Echoes of Aincrad, an original game and story set during the events of the first season of Sword Art Online, is an interesting idea for a game, one that mostly delivers, particularly for fans of the source material or for those who like the anime aesthetic in their fantasy games.
I’ll be the first to admit it: I’ve only watched a handful of Sword Art Online episodes, but to my surprise, this limited knowledge of the franchise made me align more closely with the cast of characters in Echoes of Aincrad. Unlike SAO proper, Echoes of Aincrad places players in the shoes of essentially a background character. Echoes of Aincrad opens with your player among the lucky (or perhaps unlucky) few granted access to the SAO Beta, which, in-game, serves as the extended prologue of the title.
In the opening hours of the game, during the Beta, players learn that their friends have already made it further ahead, only to be tricked by PKers (player killers), which forces a new, desperate allegiance with a solo player named Ito that your character runs into in the first dungeon. After thwarting the plans of the malicious PKers, you quickly discover that you and Ito work well together, becoming friends and promising to meet up again once the full game releases.
Flash forward a few weeks, and the game starts proper, or if you want to go by in-game time, it took me around 3 hours to finish the prologue. Game Studio Inc., the developers of Echoes of Aincrad, have done an admirable job of creating a single-player experience that feels like an MMORPG (for better or worse, but more on that later). One way this is achieved is through the first chapter of the game, after the prologue, in which the game prompts you to create your own character, separate from the player avatar in the opening sequence.
“Key characters from the source material do make an appearance, but through the lens of the Echoes of Aincrad’s main cast, meaning new players like myself won’t feel lost.”
From here, you’re essentially put in the first episode of SAO, where players learn the true intention of the titular online game, a sinister death game where dying in-game means dying IRL! A magic mirror is then placed into everyone’s inventory, revealing to each other the true face of the players stuck in Aincrad. This element has an interesting narrative hook for some of the characters in the story, which I won’t touch on for those planning to go into the experience completely blind.
Like the series proper, Echoes of Aincrad’s story is one of trying to beat the odds and survive the 100 floors of SAO. The game’s narrative does a good job of balancing story beats straight from the anime with brand new sequences from the perspective of the player character and their friends, who have their own story to tell. Key characters from the source material do make an appearance, but through the lens of the Echoes of Aincrad’s main cast, meaning new players like myself won’t feel lost. At the same time, those who do enjoy SAO will likely appreciate the new perspective of familiar faces within the new narrative.
In terms of the actual gameplay loop, Echoes of Aincrad is unfortunately more of a mixed bag. Not to say the game is bad; rather, it suffers from a repetitive gameplay loop and a world that is too big for its own good. As Echoes of Aincrad apes an MMORPG structure, the levels are vast, but the game fails to provide enough meaningful content to justify the size of most maps.
Story quests boil down to trudging through swaths of repetitive biomes, with the same pool of chests, quest items and mobs in between you and the end goal littering the way. The game does throw some environmental puzzles here and there, requiring the use of bombs, talismans and other items to proceed, but these generally just lead to more chests. Some areas within the game are walled off by locked gates, requiring the player to find terminals with optional bosses that unlock them, but again, these generally just lead to a single chest or a dead end.
Echoes of Aincrad also loves forcing players, at least early on, to revisit the same locations over and over again, with thinly veiled narrative justifications for the bloat. Thankfully, things do pick up eventually, but it does hamper the first several hours of the experience. At the very least, the story in Echoes of Aincrad is good enough that, if you can stomach the repetitive nature of the gameplay, it can be worth sticking around.
“At the very least, the story in Echoes of Aincrad is good enough where, if you can stomach the repetitive nature of the gameplay, it can be worth it to stick around.”
Combat is fine, nothing spectacular, but offers enough variety to give players some agency in choosing their playstyles with a wide selection of melee weapons. Party characters can also engage with the player to deliver devastating coordinated attacks, which adds a nice amount of flair to the overall experience. Your gear can also be upgraded, and many weapons can be crafted from recipes strewn about the world, adding solid depth.
For those playing the game on PC, if you happen to own a VR headset (and a decent rig), Echoes of Aincrad is built using Unreal Engine, meaning it works well with UEVR, a hook that can convert many Unreal titles into VR experiences. Playing the game in VR is a truly novel way to experience it that works surprisingly well and fits perfectly into the world’s lore.
Ultimately, Echoes of Aincrad is a decent game, particularly for a licensed anime title, making it worthwhile to pick up for SAO diehards or those looking for an interesting story, enough to overlook the somewhat repetitive gameplay loop.
