It’s been a few years now that Sword Art Online video game adaptations have come in abundance on consoles and PCs. If the previous games had trouble convincing, is it the same with Alicization Lycoris?
Sword Art Online is a series of Japanese novels written by Reki Kawahara. If it quickly became a success in the archipelago, it was not until its animated adaptation in 2012 that the series became popular worldwide. Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris is a new adaptation, a title re-signed by Aquria and published by Bandai Namco. It is the beginning of the Alicization arc which is this time declined in video game.
Sword Art Online tells the story of Kirito, an experienced VR-MMORPG player. The story arcs of the novel take place in different worlds of video games in virtual reality, this is also the case of the scenario of Alicization Lycoris. The game starts when Kirito wakes up in a virtual world he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t seem to be able to access a menu or an interface to log out. He will quickly meet Eugeo, a non-player character with whom he will befriend. They will both go in search of Alice, a childhood friend of Eugeo kidnapped several years ago of which Kirito seems mysteriously to remember.
During a good part of the game, the scenario follows the original story of the Alicization arc but adds some new characters and new plots. It is only at an advanced stage that the game will completely detach from the storyline of the novel to offer something new. This first part has the merit of well summarizing the events of the beginning of the arc, even if it is sometimes a little rushed by passing many events. Without being brilliant, the scenario remains nice to follow even if the game is too talkative at times.
Alicization Lycoris is an Action-RPG with rather classic possibilities. The gameplay takes place in real time in open environments. These will be filled with enemies to beat to gain experience and items. To get out against the most resistant creatures, it will be necessary to master the many abilities and passive effects (unlockable through skill trees) as well as guard and dodges. The game will however ask you to manage the coordination with your teammates to be as efficient as possible. You can have a maximum of four characters in combat, with the possibility of controlling the one of your choice whenever you want.
If the fights offer good moments of release, the throttle sensations in hand are far from being beyond reproach. The handling is rigid and the fighting is generally quite slow. Which is a shame since some combos are very pleasant to perform. The fights tend to shine in duels against other characters. One-on-one battles where the opponent’s attacks are more readable and where the timing of dodges and parries take on much more importance.
The open aspect of the sets could have brought a pleasant “exploration” side if the game was not full of technical problems. We will pass on small concerns that are not very disturbing, such as the slightly capricious camera or the lack of collision between certain objects in the decor or certain non-player characters. But on the other hand, impossible to miss the clipping and the framerate of the game which very often falls on PS4, in cities, in open environments and even in full combat. Even though the graphic quality of the game is far from impressive. All of this is made worse by the horribly long loading times that occur quite often.
Alicization Lycoris is technically very late. It is visually unimpressive and its slightly dull artistic direction does not help to give charm to the whole. The staging is also quite poor. If the pre-calculated scenes are very beautiful, and that we are sometimes entitled to pretty illustrations, the majority of the dialogues of the game alternate without too many reasons between very static in-game cutscenes and “visual novel” moments with boxes dialogue and 2D illustrations of the characters. You can feel the small budget allocated to a game maybe a little too ambitious for its own good.
It is in its content that the game is most generous. It will take a few tens of hours to complete it and even more to finish it 100%. The adventure is very long, there are also many side quests and DLC are already planned. Alicization Lycoris offers a fairly complete co-op multiplayer mode, allowing you to browse the game with your friends. Many characters are playable, including the majority of the usual cast of Sword Art Online. The game is not stingy in fan service and that is perhaps its main attraction.
The newcomers will no doubt be a bit lost since the game does not consider it necessary to reintroduce the recurring characters and concepts from the series. But regulars will find ideas already used in previous games, such as the romance system. The game has the good idea of giving a little more screen time to certain secondary characters, enough to stroke the fan in the direction of the hair.
Unfortunately, Alicization Lycoris suffers from far too many technical issues for us to recommend. Many aspects of the game are nice, like the music that goes well with the action. But nothing is ever so brilliant that you can ignore the disabling framerate. Unless maybe you’re a very patient fan of Sword Art Online.
Conclusion:
Difficult not to be disappointed by this Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris, new episode of a legendary JRPG series. It begins as an adaptation of the Alicization arc but quickly takes many liberties to propose an original story. Not necessarily very accessible for newcomers, this new album will appeal especially to players already conquered by the universe and by previous games. We move in open areas that we are free to explore and the gameplay takes the classic mechanics of Action-RPG by bringing new nice ideas. Unfortunately, all these efforts are wasted by a catastrophic technique, in particular the framerate which can drop at any time and its loading times really long. It is all the more unfortunate that the game offers a substantial amount of interesting content, to browse alone or with others, and that its potential really shows itself after many hours of games. Alicization Lycoris is a game that gets better over the hours, you still have to hold it long enough. Definitely to be reserved for the most motivated fans of Reki Kawahara’s work.
Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris
