I knew that I was in for a mighty slog when the tutorial of Sword Art Online: Echoes of Aincrad, felt like it went for an hour all by itself. What a winding, long-winded, slow-paced dungeon that was. And then the game opens up to become a massive… long-winded, slow-paced pile of content.
I might be overly sharp in saying that, but I’m also playing the Granblue Fantasy port for Switch 2 right now, and dusting off my replay of Xenoblade Chronicles thanks to the Switch 2’s port of that. Not long ago, I also got hooked all over again on Tales of Arise and Echoes of Aincrad just doesn’t have the same spirit going for it. It’s ambitious in scope, yes, and true to the vision of the anime property, so it will find some fans there, but it doesn’t stand on its own two feet particularly well.
Take, for example, the “Log Out” option in the menu. You’ll think you need to use that to save and exit the game because that’s how Elden Ring works (we’ll get back to that comparison soon), but every time you select that, the game tells you that “now is not the time to log out.” If you’re like me, you’ll assume at first that the game must be preventing you from exiting because you’re around enemies. Or in the field. Or in the middle of a quest. It took me two hours to realise that the ACUAL exit to the game was buried in the “Settings” menu and that the “Log Out” button does nothing.
This is because, for people who aren’t familiar with the property, Sword Art Online tells the story of people stuck inside an MMO thanks to a… shall we say “less than hinged” creator that won’t let them leave unless they complete the game. And, unfortunately, that game just happens to be a gigantic slog.
The reason I bring up the “Log Out” button is to highlight that at every opportunity the developers err on the side of being faithful to the anime, and this means making their game a gigantic, generic MMO-like slog. I’m genuinely impressed with the commitment to using the video game medium to support the artistic and creative vision, even if that means you have to compromise on the “best practice” wisdom for game design. I wish more developers would do that. It’s just unfortunate that in this particular case the result is something that you’re going to need to be a real die-hard Sword Art fan to fully appreciate.
Anyone else picking up the game is going to need to settle in for a grind and a half before the more intriguing parts of the narrative pick up (it does come; it’s just buried deep into the experience). The game is a retelling of the plot of the original anime, after all, and as fans will tell you, Sword Art Online became the global behemoth it did thanks to it being a surprisingly sharp and dark take on the isekai genre in places. And, basically, Elden Ring light. Echoes of Aincrad borrows heavily from the general way that combat and progress work in Elden Ring, just without the crushing difficulty. Bosses are extended, lengthy battles held immediately after save points that respawn all enemies. Once in combat, you’ll be moving around much like your Elden Ring avatar, dodging attacks, managing stamina, and looking for windows for the counterattack. It’s easier (much), and might well be the first Soulslike that people who find Souls games insurmountable can still take a swing at, but the heritage is there.
It’s just not made as well as From Software’s work. There are small irritations, such as poor visual and tactile feedback, meaning that it’s not always perfectly clear what’s going on, especially if there are multiple opponents involved. Bosses lack the variety of Elden Ring, and you’ll see the same ticks come up over and over again. Your AI allies aren’t always the most intelligent we’ve seen in companions, and your control over them is a little too limited. And you do need to complete a quest before exiting the game, otherwise, you’ll find that you need to start that quest from scratch the next time you load the game up. Individually, none of these little quirks breaks the experience, but the sum of them leaves you something substantially messier than Elden Ring.
The production values are there, and Echoes of Aincrad frequently offers stunning vistas and excellent monster design. And I suppose that at a basic level, the only people who would really buy into a Sword Art Online game at this point would be Sword Art fans, so delivering something that they will appreciate is what the developers needed to do to hit the brief.
It’s just that we’re in the middle of a flood of high-quality JRPGs, from indie through to the big blockbusters, and Sword Art Online: Echoes of Aincrad does limit itself in a way that doesn’t do it any favours. The creative and narrative vision is bold and respectable, but offering a poor aping of what many would consider to be the finest game ever made in service of that creative vision was an ill-advised move.
