Echoes of Aincrad Review

Pros & Cons

- Captures the fantasy of being trapped in an MMORPG far better than the anime
- Heartfelt character writing
- Fast, satisfying combat with
- Meaningful weapon variety
- Gorgeous art direction
- Outstanding soundtrack.
- Flexible progression system that rewards experimentation
- Exploration feels frustrating
- Repetitive dungeon design
- Crafting feels undercooked
- Open-world pacing can be tedious

I hate Sword Art Online. It’s not the worst anime ever, but it is an anime with some of the most squandered potential I’ve ever seen. The premise of a shonen battle anime set inside a MMORPG where dying in the game means dying in real life actually opens the door to some really compelling character drama. Instead, what we got was several seasons of interminable isekai tropes, harem tropes, oddly antiquated gender politics, and a power fantasy protagonist so blatantly vapid, he makes Goku look nuanced.

When they started making videogames based on Sword Art Online, I was intrigued by the prospect because I thought a game might be the perfect place to realise the anime’s unrealised potential. Unfortunately, all we got were these weird single player ARPGs that approximate the aesthetics of MMORPGs while still refusing to move on from Kirito and his friends. And when you only focus on the cast of the anime but can’t retell the stories from the anime, you very easily step into “filler episode” territory which essentially all the games are.

I’m telling you all this now so you know the expectations I had when I went into Echoes of Aincrad. This game’s marketing has been a bit strange to say the least. From the initial tease of “a new action RPG from Bandai Namco” to its many trailers all the way to its very title, it really looks like they’ve been downplaying the fact that this is a SAO game. The game’s full title “Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online” isn’t even used in any of the digital store listings, and on the box art the subtitle is so small you would be forgiven for missing it entirely.

I did find this strange in the leadup to launch, but now having played the entire game, I think it might have been the right call. Because Echoes of Aincrad seems to be designed entirely with the intention of catching the attention of new players who enjoy RPGs, regardless of whether or not they’re into the hater club like me, well I have good news for you

The game begins with a lengthy tutorial prologue cleverly disguised as the Beta Version of the upcoming Sword Art OnlineMMORPG. You’ve given a pre-made avatar that you can’t customise while you get to grips with the many gameplay systems. You’re introduced to combat, crafting, levelling, questing, but most importantly you’re introduced to the supporting cast of characters. Over the course of the prologue you make and befriend Cal, Argo, Iori, and a few others all of whom bond with each other over their genuine love of videogames.You all become online friends and promise to party up when the full game launches.

After the beta, you’re allowed to create your own character for the ‘full game’, but that launch goes horribly awry as the game’s designed locks all the players in, removing the ability to lock out, and changing all their avatars into their true face-scanned selves. This is where you’re premade avatar is ‘revealed’ to be your customised character. And of course, if you die in the game, you die for real. What starts as a wholesome experience turns into a desperate fight for survival.

It is here, I think, that Echoes of Aincrad really reveals its true intentions. This is not a game interested in retelling the story of the anime, and it’s even less interested in Kirito and his friends. The events of the anime unfold mostly off screen. In one particularly inspired section, a major Raid Boss that was a bombastic action sequence in the anime plays out in the far distance, while you and your party are just running support and fighting adds. A little anticlimactic? Perhaps, but I was grinning ear to ear.

See, Echoes of Aincrad is doing the thing the anime should have done. It’s trying to get at the heart of people who like RPGs and why they play the games they play. Every character you meet has their own playstyle, but also their own motivations for why they love this game. Cal wants to bond with his estranged brother by introducing him to this game he loves, Iori likes being able to exist in a world without boundaries or real-world baggage, Stina is an actual weeb who just really loves Japanese games and uses them as a way to learn the language. It’s not the most inspired writing but it is very believable and compelling.

