Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet - PlayStation 4

"Welcome to the world", Okay so maybe its more like Ain-gun but that's alright with me, I have been waiting and waiting and finally SAO fatal bullet is released and honestly I love it, but my reviews are always about the glass being half full so that's obvious based on the fact that I'm writing a review at all. I personally have a great fondness for SAO games and watching them grow in quality with each iteration is like watching a dumb little baby grow into a less dumb teenager and then into a adult with the ability to work a faucet like a pro, but I digress the primary reason I am attracted to SAO games is because I will always enjoy the simulated MMO single player turducken that they've become "its like a game within a game". So fill up those glasses folks and lets dig in.Story: As always I hate spoilers so how about a vagueler, you are the main character playing a shooting MMO for the first time with your childhood friend and intensity intensifies. You have a AI companion that you can play dress up with and you meet all of the super anime characters of the SAO universe plus some new friends with their own parts to play, best part is you need no true prior knowledge of SAO or Gun Gal (the MMO this game takes place in) just jump in and enjoy yourself.Gameplay: This part is my favorite, in a landscape where so many publishers and even developers try to close off basic features of an experience to make the player pay for them later this game gives you plenty of options and choice of fun and frantic activities, they mostly revolve around shoot this thing, get the stuff off of its body and make more money to buy items that will help you shoot more things. However the game-play loop is very satisfying with many different items, clothes, accessories and weapon options even within the same category, skill is required to master the combat but with assist aiming, positioning and mobility are vastly more important than having the ability to 360 no scope some noob, but even with the great crutch of assist aiming (which can be turned off for more challenging and precise combat) you can still find many challenging battles against the games many NPC's and PCNPC's (I know right!) but for balance sake if there was a scale of RPG to Shoot style games this game would lean far more to the RPG side, so while a fun and satisfying 3rd person shooter this games is more of a fantastic RPG. P.S. While there are some multiplayer aspects that focus around PVP or Boss raiding I would not put that as a primary focus for this title, but if you have a friend that also has the game you can link up and show off your skills, or lack there of.Graphics: Its great to see what they did with the unreal engine, the character models look great and the environments while a bit dead, still look pretty neat and get the job, I'm not writing home about the vistas but they work. While some of the clothing options can jank out for hilarious results all in all the graphical upgrade is pleasant to the eyes.Sound: I love the music in this game its usually either techno or fantasy or some kind of amalgamation of the two, sort of like Phantasy Star online, the voice acting is Japanese but if you rather not here Japanese girls go crazy for girly boys you can always turn the voices off. The sound of each gun is different based off of the gun itself which is quite impressive some sound more explosive than others, but I'm sure that was a design decision, the only issue I ran into with the sound is that sometimes when a handful of very loud noises go off at the same time other sounds will become a bit stifled, but its no where near immersion breaking.All in all I love this game and knowing how SAO games are improved constantly once they are released I know this game will also receive extensive updates that constantly expand the scope of the game-play loop and the experience for each player. If your on the fence about fatal bullet and you like looters or shooters or SAO games, then pull the trigger, hopefully you'll be happy you gave this one a shot.

Easily the best of the series gameplay wise, though don't expect as much content as Hollow Realization (but do expect a better translation). Overall it was clear that gameplay was the major focus - the game is developed by the Freedom Wars team - and the story, though quite decent, is lacking in some respects, particularly in the Death Gun Kirito Mode. That said, Kirito is easily the most mature andlikable of all the games here (though he's been alright in the other titles like in HR).Don't expect a robust romance between you and your chosen girl, though things are nicely quaint and you never get the "whoops! I fell over and your chest is in my face!" type of harem humor which turned a few people off. The characters are consistent, the story is light but tight, and it can be a blast to go through. It feels pretty short, though, since you don't have to grind very much if you know how to use the terrain to your advantage and get good drops off the enemies. There's not a whole lot of replay value unless you like the shooting as much as I do. No post-game content per se but you have NG+ and can still play at a certain point.IMPORTANT: You really don't have as much to do with the characters as you did in HR. FB is focused on setting up gameplay and following the story, whereas HR was definitely more about the experience than the gameplay. If you want more bridal carrying, hand holding, and VN-style scenes then this won't satisfy you, but if you want a fun JRPG where you hang out with and even sleep with (lol) the cast of the games and anime along with new characters who are largely well developed, then you're gonna have fun.I have attached a pic to help you get the True Ending. You can look up some methods to up your affinity with the characters online but it's quite a grind letting them die (I used the big pig monster) and reviving them for 5 points a slam. Worth it, though, as each character has a fun or filled out side-story, both for the Player and for Kirito. Also, to get the true end you need to follow these steps and get one of the lesser/bad ends first, but you don't start all over from the beginning. NewGame+ keeps your level, money and equipment but you lose your affection with the cast (duh) so get ready for another revival grind.

This is a great sword art online type game with many improvements. As soon as i loaded the game there were almost 10 gigs in updates which adds a lot of new content with more to come, with or without owning the season pass, which brought mine to over 19 gigs. I like the shooting mechanics with plenty of drops and materials with a crafting system in play. You can also upgrade nunerous weapoolns and many weapon types from grenade launchers to light saber swords to your standard machine guns and pistols. There are many skills you can use like previous sword art online skills but they are tailored to each weapon type with some able to use across all weapon types. Overall the story is generic but still good. I would give this game a 9 out of 10, especially at the 25 dollar price i paid for it new. I would highly recommend this game to sword art veterans and new comers alike and does not require previous games to understand it or play it, but will help with certain returning characters development. The main characters are all new minus kirito and his friends whom take a supporting role in this game instead of a lead. I look foward to future sword art online games and love the multi-player additions to this game, and the future updates and support being released even after the game came out. These updates were not necessary but made the game soo much better and shows the support for these games from the developer is very good and real, after release and development of the successor yet to come.