Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet

For those unfamiliar with the light novel and anime franchise it is based on, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet may seem weird – First, while there is online multiplayer, the entirety of the game is single player-centric. Additionally, the “sword” in the title may seem like a misnomer because the game revolves around guns. But bear with us, it makes sense in the end.

For the uninitiated, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is a 3rd person shooter RPG based on the Gun Gale Online part of Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online light novel and anime franchise. Unlike previous Sword Art Online games, Fatal Bullet follows a user-created custom character inside a VR MMORPG game called Gun Gale Online. The user character’s story will intersect with those of the franchise’s main characters Kirito, Asuna, and the rest of their crew.

The Online part of the name pertains only to the faux VR MMORPG. The player gets to roleplay a person who plays the fictional VR MMO called Gun Gale Online. The in-game world’s population of player characters are only computer-controlled AI. The actual multiplayer is limited to a couple of modes where characters either try to duel each other or fight alongside each other against a Boss Monster, competing on who gets to do the most damage before the monster falls.

Story

It is not surprising that the story is decent, given that the game is based on a light novel. Obviously, people who dislike Sword Art Online will not like the game’s story as it is an almost direct adaptation, but SAO fans will definitely love the twists and the game, as far as we know, contains a plot thread that is exclusive to the game. So it is still worth experiencing even if you have already read the novel.

Graphics

Befitting of a 3D anime game, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet uses a 3D cel-shaded engine that aims to simulate the look of 2D cel-shaded anime. While it is still obviously a 3D game, the visuals do a great job by perfectly showing its characters as inspired by anime visuals, without looking out of place in the 3D environment. Some versions (particularly the PC port) also take advantage of post processing techniques to add more flourish to the visuals, most notably its use of chromatic aberration. This gives the game a slightly blurred but cinematic look.

Gameplay

When it comes to gameplay, Fatal Bullet can be a bit of a hit and miss. There is obvious potential in how the game handles. The characters handle perfectly depending on how you build them (as expected of an RPG, leveling up gives you points that can be invested into different attributes such as agility, dexterity, strength, etc – with each stat affecting different factors such as handling of the character, damage, inventory capacity, aiming efficiency, etc.)

The aiming is also forgiving. There is auto-aim that is functional but will not do as good of a job as manual aiming. This means beginners can rely on the auto-aim at first, until they get accustomed to manual aiming where they can do optimal damage.

The combat is not perfect, though. Some handling issues are present particularly when it comes to the use of two non-gun weapons: the UFC, which is a grappling hook that can be used to climb up places require some getting used to. And the photon swords will require practice to use effectively, because there is no lock-in targeting, you will have to struggle with the camera controls a bit in order to avoid hitting a lot of thin air. Fortunately, the photon swords provide some of the most consistently large damages in the game (bested only by the slow and heavy sniper rifles), and provide the ability to block bullets and lasers, which provides a tradeoff to its limited range and unwieldiness.

The game, we feel, could have also benefited from a cover system. Fortunately, your character is very mobile so the lack of a cover system does not hinder survivability, provided that you can adapt to its more fast-paced gunplay.

Replayability

Another glaring drawback to the game is its length. The campaign is extremely short, and can be finished in one sitting if not for some artificial lengthening tricks such as the need to grind affinity for each of the side characters in order to get the true ending, and the addition of a fourth wall-breaking time-rewind capability to the plot. People who love grinding may find this a plus, but people who just want to go through the story once should read a guide first, so that they can fulfill all the requirements for the true ending on their first playthrough, thus removing the need to rewind and re-grind.

All in all, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is by no means a perfect game. There is potential for the game to appeal to people who are not fans of the franchise, but it has glaring flaws that may be dealbreakers for people who are just looking for a good third person shooter. So if you are coming in and looking for an anime version of The Division, you should temper your expectations or else you’ll come out disappointed. Fans of the Sword Art Online franchise, on the other hand, will definitely enjoy this flawed, yet faithful adaptation of the Gun Gale Online arc.

Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed

Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed is a 3rd person action RPG set in the city of Akihabara and puts players in the shoes of a person who's been turned into a "synthizer," which is basically a vampire, and tasks you with hunting down others of your kind along with a CPU-controlled partner. The main gimmick of the game is that you defeat the so-called synthizers by beating them silly until they are weakened, and then exposing them to the sunlight by stripping items of their clothing.

Despite the seemingly mature premise of the game, kids and parents shouldn't worry because there is no actual nudity. The enemies that get stripped still have their underwear (and in cases that they don't, the naughty bits are conveniently hidden by lens flare) and there are no hyper-sexualized body types - the females have no exaggerated breast sizes or accented curves and in most cases the females and males have similar body shapes.


The biggest point of contention in Akiba's Trip will be the combat. If you're just starting out, you'll find the combat to be sluggish and clunky, but once you find the weapon that suits your playstyle and adjust to the proper timings, the combat system will open up and provide you with a workable - if not decent - gameplay (if you're used to conventional hack and slash games, you'll be at home with sword or glove-type weapons.)

The PC port of Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed is available via Steam, and it's a pretty solid port job. The game is pretty well optimized and will run on hardware that doesn't even meet the minimum system requirements (although don't attempt to try and run it on onboard graphics.) There are no specific gamebreaking bugs or glitches outside of edge cases that are pretty much expected on the PC platform.

Pre-orders for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 Steam Version is Now Open

Bandai Namco Games' PC port of One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 won't be released until August 25, but pre-orders are now open on Steam.  There's no pre-order discount and the bonuses are a little bit on the thin side (four costumes and a pack of additional costumes.) but if you really want a truck-ton of content, you can get the gold edition for a few bucks more in order to get 8 more mission packs and 20 more bonus costumes.

I have preordered the base package, so you can expect a review to appear on this site, but given that it's just a port and the game's console versions were already reviewed by countless others, I'll be focusing on the quality of the PC port - whether it takes advantage of the extra hardware power afforded by the platform or if it's going to be a basic port.

Hopefully, it's not going to be a Batman: Arkham Knight thing. Bandai Namco is known for decent, if not solid, ports when it comes to popular and lucrative properties (like One Piece is), and the developers Koei Tecmo also does fine with their ports - they get panned for crippled content and ridiculous DLC schemes, but in terms of code optimization they're pretty good at their job - in some cases releasing games that can run well even on hardware that doesn't meet their specified minimum requirements.

One Piece: Unlimited Cruise 2 (Wii)

If you just watch a demo of One Piece: Unlimited Cruise 2 on a shop or while a friend is playing it, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that it’s a really great One Piece game. After all, unlike its predecessors, it captures the look of the anime and manga (as opposed to the ones that use super deformed art style), and features an updated (at the time) roster with impressive-looking super attacks.

However, if you do manage to get a hand on a copy and start playing it, you’ll see that the game looks incomplete. And we’re not talking about missing some features or characeters – we’re talking about a game that probably wasn’t play tested by anyone who knows what a playable game should be.

First things first, the game is a 3rd person 3D fighting game that picks up exactly where the previous one left off. There’s a cutscene that will keep you up to date, and then you’re free to go and visit the desert island that serves as the main hub for the various boss fights interspersed by random encounter battles.

The desert island is one of the first annoying parts of the game – even if you have a map handy, navigation is confusing, tedious, and boring as there’s not a lot of variety in the featureless scenery. The second part is the random encounters. You’re going to fight random monsters, navy, and pirates that all feel the same save for minor variations in look.

The game could have been saved by the VS mode, as there’s a really playable fighting game in there somewhere that will let you stage visually-impressive fights between notable characters in the series (up to Ace’s death, at least.) Unfortunately, it’s hampered by the controls.

Like many games on the Wii, One Piece: Unlimited Cruise 2 could have benefited from gamepad support, as it uses the wiimote and nunchuck in ways that mimic a dual shock control scheme, except for the tacked-on waggle controls. The unwieldy controls are exacerbated by the fights being too short even if you set the time limit to infinite. Just attack a couple of times, waggle, and the match is over. All that visual flair is useless if it’s over in a flash.

