Gamers logo

Sword Art Online: Lost Song Review

Explore Sword Art Online's ALO world through this partial MMORPG

By Adrianna MartinPublished 7 years ago 6 min read
Like

Sword Art Online: Lost Song is essentially a partial MMORPG. It creates a limited MMORPG setting without forcing players to utilize online features unless they choose to.

Lost Song takes place during the anime’s second season, sometime after Gun Gale but before the party first meets Yuuki. The story itself is not that elaborate, focused on the player singing idol, 12-year-old Seven, who is also a renowned scientist in real life.

The plot surrounding her and her fan club is slow-moving, padded by Kirito’s group’s progress through the four new domains within ALO. The conflict begins as a struggle against the clock for the group to beat the game before Seven’s guild, Shamrock. However, soon the group meets a mysterious player named Rain. As her story unravels, she turns out to be connected to Seven. The plot is not that intriguing, however, it is quite cute at times, and I enjoyed meeting the new characters.

In addition to the main plot, you have the opportunity to activate scenes with various party members. These scenes, as well as the main storyline, unlock CGs and videos which you can view at any time. The scenes are typically short and involve only Kirito and that character. As I will explain in the next section, this can make fighting during these scenes demanding. The good news is that the game warns you when a scene involves fighting so that you will not go in unprepared. Most of these scenes follow side quests, but the highlight of them is the character interaction.

If you have seen the anime, you know that all the girls like Kirito despite the fact that he is already dating Asuna. The game pulls the harem trope to the max, not only placing Kirito in precarious situations with the girls, but directly telling Kirito to be careful not to be unfaithful to Asuna. A series of scenes allow you to escort certain girls to an in-game festival.

After taking all of them, you earn a trophy called “Ki-bo’s a playah!” and Agil sends you mail telling him not to flaunt his youth. Even when Kirito is not alone with a girl, the game flaunts ecchi-ness. Not only do you get to see the girls wearing cat ears, school uniforms, and bathing suits, but in one of the scenes they are actually attacked by an octopus. Yes. Japan’s notorious tentacles. Compared to that, it seems respectable that the game also allows you to dress nearly all the girls in a swimsuit or bathing towel (without any similar clothing choices for the guys) and that their boobs move as they breathe.

Leafa clothed in a bath towel (taken from Anime Destiny Gamer's youtube video)

Gameplay

The battle system is equally fun and frustrating. You can control any character you choose. However, you can only initiate the character scenes as Kirito. Each character type has a set of weapons they can wield. You can also set each character with unique magic attacks and skills.

You are allowed to hold three characters in your immediate party, while holding a full party of 10+ characters. All characters at the start of the game begin at level 100, but newly unlocked characters begin at higher levels (with the exception of one of the final unlockable characters who begins at level 200).

The easiest strategy to cut down on your play time is to focus on one small set of characters to fight as. I focused entirely on playing as Kirito, Asuna, and one other character (first Leafa, then Yuuki, then Rain). The downside to this is that, as I said earlier, character scenes force you to play as only Kirito and that character. If you never level them up they are prone to die during those scenes leaving you to either use up a bunch of healing items or continue the fight all by your lonesome. It also does not help that Kirito can only use healing abilities on himself.

Enemies in each domain have about a 100-level increase from the last, meaning that you need to spend a lot of time grinding to catch up. It isn’t impossible to progress at a lower level, but it typically takes a long time to defeat bosses that way.

So, it really comes down to what you would rather spend your time on: grinding or fighting the bosses. Grinding isn’t difficult, but it takes time and is monotonous. Plus, after you reach a certain point in each domain a high-level dragon appears which will attack and ultimately kill you if you aren’t careful to avoid it. That said, I was able to beat the final level 580 boss without much trouble at level 445 as well as the optional second-final boss of level 1000 at only level 460.

There are some small annoyances in the general gameplay as well. As fairies, all characters can fly. However, until around halfway through the game, there is an altitude limit which prevents you from flying past a certain height. There are also invisible boundaries you can accidentally fly into. Generally, they aren’t a problem except when you are fighting a boss. I took more hits from bosses due to getting stuck between them and the boundary than I can count. Flight mode also sometimes activates on its own (particularly during boss fights), but luckily it is just a minor nuisance.

The game tries to be as much like a real MMORPG as it can, so you must constantly return to the town in order to save or change your party members. All weapons you find must be identified in town before they can be equipped even though it takes a while before the smithy becomes available.

Items earned from side-quests automatically go to your warehouse that can only hold 450 items. Therefore, if your warehouse becomes full, you must sell something before completing a quest. Finding the correct enemies to fight for quests can also take some time.

As with most MMORPGs, you can also create custom avatars through limited selections. In my opinion creating these characters is a waste of time since it is much more productive to develop Kirito's skill since you are forced to play as him during game events.

These custom characters also all begin at level 100, meaning they take longer to progress than official characters. However, if you are more invested in exploring the world and battling for battle's sake than progressing in the story, these characters serve as a fun immersion into the world setting.

Verdict

Overall, though a long play, it is an enjoyable one. The feel remains consistent with that of the anime, balancing between emotion, comedy, and romance. I would have liked it if the plot had developed a bit sooner and been more elaborate. I would also have enjoyed it if more of the scenes were emotional rather than the comedic haremism. However, by balancing these two sides, the game is able to appeal to audiences who value both genres. As enjoyable as seeing more from the characters, what truly stands out in the game is exploring the world.

Story: 6

Characters: 8

Gameplay: 8

Atmosphere: 10

Enjoyability: 8

Overall: 8

rpgproduct review
Like

About the Creator

Adrianna Martin

I am a geek all the way through. I am a fan of anime, manga, video games, movies, shows, books, and just stories in general. I am also interested in spiritualism, social activism, and the supernatural.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.