SAO: RE: Hollow Fragment has a setting that I really like. Yet how the game is presented is less than perfect.
Almost from the first hour, this game impacted me in two different ways. First, it quickly became obvious that this game had an insane amount of quests and events to do. At the same time, it shows off how small of a budget it had thus making it one of those rare B-tier games. Each one has some positive aspects while also causing some negative moments to pop up too. Before I enlighten you about these issues a bit of story summarizing must occur. Although you might think this follows the story of the anime it doesn't do that at all. Instead, it sets up a what-if scenario that has Kirito and his crew of lovely ladies get stuck in the world of Sword Art Online for a lot longer than expected. Thanks to a glitch in the system they must continue on the path to the 100th floor to escape their virtual prison. At the very same time, a new Hollow area is unlocked and our ever valiant protagonist goes in to find a mysterious girl named Philia who ends up connected to this new zone in a few unexpected ways. The dual nature of the story is thanks to the fact this is an expansion of sorts to a game that was never released in the US.
Whether that quick synopsis sounds interesting to you or not the one thing that will always remain the same is the gameplay. Fitting to the fake online nature of this universe it plays a lot like a run of the mill MMO with a bit of action to spice up fights. Unless you decide to go solo this game is entirely based on teaming up with an AI partner to wipe out any foe that dares stand in the black swordsman's way. Being able to swap with your ally to lose some aggro is a key mechanic to do the most damage. The "fury" bar lets you wail on enemies like you're playing a beat em up yet once it is empty the player must then either wait for it to refill or swap to maximize the damage output. A selection of buff/debuff moves is accessible using L1 while R1 has some damage dealing moves. All of them have timers like this was a balanced MMORPG. That fact very much isn't true with the game being really easy. Really the fact this starts the player off as a level 100 character made me feel like I was playing part four of the .hack PS2 game. Starting off what seems like the end is a very odd way to start a storyline. Anyway, the gameplay is adequate and I liked it enough to see this game to its conclusion.
Mixed in between all the monster killing is a lot of unique events and quests to do. %50 are all the usual MMO quest types like go here and kill a thing. Or maybe pick up so many useless items off a forest floor etc. The rest are all related to his friends in some way. Most are basically skits that flesh out the characters a bit. Even if half the time it seems like Kirito is inadvertently getting romanced by the rest of the cast. Sure most of this adds up to the standard anime tropes but I didn’t mind. Seeing a bit more of the characters I liked from the show is always a good thing. Some of these character scenes do require you to be at a certain place or time which kinda feels like padding in a few spots. The translation is also solid for all the unique story scenes. Yet the pointless dating mini-game has to be the poorest translation I've seen in awhile. Picking one of the two responses to any of the random dialogues that Asuna (Or whoever else might be in your party.) might say is laughable and confusing at best.
Sweeping away those translation issues we are left with a graphical level on the scale of a hi-rez PSP game.So yes this isn't going to blow anyone away with its looks. For what it is the landscapes and characters all at least look nice. If you recall the beginning of this review I said it had way too much content this also means it has quite a few repeat environments and monsters. By the time the credits roll you'll have faced generic skeleton enemy in many forms and even a boss. The same can be said about the generic forest and generic dungeon environments. All of this might have become an issue without some quest variety and the general theme of each floor being different. Luckily they do add just enough stuff to keep me interested to see what happens next.
From the very start of my playthrough, I didn't have the best first impression. Yet over time the game grew on me and I enjoyed playing it. So my recommendation of this game comes down to two factors. First, you must have at least seen the first season of the anime beforehand. Knowing nothing about this world before checking it out would be confusing. The other factor is if you don't like repetitive combat. With almost all the fights playing out the same way I could easily see someone getting bored of it. If you meet both of those factors then I can say you might like this game. Hard to really tell since it has quite of few issues that might end up impacting if you will like this game. So, in the end, all I can really say is that I enjoyed this game and it might appeal to other like-minded gamers.