All in all, One Piece: Unlimited Cruise 2 feels like a wasted opportunity to use the One Piece license on a brawler and/or fighting game. There’s a hint of a really enjoyable One Piece game in there somewhere, but somehow the devs weren’t able to execute everything well, resulting in an impressive-looking but underwhelming poor excuse for an action game. If you really need your One Piece action fix, I suggest skipping this one and going straight to the newer games released on the 3DS and PS3/4.

Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds (PC)

Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds is a sprite-based 2D Beat ‘Em Up for the PC (and PS Vita, PS3 and XBLA) that relies on cute, super-deformed magical girls as the main characters. The game is a spin-off of the Phantom Breaker fighting game, but it was a Japan-only title so it’s most likely unfamiliar to many readers of this blog.

The combat in Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds is a mix of button mashing and strategic combo play consisting of light attacks, hard attacks, blocks, parries, and supers. This means the game is accessible to beginners yet still appealing to hardcore players who wish to explore every nook and cranny of the combat mechanics. The stages are strictly sidescrolling 2D, but have 2 planes that you can switch between with a simple press of a button. In a way, the game is more like a side-scrolling Fatal Fury than a Double Dragon successor, but it could go either way as far as genre conventions are concerned.

Far from being a simple beat em up, the game lets you pick between 4 different characters/classes (5 if you have the DLC) each with its own strengths and weaknesses. There’s also a light RPG system under the hood that allow players to level up and upgrade their characters’ abilities and stats.

The visuals in Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds are cute and fun to look at, even though they are low definition by choice. The graphics are pixilated, but still extremely detailed and complex. The stages are a little bit constricted, but they provide ample space to run around and beat stuff up. The setting is varied, with locations based on iconic Japanese locales such as Akihabara.

Replayability is what you’d expect from any beat em up – it’s fun to go through once, but after that you’d make do with short bursts. Ideally, you should have a friend over (or online) so you can enjoy the game as a co-op brawler. In this context, the game is a must have especially if you’re a fan of retro-inspired games and the magical girl genre.

Brave Story New Traveler (PSP)

Brave Story New Traveler is easily one of the most beautiful games to come out for the Sony Playstation Portable, featuring gorgeous 3D visuals and a quirky art style that straddles the line between anime and those cute little hallmark figurines. But don’t let the visuals fool you into thinking that it’s a complex and ultra modern take on the fantasy RPG genre. The game is a throwback to the simple yet engrossing turn based RPGs that were so popular during the 16 bit and 32 bit era,

The story behind Brave Story New Traveler is not something that you haven’t encountered before: you are given control of a boy named Tatsuya, whose best friend Miki has mysteriously contracted an unknown illness. A voice asks Tatsuya if he wants to save his friend, and upon agreeing, our little hero is magically transported to a medieval fantasy land and tasked with gathering 5 different gems for the Traveler’s Sword.

If you’ve played old school 2D RPGs like the Final Fantasies or Chrono Trigger, Brave Story New Traveler will be familiar and would require no tutorial – you run around over a large map screen in order to get to various towns full of NPCs to talk to and dungeons and overworld areas full of random enemies to fight, which could be anything from spiky snails to walking trees that throw fruit at you.

The game starts out a little bit slow and leveling can be a little bit grindy especially considering that this is a handheld RPG, but if you manage to stick for a couple of hours or so of game time, the game – both the story and the mechanics – will start to open up and you’ll find an RPG that is fun to play in short bursts while you wait for enough time to complete the main quests.

Final Fantasy XIV as a Fighting Game

With the Heavensward expansion for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn still a few months away (June 23, dudes.), the main scenario writer Kazutoyo Maehiro had a little bit of fun and released a video reimagining the MMO as a fighting game. Square Enix wants everyone to know that this is just for fun and not a representation of an actual project or future plan, but it looks good enough that I'm sincerely hoping that they're just throwing us a curveball. In fact, I would actually prefer this game over the MMO.

You can check out the video, which pits Yda and Livia against each other at the Castrum Centri, below:

Note that people who really want a fighting game based on the Final Fantasy franchise have the Dissidia franchise as an option, although don't go in expecting the game to be pick up and play.