Let's finish: SAO: Hollow Fragment.

[Satoshi Ookami]

So I never realized that auto-attack is a thing. Is it faster to get mastery with 1-H and dual-wielding by using specials, or by just letting Kirito do his thing?

Auto attack is the best way.

As weird as it may seem, you get mastery for hit. 

So... doing 30 combo OSS that does 30M damage gives you the same amount of mastery as 10 seconds of buffed auto attack.

 

Fun.

[YohCeezaX]

So I never realized that auto-attack is a thing. Is it faster to get mastery with 1-H and dual-wielding by using specials, or by just letting Kirito do his thing?

If you use as many attack speed increasing buffs as possible, you should auto-attack stupidly fast, which is your best bet as far as I'm concerned.

[Dragon-Archon]

Right, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me!

No problem .

 

So I never realized that auto-attack is a thing. Is it faster to get mastery with 1-H and dual-wielding by using specials, or by just letting Kirito do his thing?

What do you mean with specials? 

 

If you use as many attack speed increasing buffs as possible, you should auto-attack stupidly fast, which is your best bet as far as I'm concerned.

Yep, implement #55 also increases the attack speed a lot, so doing 1,000 auto-attacks for that can easily max out a weapon mastery.

[Satoshi Ookami]

What do you mean with specials? 

Skills most likely.

[YohCeezaX]

After starting over a year ago, and putting nearly 200 hours into it, I've finally platinumed Hollow Fragment! Yay!

 

Here's the really exciting platinum screenshot I took:

[DioTheRoadroIler]

After starting over a year ago, and putting nearly 200 hours into it, I've finally platinumed Hollow Fragment! Yay!

 

Here's the really exciting platinum screenshot I took:

Nice work!!!

[Dragon-Archon]

After starting over a year ago, and putting nearly 200 hours into it, I've finally platinumed Hollow Fragment! Yay!

 

Here's the really exciting platinum screenshot I took:

Nice, congrats .

[DesmaBR]

Just for check up.

Doing Hollow Missions in Multiplayer does count for the HM trophy, right?

Seems easier to manage them in the MP

[Satoshi Ookami]

Just for check up.

Doing Hollow Missions in Multiplayer does count for the HM trophy, right?

Seems easier to manage them in the MP

In Re, yes. 

[Skhart2525]

if you take new game, is the hollow area affected by it?

[Dragon-Archon]

Just for check up.

Doing Hollow Missions in Multiplayer does count for the HM trophy, right?

Seems easier to manage them in the MP

In Re, yes. 

Also on the Vita version, though keep in mind HMs from the Discard Area don't count for the trophy (only on the Vita version).

 

if you take new game, is the hollow area affected by it?

Nope, Hollow Area won't reset. Enemies will be 10 levels higher though on each subsequent NG+.

[Skhart2525]

Also on the Vita version, though keep in mind HMs from the Discard Area don't count for the trophy (only on the Vita version).

 

Nope, Hollow Area won't reset. Enemies will be 10 levels higher though on each subsequent NG+.

Thanks

[Satoshi Ookami]

Nope, Hollow Area won't reset. Enemies will be 10 levels higher though on each subsequent NG+.

That's optional iirc. You can choose to leave the levels same (sure, it's pointless not raise them but the possibility is there)

[Wavergray]

After starting over a year ago, and putting nearly 200 hours into it, I've finally platinumed Hollow Fragment! Yay!

 

Here's the really exciting platinum screenshot I took:

Congratulation on finishing SAO: Hollow Fragment  You are the fifth person to finish Hollow Fragment in this event and you have been added to the hall of fame. So what are you thoughts on the game? Is it a good adaptation of the SAO "experience"?

[Dragon-Archon]

That's optional iirc. You can choose to leave the levels same (sure, it's pointless not raise them but the possibility is there)

That seems weird. 

[Wavergray]

Also:

There are around 72 hours left until Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization is released.

Edited November 5, 2016 by soultaker655

[Dragon-Archon]

Also:

There are around 72 hours left until Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization is released.

I doubt I can plat another game before then and pop SAO HF, but you can put me down as ready to plat .

[Wavergray]

I doubt I can plat another game before then and pop SAO HF, but you can put me down as ready to plat .

Congratulation on finishing SAO: Hollow Fragment  You are the sixth person to finish Hollow Fragment in this event and you have been added to the hall of fame. So what are you thoughts on the game? Is it a good adaptation of the SAO "experience"?

[Satoshi Ookami]

That seems weird. 

Why do you think so? If you don't raise the levels you can progress more quickly since you don't need to care about annoying enemies aggroing you =D

 

Congratulation on finishing SAO: Hollow Fragment  You are the sixth person to finish Hollow Fragment in this event and you have been added to the hall of fame. So what are you thoughts on the game? Is it a good adaptation of the SAO "experience"?

