at any given moment, or even whether you pursue them at all or just decide to grind out a few levels fighting powerful enemies.

So far the “main” quests I’ve encountered include the ascent of Aincrad, which is the way you “beat” the game; the storyline that unfolds as you unlock access to each part of the Hollow Area; the “Grand Quest” which mysteriously appears on one trip to the Administration Area; and a line of waifu-specific objectives that demand you go into the Hollow Area with a specific companion and complete a particular kind of Hollow Mission, the exact details of which are usually given in fairly vague terms, so you have to figure out exactly which missions will fulfil their criteria for yourself.

In my relatively brief session on the game earlier, I chose to forego the waifu quests I had previously been working on (largely because I couldn’t find a Hollow Mission that involved fighting kobolds or goblins to progress Silica’s questline) and instead continue with the Grand Quest. This part of the game — which I believe was added in a free update post-release on the original Vita version — involves entering a mysterious new part of the already mysterious Hollow Area, known as the Abandoned Area, and promises the reward of powerful new Sword Skills that you can’t get anywhere else.

The Abandoned Area is introduced to you with a beautiful garden, one end of which is dominated by an enormous pair of doors — doors which are, of course, locked. However, since Sword Art Online is well and truly aware that it is a game, it very much follows the rules of a game, and consequently there are two obvious depressions in the door where “something” most certainly fits. And, wouldn’t you know it, there are two pathways out of the garden, each of which leads to a different “dungeon” area — one in some fiery caves, another in the mountains. And oh! It just so happens that your map indicates that there’s a powerful Area Boss waiting in the furthest reaches of each of these areas. Guess what you have to do to progress the Grand Quest?

It’s not just as simple as wandering in and smacking the boss about a bit, though, not least of which because the bosses are challenging encounters with plenty of mechanics to figure out. In order to even get at the boss of the fiery cave area, you need to complete a number of different Hollow Missions that reveal some interesting facts about the local fauna — most notably the explosive bugs that become petrified when they die, and which conveniently explode with sufficient force to knock down walls when triggered by the correct catalyst. Once you’ve discovered this useful piece of information, you then have to scour the area for other instances of these petrified bugs, blow them up and see if they reveal a convenient pathway through to the boss.

The mountain area is similar in execution, though it is set up in such a way as to prevent you from progressing too far without completing the fiery caves first — you need a key item to melt open a door that is frozen shut. In this area, however, you quickly encounter the Area Boss without too much difficulty, who promptly screeches at you with a noise so terrible you’re forced to retreat. The challenge here, then, is to uncover a means of protecting yourself against his powerful sonic attacks. I’m yet to discover exactly what that means is, but it will almost certainly involve a convenient Key Item somewhere, because that’s how games work and, as previously noted, Sword Art Online is very much aware that it is a game.

The fiery cave area boss — dramatically known as Gaiard the Volcano — is a great fight that is far more than simple hack and slash. It’s a fight where you’ll have to pay attention to what moves are coming up — they are telegraphed in various ways — move carefully to avoid them, order your companion around (assuming you brought one with you) and take every opportunity you have to get in your most powerful attacks. It’s an intense fight that really doesn’t let up for a moment; opportunities to attack are short and easy to miss if you’re not paying attention, and you need to keep a close eye on your partner’s condition, too; letting them die is as instant a Game Over as if you died yourself. It’s extremely satisfying when you finally clear it, however; it took me a good few attempts, but like the very best boss fights, it never felt like I was being smacked around by cheap, unfair moves — I learned something every time and progressed a little further, until eventually I was able to counter almost all his earth-shaking attacks and take full advantage of the openings that were presented throughout the battle.

If you’re the sort of person who enjoys setting their own objectives and pursuing things in whatever order they like, then, Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment is something that will very much appeal. Plus I was delighted to see today that it appears to be a top-seller on PSN right now, which means that it’s a game that is getting noticed, played, enjoyed and promoted by people who like it. That makes me really happy; while it is far from the most technically proficient game in the world — the upscaled PSP graphics and somewhat inconsistent frame rate will be a culture shock for many — it’s a beautifully designed, enormously addictive and extremely playable game that I can see myself spending a very long time with before I move on to something else.

2034: The Hollow Area

Been playing some more Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment for the past few days, and I’m thoroughly enamoured with it. It’s quite unlike any RPG I’ve played before, though I must say, it does a pretty good job with the whole “simulated MMO” deal, particularly as you can even play it in cooperative multiplayer.

I’ve mostly been exploring the “Hollow Area” part of the game, which is the vast new section originally added in the Vita version of the game; the original PSP version only covered the last 25 floors of Aincrad up to the final boss on Floor 100. Aincrad is a mostly linear experience; the Hollow Area, meanwhile, though gated by story progression in a few places, is much more non-linear in nature since you can freely move between regions, take on any “Hollow Missions” you choose or simply explore, fight monsters and seek treasure.

Interestingly, this aspect of the game is the one area where Re:Hollow Fragment differs from a real MMO: while the first time you enter a new zone in an MMO you’ll probably take some time to explore and map it fully, most MMOs design their areas in such a way as to be easily navigable by large groups of people, and once you’ve been everywhere, you’ve been everywhere; no further exploration needed. When it comes to dungeons, any kind of exploration is usually discouraged entirely in favour of a linear sequence of encounters culminating in one or more highly scripted boss fights. There’s nothing wrong with this; when it comes to herding a group of players towards their objective together — particularly when they might not be able to communicate with one another due to issues such as the language barrier, console players not having a keyboard to hand or people simply being unwilling to talk — it’s best to keep things as simple as possible so no-one gets lost, everyone can have a good time and work their way through efficiently.

Since Re:Hollow Fragment doesn’t have to worry about “real” players (for the most part — multiplayer assumes you’re already familiar with how the basic game works) it’s free to be a bit more interesting with its areas. So we have mazes, networks of caves, perilous clifftops (that you can fall off and die instantly) and dungeons with multiple routes and secret passages, many of which you’ll need to pay return visits to at a higher level to get the most out of. It’s an absolute pleasure to explore, and all the more rewarding when you come across a powerful monster to fight or a treasure chest containing an awesome treasure item.

The “powerful monster” aspect is worthy of some note. I’d heard a few people compare this game to Monster Hunter when it first came out; I haven’t played Monster Hunter myself so can’t comment with a huge amount of authority, but it never struck me as a particularly obvious comparison to make. That is, until I started ranking up some of the regions in the Hollow Area and coming across the “NM” (Named Monster) and “HNM” (Hyper Named Monster… I think?) encounters, which pit you against powerful, boss-tier enemies that demand a little more than just hack and slash. Now I kind of Get It… that moment when you think “That thing looks awesome… let’s kill it!”

That said, the game isn’t particularly hack and slash even with its trash mobs, anyway; it has an interesting combat system based around a combination of carefully timed button presses (Phantasy Star Online-style) and skills with cooldowns a la traditional MMOs. While Kirito starts a fair distance down the Dual Wielding path he’s depicted following in the anime, you’re free to change to any other weapon type whenever you like, and in fact if you want to farm Skill Points to learn new abilities, you’re going to need to do that, since Skill Points are earned most reliably by levelling up weapon proficiencies. What’s nice is that each weapon type has its own unique set of skills to learn along with its own unique animations and timings for “Exact Attacks”. Branching off each weapon type are support skills, too, ranging from healing and buffing to passive abilities that improve your overall position in battle.

Then there’s the Implementation system, which works alongside the skill system. While the skill system is presented as being part of the Sword Art Online game Kirito and his friends are trapped in, the Implementation system is the game’s equivalent of turning on Google Labs in GMail; it tasks you with “researching” various things during Hollow Missions (and only during Hollow Missions) and then rewards you with experimental game adjustments — anything from stat buffs to the ability to receive new item drops from NMs and HNMs — and even entire new game systems, such as the Original Sword Skill system, which essentially allows you to record a “macro” of your favourite skills and chain them together at will. The challenges you’ll be tasked with completing range from the simple (defeat 20 enemies) to the infuriating and time consuming (land 200 perfectly timed Exact Attacks) but the rewards are very much worth it, and this array of challenges — there are well over a hundred of them in total, I believe — give the game a great deal of variety as it becomes less about simply hacking your way through monsters as quickly as possible, and more about defeating them in specific ways in order to efficiently complete these research objectives.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about Re:Hollow Fragment is the fact that all this stuff is technically optional. All you have to do to finish the game is climb to floor 100 of Aincrad, beat the last boss and hooray, you win. Any RPG player worth their salt knows that making a beeline straight for the final boss is rarely a good idea, though; sure, you might clear the game quickly, but you’ll also miss out on potentially some of its coolest aspects. As such, I’m unsurprised to have found myself well and truly captivated by exploring the Hollow Area, while my progress on Aincrad has stalled after just two floors. The Assault Team don’t seem to mind, though, and the game’s generous complement of waifus are more than happy to accompany me on my various adventures, so all’s well.