Outside of what I think is an excellent story, Echoes of Aincrad is a bit of a mixed bag. I’ll get the positives out first before I really rip into the game. It is visually stunning. The developers have combined realistic 3D environments and lighting with cel shaded character models to create this gorgeous mixed media pastiche that may look a bit rote in screenshots but looks drop dead gorgeous in motion. Characters and monsters look amazing and have expressive animations. Particle effects really make the battles sing, too.

All of this is complemented by a fantastic background score that seamlessly transitions between thumbing battle music and lower-key ambient soundscapes that feel like they could’ve come straight out of Breath of the Wild. The cumulative effect of this aesthetic and soundscape is that Echoes of Aincrad perfectly captures the semi-meditative experience of zoning out while you explore a gorgeous MMORPG world

The actual combat that drives this whole thing is also quite good. Rather than trying to approximate the hotbar-driven style of traditional MMOs, Echoes of Aincrad is a light soulslike affair in which you lock onto and strafe around enemies while mashing light and heavy attacks that draw from a stamina bar. In addition to the basic combat moveset you also get “sword skills” that are special abilities that run on a recharge mana bar. The moment to moment rhythm of combat involves getting your hits in while you wait for your abilities to prep, then dumping your cooldowns into the mobs. Enemy variety keeps this from getting stale, and making clever use of your skillset will allow you to get through fights quicker.

You’re also always accompanied by a partner character that can spice things up. Unlike most games, the partner AI is actually competent in a fight and follows commands, and each partner has their own special abilities that can really help you out in a pinch. Wyzeman is a tank, Iori is a healer, and so on. Bringing the right partner to the right quest can make a life easier, but I stuck with Iori throughout the game because it makes the most sense narratively, and I was never punished for it. Enemies themselves pack quite a punch and even on the normal setting, I was often fighting for my life, but there are easier settings available for those who just want to experience the story.

The combat is bolstered by a very simple yet effective progression system. You gain XP to level up and every level-up gives you a few battle points to put into your stats, with a helpful tooltip on the side that always tells you what each stat does. You can add or remove points from stats any time you want with no penalties, and even reset your entire build for no cost. This is helpful for when you want to switch weapon classes, as each weapon type has an entirely different moveset and scales to different stats. This system may not be in keeping with the lore of Sword Art Online, but it’s an absolutely excellent thing to have in an action RPG.

There is also a fairly rudimentary crafting system where you use materials gathered while questing to craft and upgrade your gear. This is great, though I did find it a bit lacking as there is no way to buy materials you don’t have. It’s also hard to know which materials are available in which area or are dropped by which monsters. There is an in-game glossary that will tell you everything about materials and monsters, but not which you can find where which, I’ll argue, defeats the purpose of a glossary.

But my biggest gripe with Echoes of Aincrad is its structure. While this is technically an open world, you are never allowed to simply go out and explore at your leisure. You can teleport between towns but the only way to step out of a town is to select a mission from your quest journal, and only specific chunks of the map are given to you depending on the mission you’re currently on. I can see the vision in not wanting to overwhelm players with scale and keep their eyes on the prize, but the end result is that you will see obvious paths right in front of you that, should you try to take them, the game will simply teleport you back to the “quest area”. In several instances I was able to get close enough to a chest or door to pop the “interact” symbol, but the second I press the button, I get teleported 10 feet away from it. This could be easily remedied by just adding a “free roam” option that lets you explore the entire map to grind and collect stuff without any quests to guide you, because right now it makes exploration more frustrating than fun.

Beyond the open world you also explore dungeons that house bosses and the best loot, but these got very repetitive very early on, in terms of their layout and design. Once you roll credits on the story, you unlock a roguelite endgame mode that adds procedurally generated dungeons which really lays bare just how barebones the dungeon crawling aspect of this RPG is

In the end, the only thing that brings Echoes of Aincrad down is some boring world design, and a weird structure that drags down the pace of its otherwise excellent story. But luckily, unlike the characters in Sword Art Online, you always have the option of logging off and taking a break, which is something I highly recommend. Because when you take Echoes of Aincrad slowly, one quest at a time rather than trying to binge its grind, it can be something really special

Final Thoughts