Cheating! He did not Plat it yet! .awesome: :awesome:

[Dragon-Archon]

Congratulation on finishing SAO: Hollow Fragment  You are the sixth person to finish Hollow Fragment in this event and you have been added to the hall of fame. So what are you thoughts on the game? Is it a good adaptation of the SAO "experience"?

Thanks . Since everyone posts a screenshot, I'm going to add this one

 

As for my thoughts on the game, Falion's comment summed up most of my thoughts, so here's a quote with some changes:

I think SAO-HF- is a really neat game that takes the concept of the anime it's based on and improves on the story of the former. Doing the story alone will keep you busy for around 100 hours and that's great for a €40 title, whereas many €80 games won't even get you 20 hours of gameplay. The different areas offer much variety and are so large that after 158 hours there's still some corners of the hollow areas that are unexplored. The only thing i don't like about the world is that the level design makes it feel like it's a lot less of an open world game than it actually is. The gameplay is really fun, especially since the battle system is different from most games that I've played to this day, being based on constantly switching rolls with your NPC companion. It also seems very simple at first, but the more you play it, the more depth it has. I think the huge amount of skills to choose between from is really overwhelming and I don't think an average player would know what to do with them without consulting a guide. I like the fact that the Hollow Area is really random in terms of enemy levels and that you can beat enemies that are many levels above you if you are good enough. Those two things in conjunction allow the player to chose to do something more difficult for additional rewards or backtrack later and still find something useful in the areas with higher level enemies. 

 

So overall the game is pretty darn great if you want to play it casually. Getting the platinum trophy on the other hand makes the game a lot less fun. The main problem here are two trophies in my opinion and both of those could and might be fixed in future sequels. The first trophy I don't like is the trophy for getting all heroines to the highest possible friendship level, which I did by exploring with them, spam the GOOD button, and then spent about 1-2 hours of mindless button pressing while reading gibberish and trying to memorize what button to press. If they made that more interesting by say, adding a minigame or something along those lines, it would make the experience a lot more interesting and maybe even fun. My second complaint is the implement system and the requirement to finish a hundred of them. I lucked out and got the trophy at 98 though . I like the idea of completing small tasks to unlock something but I think if they would either allow you to check multiple (maybe 3) implements at the same time it would be a lot more bearable. The other thing that would make this trophy, and feature, a lot less tiring is if they would just let you complete implements without the need to be in a hollow mission, that way you could unlock the implements passively by just playing the game any way you'd like to.

 

Then there's a lot of optional content that I also did, such as unlocking all outfits for every heroine, completing every Hollow Mission, and beat the Ultra Hard Quest. These things all add to the enjoyment and I just love a huge RPG with lots of content. There still are things I want to do, such as beat all 125 floors in the Concealed Area, get the Hollow Fragment necklace, beat the Concealed Area Abyss boss, farm him for lots of gems, and upgrade both my weapons until all the ores have been used .

 

To conclude this overly long review, I think SAO-HF- is a really nice game. The platinum trophy is annoying at times, but fans of the anime/light novel will definitely enjoy it. People who haven't seen the anime or didn't like are better off skipping this game though. I'd give this game a 9.5/10 in terms of enjoyment and a 3/10 in terms of difficulty. Of course the difficulty will be a lot higher when players know nothing about OSS Combos, useful skills, and some OP equipment.

 

 

Why do you think so? If you don't raise the levels you can progress more quickly since you don't need to care about annoying enemies aggroing you =D

 

Cheating! He did not Plat it yet! .awesome: :awesome:

It seems pointless to start NG+ if the levels aren't raised.

 

SAO HF has been ready to plat since September 7th 2016 .

[Satoshi Ookami]

It seems pointless to start NG+ if the levels aren't raised.

What about things like getting Beta Tester because it did not pop up on your first playthrough xDDD

[Dragon-Archon]

What about things like getting Beta Tester because it did not pop up on your first playthrough xDDD

Oh right, forgot about that as I got the trophy during the first playthrough.

[YohCeezaX]

Congratulation on finishing SAO: Hollow Fragment  You are the fifth person to finish Hollow Fragment in this event and you have been added to the hall of fame. So what are you thoughts on the game? Is it a good adaptation of the SAO "experience"?

Thanks!

 

Let's see...

 

Story

Initially when I bought Hollow Fragment, the PS4 ReHollow version wasn't actually a thing, so I was prepared to play through the game and just try to put up with the translations, which I'd hear were pretty bad. I wasn't quite prepared for how terrible they actually were though, but thankfully I ended up starting the game just before ReHollow's release and I ultimately decided after a few hours with the game and checking through the things that transferred across, to just buy ReHollow and experience the story properly. So I actually know very little about the game's story, other than some broad strokes, the stuff I was able to make out from the few hours at the start and some stuff I know through various spoilers in regards to a certain character being unusable after a few floors.

My biggest negative about this version is the translations, which probably speaks pretty highly about the game and might already give away my feels on it, but oh well!

 

Actually, somewhat random sidebar story, but I have an acquaintance who happens to know the people who did the English translations for the Vita version, and he had some pretty unkind words to say about their work ethic in general and said it was not a surprise those translations ended up in the state they did.

 

Gameplay

I knew going in I'd be spending at least 100 hours playing this game (the trophy requiring that aside) and if the gameplay sucked, it would be a really painful experience, thankfully this wasn't the case. It wasn't totally apparent at first just how deep the gameplay was, but over time it started to become apparent. Starting with a pretty diverse choice of weapons, each with their own mastery, Just Attack timings and pool of Sword Skills, it makes whatever weapon you choose feel different and unique, and is also balanced well enough that no weapon is the one and only choice. Then you've got the Implements, which allow you to unlock new skills and weapon/gear drops, and the all-important OSS Chain, through doing specific tasks. The OSS Chain specifically pretty much changes the game, which when used with a protective armour can basically allow you to defeat bosses you'd have no business fighting otherwise. Anyway, I could go on, but, basically the gameplay was awesome and had enough depth to keep me interested for my entire time playing.

Oh, let me not forget to talk about all that grinding for affection you have to do though. Now that gameplay mechanic can die in a fire. Urgh.

 

Content

While the Infinity Moment/Aincrad parts of the game aka the floors, each feel unique enough, it's a bit bland for the most part. I initially was going through each area of the floors carefully, getting every chest possible, but eventually after maybe 6 or 7 floors, I got a bit bored of doing this and just wanted to rush the floors as fast a possible. With the level-up quests given out by people on the in-game friends list, I managed to make it to about floor 94 before it became literally like watching paint dry and I just stopped doing that, especially because by this point my raid team could probably kill the bosses without my help and without anyone dying anyway. I did however do all the floor quests, so I guess that's something ¬_¬.

Where the game really excelled was the Hollow Area. It's basically one big floor with a story that took you around to enough of a zone to give you an idea of what you'll find there, and not feeling the needed to take you to EVERY place in a zone or stretch it out by repeatedly having to go back and forth to the same places. Plus the cutscenes I skipped through looked interesting haha. The Hollow Missions aren't incredibly varied, but each zone levelling up separately and eventually unlocking missions with powerful HNM monsters had a pretty nice sense of progression, and the rewards from those HNM Hollow Missions have some of the best gear in the game (for my set up anyway!).

The non-trophy related stuff in the Hollow Area, such as the Grand and Ultra Hard Quests are effectively the games real end-game content (even if the game wants you to believe it's Floor 100) and they provide the challenge and rewards to prove it. Actually beating Externa and receiving that sword (even if I had to leave Strea behind because she was holding me down : [ ) felt really awesome! Only one other thing in the game felt better to beat, which brings me right into it!

The Concealed Area, all 125 floors of misery, is without a doubt the biggest and hardest consistent challenge in all of Hollow Fragment. The main challenge doesn't actually come from the bosses (except that stupid Vibrator boss that won't stay still...urgh..), it comes mostly from the mobs, who in some cases I found can just ignore your invincibility from Hyper Armour and squish you in no time. Which basically means you have to in some instances just air on the side of caution and wait until that stuff has finished it's cooldown. Finishing the Concealed Area, and beating the Concealed Area Abyss boss, was probably my proudest moment in the whole of the game, and even if the Hollow Fragment necklace isn't all that, it was still worth it!

 

Conclusion

My only experience with SAO before this game was the anime (I do plan to one day read the Light Novels though). I LOVE the original Aincrad arc (minus that honeymoon/vacation/fishing stuff or whatever near the end : /) but after that, while I still enjoy the series on some level, it's never come close to being as awesome in my eyes. Once they removed the threat of death, the whole thing felt far more hollow (pun not intended!) and even the GGO arc having 'death' in it failed to ever convince me anyone of importance was ever in danger (because they weren't ¬_¬). Despite this, SAO's various MMORPGs should translate pretty easily to an actual game, so I did think the game would be at least good.

As it turned out, the game was ultimately excellent. It scratched my JRPG itch perfectly and despite covering a good amount of the content in the game, I could probably talk about a lot more. I have and will continue to recommend this game to anyone looking for a good JRPG to play (although I tend to tell them to watch at least the first season of SAO and to get the PS4 version of the Vita version, if they are interested in understanding and enjoying the story at all).

The first thing I did when I finished the game was to transfer over and start ReHollow, but I've got a bunch of other things to play first, so it'll be a while before I experience the story, but I'm looking forward to replaying the game and experience the actual story!

In conclusion, the game is fantastic and a “good adaption of the SAO 'experience'”, I give it a 9/10 overall.

 

TL;DR Words.

[Wavergray]

There are less then 48 hours left until Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization is released.

 

 

Choose a picture:

1.

 

2.

 

3.

 

4.

 

5.

Edited November 6, 2016 by soultaker655

[Kent10201]

It's to bad that I missed this event. I plan on getting the game later on but I don't know if I'll have the motivation for all of that grinding. Congrats to everyone that got the plat in the event though  .