I can see myself spending a long time with this game, and I’m actually keen to play some more multiplayer (particularly as two trophies relate to multiplayer sessions — though you can play “solo multiplayer” in a party with your characters from single player) — it’s been a very pleasant, enjoyable surprise so far, and I’m looking forward to continuing to explore its hidden depths. And then jumping right into Lost Song when it comes out in a few months!

2029: Our Video Future

I’ve been playing a bit more with making some videos using the PlayStation 4 and its ShareFactory software. As it turns out, today I actually hit the upper limit of how many clips of commentary it’s possible to add to a single project; apparently I need to record narration all in one go, then split it up later if necessary rather than recording in small chunks!

This was today’s project:

Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment is a really good game that I’m enjoying a whole lot, and making a video about it seemed like a good idea, because a lot of people who haven’t taken a chance on it and just started playing it really don’t know anything about it at all. My good friend Chris Caskie, for example, specifically thanked me for showing all the different parts of the game across the course of my six-minute video, since gameplay footage he’d seen in the past had only ever shown a tiny (and, from the sounds of things, boring) excerpt of what’s actually on offer.

I think I’ve found a format I like working in, too: I never felt quite comfortable doing “Let’s Plays” or recording live reactions as if I was streaming a game. At least part of this, I feel, is due to the fact that, as a viewer, I don’t really have much interest in Let’s Plays and streaming, because I’d much rather play a game than watch someone else play it. What I do appreciate, however, is the opportunity to see a game in action, find out a bit about it and perhaps a touch of personal opinion as to whether or not it’s worth exploring. I am also uninclined to spend 20 minutes watching someone go through options menus and whatnot; short and relatively snappy is the key, summarising everything I might want to know about the game without rambling on and on about it for too long.

So that’s the format I’ve adopted in my last couple of videos. I feel it works well; I’ve been pleased with the result (though not so much with the sound quality; I need to 1) adjust the sound levels between the game footage and my commentary recording and 2) invest in or find a pop filter for my headset microphone, which is otherwise proving to be pretty good for this) and I actually find myself going back and watching the videos I’ve recorded again; considering a few years back (prior to the first time I went on a podcast) I absolutely loathed and detested the sound of my own voice and would rather have stuck my head into a woodchipper than listened to myself, this is Progress of sorts, I guess.

I think the fact I’m enjoying making these videos — and that I can do so quite quickly — is important though. I will always be someone who enjoys writing about games first and foremost, and that’s what the magazine project I’m currently working on is all about. For a basic “review” of sorts, however — which is effectively what I’m doing with these videos, or at the very least providing some first impressions after a few hours of play — video seems to be an eminently suitable medium, perhaps even better than dry written words on a page.

Perhaps I’ll even be able to make some money off this sort of thing eventually, though I’m realistic here; my viewing stats have broken three figures on, I think, just one of my videos posted to date, with the others having anywhere between 10 and 70 views. That’s not at a point where it’s worth putting ads on my videos as yet, though that said I haven’t really made a huge effort to try and promote what I’m doing; I’m just putting it out there to see what people think.

If nothing else, it’s something to do on empty, tedious days, and I’m having a whole lot of those at the moment.

2026: Hollow Fragment

The next “big game” of the moment for me is Sword Art Online: Re: Hollow Fragment, a PlayStation 4 rerelease of an earlier Vita game, which itself was an expanded version of an even earlier PSP game. The Vita version had a notoriously dreadful translation, but I’m pleased to report that the PlayStation 4 version is at least readable — though the conversation system is still bafflingly nonsensical at first.

Sword Art Online, for those not into the animes, was a popular show a couple of years back. It was one of those “mainstream” shows that became really popular and which everyone subsequently decided they hated for one reason or another. I never quite understood the hate; sure, it was cheesy as fuck in places, but it was an enjoyable, beautifully presented show with an amazing soundtrack and a concept I’ve always loved ever since I played .hack for the first time: the MMO that is trying to kill you.

The Sword Art Online anime concerns Kirito, a protagonist who is a blatant self-insert for the writer, but I won’t hold that against anyone, since self-inserts can be a wonderful means of escapism. Kirito becomes trapped in the new virtual reality MMO Sword Art Online after the game launches out of beta and the “logout” button is removed by its designer, capturing all 10,000 launch day players in the virtual world. To make matters worse, said designer — the villain of the piece — informs the players of a little tweak to the rules of the game: if they are forcibly removed from their VR equipment, or if they run out of HP and “die” in the game, then their VR equipment will fry their brain with microwaves, killing them instantly.

