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Accel World vs Sword Art Online Deluxe Edition
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Graphics & Sound:
What happens when you combine a popular anime, Accel World, and a popular video game series and anime, Sword Art Online? Both of these series are written by Reki Kawahara, making it relatively easy to combine them. The result? Well, the title Accel World vs Sword Art Online isn’t very creative, but the game is quite creative.
The first thing you’ll notice is how beautifully the game truly showcases this virtual world. The game takes place inside a VRMMO (Virtual Reality MMO). It’s supposed to be a lovely world full of greenery, but things don’t end up that way. Some areas have become warped, corrupted. They’re definitely darker, but still beautifully done. The monsters are quite creative. You’ve got a variety of creatures to deal with, both on the ground and in the air! The characters are what really shine, though. Since you’ve got characters colliding from two very different worlds, you’ll get to see everything from your fairies in Sword Art Online to the very mechanical or robotic looking characters from Accel World. The landscape is also transitioning from one world to the other, so you get to see various stages of change.
Accel World vs Sword Art Online is entirely in Japanese with English subtitles. While it is an open world where you can fight pretty much anywhere outside of town, I still find that you don’t talk during battle too much, at least not so much that you will miss anything that is being said while you are fighting. I would still prefer an English dub, but the voicework is well done in Japanese. I do wonder about some of the English translations. Silver Crow calls Black Lotus King rather than Queen, like you normally would a woman. He also calls her Senpai, but they translate it to her name instead. I guess that was the easiest way to translate it to English? I have to wonder how much more is translated just a bit differently. |
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Gameplay:
You start off in Woglinde, the Island of Meadows. Yui calls Kirito and Asuna mommy and daddy, but really Yui is a virtual program of sorts. Kirito and Asuna saved her from deletion in Sword Art Online and they have been family ever since. Asuna, Kirito, and Yui are on a nice family outing in the game when they get an emergency alert that Alfheim Online, also known as ALO (the VRMMO), has to go through emergency maintenance. They will need to log out immediately. Yui is acting funny, so rather than log out, they decide to follow her. It’s a good thing that they do, because they get there just in time to see Yui kidnapped by Persona Vabel, the Twilight Witch. Persona Vabel locks her in a giant, dark tower that just appeared out of nowhere in Niebelheim. This forces Kirito and Asuna into a rescue mission. Even though Kirito and Black Lotus (or Lotta in her more human form) fought on their first meeting, once Black Lotus realizes they are not enemies, she will join on this quest to save Yui since she wants to stop Persona Vabel in whatever she is trying to do to this world. To accomplish your quest, you’ll pick up more characters from both games along the way.
I must admit they came up with a pretty interesting way to make two different virtual worlds that are based on real worlds collide. The corrupting of ALO is quite neat to see. There is a complex backstory for both worlds and pretty much all of the characters in it. You’ll spend a lot of time wandering around just to see everything and talk to everyone. Eventually if you do, you’ll figure out how to save Yui and hopefully both worlds. I do love this storyline and the interactions between the characters. In town, you can talk to your party members and other people. You can swap out outfits, armor, weapons, and more. You can buy supplies and equipment and you can also take on side quests. These aren’t necessary to complete the game, but they can be quite fun and they will help you explore more of the world. |
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Difficulty:
Accel World vs Sword Art Online provides three different difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Hard. The gameplay is supposed to be the same either way, so don’t feel bad about playing on Easy if you just want to see the story unfold. You can change the difficulty from the Title Screen, but not while you are actually playing the game. This means that you will have to save and exit before you can change. You can’t hotswap difficulties just before a boss so you can get past him easier. Easy makes the game more like a walk in the park. You will take some damage, but it’s pretty hard to die. Normal is about average for your typical RPG. If you know how to play RPGs, which you probably do if you’re looking at this game, you should be fine on Normal. Hard does provide a bit more of a challenge, but it’s not a nightmare scenario or anything. If you’ve leveled yourself a bit (usually I have a habit of getting lost so I level more than I should finding my way out), then you’ll be fine to play it on Hard. Like I said, you can change at the title screen, so try it out and see what fits you best.
You have HP, MP, and SP. HP are your hit points, MP are your magic points, and SP is your stamina. It’s important to keep an eye on all three if you want to survive. HP obviously decrease as you get hit and MP will decrease when you use your magic spells. You’ll need to watch how much you use. SP decrease as you use your strong attacks. The weak attacks definitely aren’t the most effective, but they won’t use up your SP. You can recover SP by just using your weak attacks while your SP gauge increases. You’ll definitely need to find your own method of combining weak and strong attacks.
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Game Mechanics:
The controls will vary based on the controller you are using, but you have a normal attack and a strong attack. You can lock on to a target, which I highly recommend just to make it easier to hit what you are trying to kill, plus you can switch targets after locking on. There are actually a lot of different moves. You can block, quick step, and attack on the ground. Once you get the hang of the ground, take to the air. In the air, you can also attack, block, dodge, and more. It’s not too hard to get the hang of, especially since you can reconfigure the buttons if you need. You can also change which character you are fighting as in your party at any time.
I will recommend that you work on flying and get used to the controls during the tutorial. It can be tricky to control the camera and your vertical and horizontal at the same time. While it might be a bit tricky, I must admit I love fighting in mid-air. It’s been a long time since I played a game where I could fight in mid-air whenever I want and I really enjoyed it. I searched out every mid-air enemy I could find! Your mini-map is up in the top right corner. A blue triangle is your player, a green triangle is an ally, and a red triangle is an enemy. These make it quite easy to search out enemies you are hunting.
As I have mentioned, I really love the story in Accel World vs Sword Art Online. Reki Kawahara has done an amazing job merging his two creations. If you’re looking for an RPG with a strong story and great combat, go check out Accel World vs Sword Art Online today! |
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows 10 64 Bit, Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Processor: Core i5-4460 3.2GHz, Memory: 8 GB RAM, Graphics: GeForce GTX970 4G, DirectX: Version 11, Network: Broadband Internet connection, Storage: 30 GB available space, Sound Card: DirectX 11 sound device |
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Test System:
OS: Windows 10 64 bit, CPU: Intel Core i7-3630QM 2.4 GHz, RAM: 16 GB, Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M, Hard Drive: 400 GB free
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Related Links:
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