© 2023 Keiichi Shigurezawa/KADOKAWA/GGO2 Project
The final episode focused on Karen and her thoughts about quitting the game because she had achieved her original goal and was upset about how other players viewed her. In this episode, she puts all that aside to focus on the promise of getting her into this playtest and Third Squad Jam: Battle against SHINC.
While Ren’s team and SHINC both want to fight, there’s a small problem, they’re not alone on the battlefield. Zemar, the machine gun fanatic, doesn’t care what the other team’s needs or goals are. They just want to shoot until they run out of ammunition. Even after Team Ren and SHINC team up to kill them, they still have two more lives, meaning the battle needs to be postponed until the other teams are eliminated. And, while Ren and SHINC may want to fight, everyone in the two groups except Ren wants to play the game and face off against the “new AI NPCs” in the castle.
So the second half of the episode introduces the threats our heroes face in this arc. Not only is the new NPC able to kill Lian without any problem, but they can also take out SHINC and MMTM with ease. Not only did their strategy and teamwork exceed PvE AI expectations, but none of them used the game’s built-in aim assist. Like M (or Shion in the original series) when sniping, they shoot with real-world level skill. All of this suggests two possibilities. Either A) they are the same AI as Alice, or B) these are not NPCs. Instead, they are real, well-trained soldiers.
Either option would unlock many story possibilities. On the one hand, if these are AIs from Underworld, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. especially at this moment Sao According to the timeline, the Underworld should be completely isolated from the outside world. On the other hand, we’ve seen paramilitary groups test the waters with Gun Gale Online in the past. At this point, what better training challenge could there be than to test your army against the strongest teams in the game, especially if all you have to do is pay the GGO owners a bunch of money to arrange What about things?
In the end, this episode is action-centric, putting more personal concerns aside to have some fighting and a proper introduction to our protagonists. There’s honestly a little too much exposition in this episode – especially the parts detailing enemies and their equipment – but part of the series has always been “gun porn,” so that’s to be expected. The episode even ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, with ZEMAL trying to switch sides (probably because they have more targets to shoot for). Will they be admitted into the castle or simply shot? (My money is on the latter.)
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Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation and the majority shareholder of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