There’s a get-out clause, though; if the game is cleared by someone defeating the final boss on the 100th “floor”, everyone who survived will be allowed to escape. After two years of the game, it becomes apparent that this goal is still a long way off, and player numbers are dwindling as more and more people either fall victim to carelessness or despair along the way. Ultimately, the first arc of the anime concludes with Kirito and his friends defeating Sword Art Online’s designer and freeing themselves from the virtual world of Aincrad, only to find themselves in numerous subsequent adventures in other virtual worlds. You’d think they’d learn.

Hollow Fragment, meanwhile, takes place in a reality where Kirito’s defeat of Heathcliff at the end of the first arc was not the end of Sword Art Online, and the players find themselves still trapped within the game. Moreover, they discover that once they pass the 75th floor — the floor where Kirito defeated Heathcliff — they are unable to return to the lower floors, and many of their skills and items become “corrupted”, mere shadows of their former selves. The game, then, continues; it looks as if the only way to escape really will be to defeat the boss on the 100th floor.

Except that’s not all, because clearing out 25 floors of dungeon would be far too easy a task. In the opening of the game, Kirito finds himself transported to the “Hollow Area”, an unexplored part of the Sword Art Online world where strange things happen and rare, high-level monsters and items abound. Acting as a sort of “testing area”, the Hollow Area allows Kirito to uncover a number of mysteries surrounding the virtual world of Aincrad as well as beef up his own character’s power significantly through various research trees. The flow of the game then becomes a journey back and forth between three distinct components, then: Aincrad, the Hollow Area, and what I like to refer to as Waifutown.

Aincrad is pretty straightforward. Upon arriving on a new floor, you’re shown a big tower off in the distance and informed the boss is waiting for you at the top of it. Between you and said tower are several overworld areas populated by enemies, so you’ll need to fight your way up to the boss room in order to challenge it. Along the way you’ll also need to gather intelligence on the boss by completing quests and defeating specific named monsters (NMs) as well as helping your fellow “players” to level up enough to take on the challenges ahead. Each “floor” is pretty linear in its design, though the dungeon at the end of it is more maze-like and unfolds across several levels, and you’ll be doing a fair amount of backtracking to complete quests.

The Hollow Area works a little differently. Rather than a linear sequence of areas leading to a dungeon maze, the Hollow Area is an interconnected network of zones more akin to a regular RPG or even MMO map. The Hollow Area is split into several different regions, each of which you’ll need to build up points in by completing “Hollow Missions” that appear and disappear in real-time as you play. While completing Hollow Missions, you can take on research tasks, which give you specific objectives to complete; once these are completed, you can then implement the research into Kirito’s character to improve it. You have to content with bosses here, too, though in the Hollow Area they guard region transitions rather than separate floors.

Waifutown, meanwhile, is what you do when you’re not adventuring. The town on the 76th floor that acts as your adventuring home base is home to most of the characters who got their own episode in the original Sword Art Online anime arc, along with a couple from the later arcs (Leafa and Sinon) who have been shoehorned in for the sake of having a few more waifus to pursue. In town, you can shop, upgrade weapons and hang out with your fellow adventurers. This latter aspect is important; by hanging out with your prospective adventuring partners, you can increase your relationship with them (up to and including sleeping with them) which subsequently helps them perform better in battle. By building up your relationship as well as “training” their AI by praising it when it does well, you can tailor each of the companion characters to your own liking. Or you can pick a waifu and spend the whole game with them if you so desire.

Sword Art Online is an enormous and surprisingly complex game. There are a lot of different systems at play — it’s going all-out with the “simulated MMO” aspect in this regard — and, while it’s daunting to begin with, the many different ways in which it’s possible to progress in the game make it feel like you’re always achieving something, and that there’s always a choice of things to do at any given moment. While its graphics look like butt outside of the beautiful 2D artwork — its PSP roots are very apparent — it really doesn’t matter all that much; it plays satisfyingly well, feeling quite like a high-speed Phantasy Star Online at times, and there’s a wonderful, constant sense of discovery and exploration as you work your way around this strange and wonderful virtual world. (And yes, I’ll probably make a video about this at some point so you can actually see how it plays.)

Also you can bed Lisbeth. 10/10