Sword Art Online first started as a novel back in 2009 and quickly became a manga and an anime. In 2013, the first videogame, Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment was released for the PSP. It was well received and now we have a sequel to it, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. Both video games take place in an alternate storyline from the stories, using the same characters.

While your hero, Kirito, has a specific look that exactly matches as he is in the stories, you can choose to change his appearance if you want. There are thirteen hairstyles of any color you want, eight face types, seven different voices, and you can choose any eye color you want (you can even make each eye a different color). Just remember that the cut-scenes will have Kirito’s default look. The rest of the characters look just like they do in the other game and other works. The new characters look like they fit in just perfectly. They’re all bright and colorful and look like anime characters.

Like most good RPG’s, the background music is quite pleasant and it fits the game quite well. The spoken words are all in Japanese with English subtitles and the voices are quite pleasant and fitting. Since none of the action happens while they are speaking, it doesn’t really matter that it is in Japanese. You’ll be just fine. If you happen to so desire, you can just turn off the sound totally and read everything that you need to know.

After you name your character (you don’t have to go with the default) and customize your look, you start right in Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. Provided you don’t change the name, your hero is Kirito. He finds himself facing a giant monster while he is battling a girl, Philia, who is almost as strong as himself. She will help you defeat the monster. This battle gives you a chance to learn the basics of fighting. Once you have the basics down, you find out that neither one really knows where they are located in the Sword Art Online (SOA) game. We do find out that Philia has an orange cursor because she once killed someone. Kirito’s hand gets some weird glowing symbol on it, so Philia teams up with him to take him to a place where she once saw that symbol. Since they’re lost anyway, it’s as good an option as any.

Once you do get into the sphere, you find it is your safe zone and you can use it to teleport to and from various places inside the Hollow Area, which is what Philia calls the strange place Kirito found himself in. You also find a normal teleport pad that will let you get back to Arc Sophia, which is your main base. Kirito heads back but Philia stays behind. When he gets back, all his friends (almost all of them happen to be female) are happy to see him as they were really worried! After all their scenes, you can choose to "recall" what happened in the previous game, which is quite helpful if you’re like me and didn’t play it. Basically, Sword Art Online is a fully virtual game where the players have all their senses connected. Unfortunately for the 10,000 players in the beta, they found out that there is NO option to logout, until Heathcliff (in real life Kayaba, the game developer) has been defeated.

Unfortunately, once that happened, the game still didn’t end. It has now been 2 years that they have been stuck in SAO, unable to log out, with no clue what is happening in the real world. Now they’re all stuck on floor 76. They can’t go any lower, so they must climb to floor 100. That brings us to the current time, which is where Kirito found the way into the hidden Hollow Area.

Back in Arc Sophia, you will get messages and requests from people in town. These are good things to do simply because they will help you on the quests. It turns out that Kirito is the only one who can access the Hollow Area and he can only bring one person with him, so each time you go back, you will need to figure out who to take. They all want to go, of course, because the more things that they find in the hidden area, the stronger they will become and the stronger items that they can find. They all want to become as strong as they can to get to the top floor, floor 100.

I really wish there were more save points in Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, especially in the beginning. I died twice trying to get through the first level just because I was determined to beat some really big creatures. Really, I died once and Philia died once, which taught me that if you don’t keep your partner alive, it is game over as well. Whenever you die, you have to recover from the last save point, which means you will lose any EXP or items that you have earned since that save. Of course, after that I just went through to the end and figured I’d come back for those things later.

Since you can hit (Triangle) and see the status and health of your enemies and also use (Triangle) to throw something at them to lure them away from a group, if you are careful enough then you should survive everything. I am not patient or careful by nature, so I died a bit more than I should have. Granted, you can get yourself into sticky situations at times and make your life much more difficult. Basically, the difficulty of your game is all based on your style of play and how reckless you are.

The mechanics are a bit complicated in Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. (O) is attack, but it only works when your Burst Gauge has some charge to it. You also have an SP gauge which allows you to use skills. You can also order your partner around. You can use (L1) to pull up the skills and partner menu. (X) is dodge, which can be quite handy because you are temporarily invincible. Of course, you will need your Burst Gauge to dodge as well. (Triangle) will let you see the enemy level, which is quite important to figure out if you should attack them or not. You can also use (Triangle) to throw a weapon at an enemy to lure them away from the rest, making them easier to take down. There are a whole lot more controls that you will learn about in the tutorials at the beginning of the game. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is quite a bit more complicated than a simple hack n’ slash. Once you get the hang of it though, you’ll be just fine.

I feel like I was missing something by not having played the previous game, but it was nice to give us a quick recap. I didn’t feel like I missed anything from the actual gameplay though. I’m just one of those people who likes to start at the beginning. If you’re looking for an RPG that has slightly more complicated gameplay, but still non-turn based action, check out Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment today.