Accel World Vs Sword Art Online Review: Not Worth the Money

Videogame adaptations of anime series are usually a hit or miss thing. Some are really great while others are a waste of time. You’d think combining 2 different anime series would easily make it a success but unfortunately, this is definitely the latter. Today, we’re going to look at Accel World VS Sword Art Online: Millenium Twilight, a PlayStation 4 crossover-anime adaptation with an emphasis on virtual realms by Bandai Namco.

What is Accel World VS Sword Art Online About?

The game seems to take place after the events of Sword Art Online 2, with Asuna rescued and her spending time with Kirito and Yui in the virtual world of Alfheim Online. All of a sudden, a server-wide announcement was made; “We will be carrying out urgent maintenance today starting now.”

After hearing the announcement, Yui, who appears differenPS4  than usual, departs to an unknown location under the guise of going to sleep. While Kirito and Asuna were chasing her, they were attacked by a mysterious black machine life-form that is familiar to Accel World fans.  A robotic being known as Black Lotus.

After the brief confrontation, it turns out that Black Lotus has been tricked by a person named ‘Persona Vabel’, whose mission is unknown. All that is known now is that the virtual realm is changing, and the accelerated world and virtual world are merging into a singular realm, which can spell doom for both worlds and the players. The heroes then set on a journey to save Yui, and the world from destruction.

Gameplay

At its core, Accel World VS Sword Art Online is a Japanese role-playing game. You’ll have a wide variety of choices in terms of playable characters but you can only take up to 3 at once. You’ll have the main quests to follow in order to proceed with the game’s storyline, and be able to take part in side quests that aren’t mandatory, but can make progressing through the game much easier thanks to its rewards and additional experience from battles during quests.

And yes, you will have to battle enemies in order to grow stronger. Your characters can level up as usual, which will increase their parameters but your skills and techniques can level up on their own as well. You just have to keep using it, and this will lead to that skill either being stronger or easier to cast. You’ll also be able to equip a variety of weapons for your characters, with each weapon having their own specific set of skills.

To explore the game’s world, you can either walk on the ground or do character-specific skills that will make travelling easier. For instance, Sword Art Online’s Kirito can freely fly whereas Accel World’s Black Lotus can only do high jumps. While travelling through the world, enemies will pop up in the map, and players are free to either engage them or avoid them completely. In essence, this game has the basic role-playing game elements integrated but there’s nothing special about the game. In fact, it gets worse from here.

The Combat System is Horrible

Accel World VS Sword Art Online’s combat system seems to be inspired by the Dynasty Warriors-style hack and slash system.  However, it does so quite poorly. As the map is generally huge, you’ll have enemies not only on the ground but also in the air…high up in the air even. For starters, the lock-on mechanic isn’t exactly user-friendly. You need to be really close to the enemy to be able to properly lock-on.

Secondly, you don’t have a move that can really home-in on an enemy when you’ve locked on to them. Take Kingdom Hearts for example. The moment you lock-on to an enemy, your movements and attacks will be focused on that enemy automatically. That’s not the case for this game as you still need to manually adjust your movements and skills to accurately hit your enemies. Most of the time, my attacks ended up not hitting because I’m either facing the wrong direction or the camera angle gets wonky.

Third, the A.I.-controlled enemies and allies seem to behave quite strangely. The enemies don’t seem to actively attack you, and even they are having trouble landing their attacks while your allies are easily taken down in boss fights. This was a 1-star boss fight mind you, which is considered the easiest in the game and I personally didn’t have trouble with. My A.I.-controlled party members however are constantly taken out, which forced me to revive them and use up my items.

I’ll give credit to the game when it comes to the executable skills for each character. It’s easy to use, there is a huge number of skills that each character can utilize, and you have quick access to said skills via customizable shortcuts. To an extent, this gives flexibility to fit most players’ play style while making it easy to use them. However, the fact that it can be hard to land a hit with these skills at times makes it quite a disappointment.

Accel World Vs Sword Art Online Verdict

I had hopes that Accel World VS Sword Art Online would make for at least a decent game. Perhaps, my expectations were set too high but one thing’s for sure; this game is a major disappointment. I am personally a fan of both Sword Art Online and Accel World, so I thought it would be something enjoyable for me but turns out I was wrong.

The game would have been so much better if the combat system was more enjoyable but even then, the storyline seems to be a modified rehash of existing storylines from their respective anime series. This game is only worth getting at a discount, and that’s if you are a hardcore fan of either of the anime series. I would personally rate Accel World VS Sword Art Online with our Bronze Pokdeward!

If you’re looking for a game to play, check out our review of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. It’s cheaper than usual PS4 games and is jam-packed with content ;)