Sword Art Online Fatal Bullet Best Item Drop Bilud

Since we're all about disclosures hither at Niche Gamer, I should mention the fact that I have never watched the Sword Art Online anime, nor have I, at least until now, played whatsoever game based on the series. It wasn't due to distaste or revulsion, but rather, due to a severe and crippling backlog likewise as a off-white amount of budgetary disability hampering the number of games I could purchase. It was a shame too, since information technology was site founder Brandon'south glowing review of Hollow Fragment that made me want to try them in the get-go place.

Honestly, that'due south what finally drew me to buy a Sword Fine art Online game and bravely enter the series. Seeing one of them popular upward onto Steam's coming soon list with screenshots of rifles being fired and grenades being tossed sent the Racast-loving Phantasy Star Online nerd within me jumping for joy. The game looked every bit like the same RPG that took over my life on the Sega Dreamcast, and I figured this would be the best chance for me to get into a serial that I had always wanted to explore.

And so how was it? Did I end up becoming a Sword Art Online fanboy and watching harem anime nonstop?

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: Dimps
Platform: Windows PC (Reviewed), PlayStation four, Xbox One
Release Date: February 23rd, 2018
Players: ane-4 Players
Price: $59.99

Sadly, it did not, but what the game did do is brand me believe that I can have absolutely no connection or dear for an intellectual property and still savour the game off which information technology is based.

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet makes this possible by relegating the anime serial' regular cast to mere background characters that either exist solely equally shopkeepers, or as lifeless automatons that you can swap in and out of combat with no repercussions. Dissimilar the other games that crave y'all to play equally the main graphic symbol Kirito, Fatal bullet has you lot create your own hero (who tin as well be female) and also craft your ain android love-bot likewise. This non just helps detach itself from the linear nature of the other Sword Art Online games, merely gives you the take a chance to build your ain dream waifu and spend the next 50 hours in the game staring at her (or his) rear end in cut scenes.

When not gawking at android anatomy, your main reason for progressing forward is to unlock the mystery of a newly added area to the game and how it connects to the unfairly obtained android you found at the starting time of your MMO quest. Information technology'southward one function Hack GU and two parts Phantasy Star Online, which ways you lot're going to be more interested in min/max'ing characters and earthworks for rare loot drops than y'all will reading text or following the narrative.

As if you lot couldn't tell already, the plot of the game is extraordinarily thin. Though I'grand certain diehards of the series volition lambaste me for saying so, Fatal Bullet is not a game yous play for a gripping anime-inspired tale of intrigue and romance. While you lot can befriend and bed a character of your choosing, this isn't Mass Effect 2 and you lot're non going to develop feelings for your comrades the manner you lot practice in other similar games (The Dot-Hack series included).

No, instead you'll be swapping them in and out but to become their affection rating to 75% so you can obtain the best ending, which is a grind fest that will tack on another 30 or then hours to your game fourth dimension.

I really wanted to like the characters and get to know them, merely since none of the audio is translated to English and the subtitles are hard to move my eyes down to read when a dozen snipers are pecking at me from barely visible rooftops and I'one thousand busily scanning for their perches, it makes it hard to abound attached. Even the scenes in betwixt missions where Kirito and his friends talk over their plans with y'all are plain vanilla, since it requires you to have played the previous games and have watched the anime to "get" the personality quirks each person is exhibiting. Granted, I admit that is more my error than the designers, but I still believe that not adding English voice overs during combat kills a huge corporeality of the game'southward potential for making new entrants into the series care nigh their teammates.

Thankfully, as bad equally the story and label are, the gameplay is good enough to relieve it. While it's not Unreal Tournament – or fifty-fifty Halo – in terms of depth and skill required to principal it, Fatal Bullet fits nicely in the Destiny/Borderlands/PSO mold by being a dainty activity RPG that thinks it's an FPS.

Gameplay is fast, sharp, and highly addictive. Though people have expressed anger virtually level imbalances, mob re-spawning, and lack of variety in the Fatal Bullet forums, information technology's no dissimilar than what yous'd discover in Borderlands, and that game is still celebrated by far too many people for existence the FPS/RPG standard bearer. Overall, Fatal Bullet'south combat is ane of the better examples of a hybrid shooter that you lot'll ever find.

To sympathize why I'm defending the game's combat, you lot have to wait at what they've added to make it more than approachable to non-shooter fans and people playing with a gamepad. That feature, which is a special aiming style you lot can toggle on and off with a key press, is a lock-on manner reticule that resembles the i yous find in the old Panzer Dragoon games. While its intent is to take you run and strafe while however keeping your bullets trained on your enemy, there'due south a couple little wrinkles to it that really evidence its cleverness.

First of all, that aiming way won't always connect. It's notwithstanding governed by your agility stat and the base of operations accuracy statistics of your weapon. Secondly? You won't be hit caput shots or weak point knocks while in this mode…unless your agility stat and accuracy ratings are abnormally loftier. That right there is where the genius lies. While it's an machine-aim style that would announced sacrilegious to any half-decent FPS fan, information technology's actually a mere skill check subconscious behind an aiming reticule.

