Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment (PS VITA)

Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment is a video game for PS Vita. It is currently download only for US. I knew about this game and wanted to download it when it came out, however due to internet issues I was not able to get it till last month.

Well? How does it play?

Freaking awesome.

I am a huge RPG fan. Especially JRPG. There have been alot of JPRGs adopted from anime (or any game for that matter) and they are crap. Not this one

You JRPG lovers will love this game. In fact players are reporting over 100 hours in this game.

First of all, The story line. If you have watched the animated series, you know the basics of the death game. It looks like Kirito and his gangs are ccontinuing the Alincrad from floor 76 and up. Yes you have to go from Floor 76 and all the way to floor 100, clearing the floors and defeating its final boss. (final hit bonus is included as well.)

There are some new characters as well like these two.

I won't ruin the game by telling you, but its very interesting how the story unfolds.

There are however bit of love sim game in this. Its very light. Basically you can flirt with all the girls (Including your daughter YUI) 

I was actually rushing through so I didn't know about it until I was randomly pushing button. Anyways here are some pictures

Of course me being Asuna fan I decided to go with Asuna. Basically you talk with her and make her happy.

Than you can hold her hands. (dragging her everywhere)

Than you do the princess carry thing.

And from there you carry her to your bed (No really)

If you get good enjoy rating in bed, you get....

The 16.5... (Google it if you don't know what it means)

Did I mention you can do it with all the SAO females? Including ever popular Sinon. I think I mentioned it...

Oh. You can also customize Kirito in both looks, and name. Yes you can make him into you and start banging dating your favorite character. Including Big Breasted Blonde girl named Leafa who calls you 'Brother' all the time.

Fortunately this is pretty much side game. While it does raise the relation level. You don't really need it for the main mission.

The graphic in this game is great looking too. Above pictures are all in game graphics. 

Take a look at these in-game graphics.

Not quiet PS3 graphic but in small (and awesome OLED) screen in Vita it looks great.

 There are also animated cut-scenes like these.

And it looks absolutely gorgeous, however they didn't use it often. Usually they used pictures to tell the story during cutscene like these. I guess it to save the memory space. It is a really big ( and epic) game.

Don't worry there are some Kodak Moments too which you can view from main menu.

Now the battle mechanics. Its hard to describe it but its very much like MMORPG in some ways, with all the available skills. I chose duel sword skill (Its Kirito. what else would I choose?) but there are options for other weapons and as you level up you can unlock more skills for that weapon. (Starburst Stream for duel weird is there) Its is action RPG however you can't just hack and slash. There are other mechanics in the play. In fact you have to use your party member and use 'Switch' because there is something called RISK where you do less damage and receive more damage. Here are some battle scene.

 The game mechanics is little bit hard, however there are some very good tutorial and it makes this game very enjoyable as it brings really good challenges.

As I mentioned the game has a very similar theme to MMORPG (Jeez I wonder why...) Considering the Vita was desinged for online gaming experince on the go I kinda wish they made this into MMORPG, Instead trying to follow the footsteps of Kirito. To make this game happen the storyline gets twisted a bit from the animation (or the book) However it is a very enjoyable game for both RPG fans and SAO fans.

Besides... It has Asuna in it.

How can you resist that? (Did I mention you can change her cloth?)