This bombardment is also at odds with the characters’ inferred PTSD too often does a character either stutter or gasp at the thought of Sword Art Online, so why hammer these traumatic experiences into the player and subject the characters to them ad nauseam? The story of Sword Art Online isn’t complex or structurally aberrant, so it’s puzzling why Bandai Namco is so concerned with handholding and coddling throughout the entirety of Hollow Realization. There is nothing wrong with using the preceding narrative to set up the story you’re trying to tell in order for plot devices to work, but Bandai Namco either a) has no faith in its players, b) doesn’t think anyone has seen the damn anime, or c) believes its audience isn’t smart enough to piece things together. You’re immediately bombarded by incessant reminders of the events of Sword Art Online, the affects they had on the characters, and the effects they had on the state of virtual reality. It is here, in the opening moments, that Hollow Realization begins to fall apart. (It should be noted that, while character customization is available, it is the most rudimentary customization ever, especially considering cutscenes use Kirito’s voice regardless of the voice you set for your created character.) Taking place three years after the events of Sword Art Online, Kirito and his band of friends are apprehensive of Origin, but ultimately don’t succumb to this nervousness as Kirito wants the potential for virtual reality to succeed in the world. You play as Kirito for the hundredth time as he and his troupe - you should know the collective by now - embark on a new Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online (VRMMO) game, Sword Art: Origin. (A criticism of both the anime and the myriad of games to come out.)
#PS VITA SWORD ART ONLINE HOLLOW FRAGMENT SERIES#
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, unfortunately, is just that: a hollow fragment of an otherwise excellent series that needs to be more daring in its idea.
While tantalizing as a thought, the anime began to drag, and the games continued to reinforce the same narrative told in season one of the anime, never bold enough to venture to new territory. Never quite realistic, Sword Art Online always sought to humanize characters that plunged into the virtual world, interacting with the inhuman, the Other. Sword Art Online has always toed the lines between mixing virtual reality and real life into a mixed reality. We’re beginning to see virtual reality coalesce into our real life, constructing a sort of mixed reality as the tangible interacts with intangible, an experience that can be both invigorating and exciting but also terrifying and creepy as hell. Fast forward nearly 20 years and we have Sony’s PlayStation VR, the Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive, and a slew of inferior virtual reality mobile headsets populating the retail space. A failed console using 3D technology to create the always ineffable “immersive experience” the gaming industry loves to carelessly purport, Nintendo attempted to introduce gamers to new kinds of gaming. It can be argued that Nintendo is the first company to experiment with the tech back in the ’90s with the Virtual Boy.
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