…and anyway, if y'all actually desire to gain power, you demand to learn the crafting systems.

Crafting and upgrading in Fatal bullet isn't rocket science. In fact, it'south pretty bog standard as far as JRPGs go. What's neat almost information technology is that while it's elementary, it handsomely rewards min'max'ers who know to how to stack traits and similar to exploit highly broken systems.

Item rarity goes from greyness, to red, to blue, to yellow, and then finally to green. As you lot get up a level, the weapons that drop with that color gain more than item traits. And then, for example, a ruby item may have 2 traits (Like 50% against machines and thirty% increased accuracy) while a green item has 8. The existent trick comes in using unlocking fries to open up up those trait slots and altering them. What this means is that you can take unwanted traits out of a weapon that has good percentages and stack it with some other weapon'south much more preferable traits. While you'll lose the onetime weapon, you'll gain a much stronger new one, complete with the perfectly selected statistic boosts and bonuses that fit your play mode.

To save myself from typing out another three,000 words, allow'due south put it this way: If y'all want a dream gun that completely and utterly breaks the game, you lot can farm enough garbage weapons from trash mobs until y'all bandy enough of the right traits in and make such a weapon. Thing of fact, you can make several of them, and give them to your A.I. controlled android waifu and so she can benefit from your crazed devotion to RPG munchkinism also.

The only downside to this is that the computer-controlled teammates y'all have aren't exactly bright. While they did heal me and performed a competent job raising me from the expressionless in the rare times I poked my caput out from behind a tree and got one-shotted from 2 miles abroad, they weren't very adept at knowing who to set on and from where to set on them at. The A.I. simply has no concept of cover, nor do they know how to strafe either. Their only skill is standing still and firing, with just the occasional forward scroll or crouch to avoid incoming bullets. This is especially true of the player-created waifu, which for some reason is far more clueless than any of Kirito'due south Sword Fine art friends.

So the story is weak simply the combat is fairly decent, but what most the niggling things? Dungeon multifariousness, world size, and quest depth? Well, that depends on how much you're expecting from a game whose series was more often than not known for being on portable machines.

First of all, the game isn't open up world. Though it's cut into large "zones" that take "dungeons" poking out of them, it'due south more similar behemothic bland boxing arenas filled with re-spawning enemies. There aren't "towns" except for the hub area you're based in and the game owes more than to Phantasy Star Online than it does Borderlands, since those zones are awfully cramped and disturbingly lifeless. Granted, there are some nicely positioned points of cover and buildings to spring around while trying to outgun enemy mobs, but if you're looking for some sort of traditional co-op online RPG, you're non going to discover it hither.

Secondly, diverseness – or the lack thereof – is a huge problem with Fatal Bullet. While in that location is a off-white corporeality of dungeons to get farming for loot in (once the story unlocks them), they all mostly look the same. At my best estimation, there are but one-half a dozen different tilesets used for dungeons, and they echo incessantly throughout the game. Clearly, the game's upkeep didn't favor the art department.

Tertiary and lastly, the quests themselves aren't much to brag about either. Most of your side missions will originate from a merchant stall in one of the hub rooms that dole out "hunting" tasks, which require you to eliminate a uniquely-named monster or a player that the NPC deems as needing to be PK'd. It'southward typical MMO fluff, which is, to be off-white, probably the kind of thing the parodical nature of the game is suppose to exist going for. Either mode, it works, but may turn off those seeking something deeper. Then once again, this is an action-JRPG, not a European CRPG, and so you lot can't concord that confronting them.

Overall, Fatal bullet is a dainty diversion that should appeal to those who similar activeness-ey games such equally Ys or PSO. Information technology can be equally unproblematic or as complex as you need information technology to be – cheers to the wonderful crafting and unlocking systems – but the absence of any character growth and the stifling lack of diversity in enemies, dungeons, and quests will turn off more discerning gamers that aren't used to these detriments that were one time graciously overlooked in early 2000s era JRPGs.

For me, Sword Fine art Online: Fatal Bullet was a great game that scratched that aforementioned "I want to blow things up and gain power" itch that Borderlands and PSO did for me, and while I wouldn't desire anyone to pay full price for such a game, I'd highly recommend it to bored ARPG fans that take hold of it on sale and demand something to get them through a lean gaming menstruum. Everyone else, however, may want to back away. Specially if yous aren't into the anime.

Sword Fine art Online: Fatal Bullet was reviewed on the PlayStation 4 using a review copy purchased by Niche Gamer. Yous can observe boosted data about Niche Gamer's review/ethics policy here.

The Verdict: 7.0

The Good:

• Fun, easy-to-learn, addictive combat
• Clever and highly exploitable crafting arrangement
• Graphics look great when ramped upward.
• You can build, romance, and sleep with your own waifu

The Bad:

• Repetitive enemies and levels
• Weak story/quests
• Enemy imbalances/difficulty spikes requiring grinding/crafting to boom through

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Source: https://nichegamer.com/reviews/sword-art-online-fatal-bullet-review/

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