{"id":98694,"date":"2019-08-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/sword_art_online_fatal_bullet_complete_edition"},"modified":"2019-08-18T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-18T15:00:00","slug":"review-sword-art-online-fatal-bullet-complete-edition-this-anime-adaptation-misses-the-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/08\/18\/review-sword-art-online-fatal-bullet-complete-edition-this-anime-adaptation-misses-the-target\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition &#8211; This Anime Adaptation Misses The Target"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/c70381ccf55d1\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/c70381ccf55d1\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 1 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98345\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98345\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 1 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p><strong>Sword Art Online<\/strong> has been around in some form or another since all the way back in the prehistoric times commonly referred to as 2002. Originally a series of light novels, it\u2019s been praised for its exploration of themes relating to the intertwining of real and virtual worlds and the effect this has on the psyche and physicality of those who experience it in a long-term capacity. Set in the near future, it sees protagonist Kuzuto \u201cKirito\u201d Kirigaya and his friends locked in a VR tournament in which death means <em>actual<\/em> death; their real-world bodies withering away in hospital beds, they have no choice but to ascend the 100 levels of Aincrad in order to be set free.<\/p>\n<p>After this initial incident is resolved the heroes go on to duke it out with evil forces, laugh, love and form relationships together as they take part in various virtual reality massively multiplayer online games, or VRMMOs, across the several series that make up Sword Art Online as a whole. These VR tournaments and battles have changed themes over the course of Sword Art\u2019s life and it\u2019s the world of Gun Gale Online, a VRMMO based entirely around shooting ruddy great big guns, that\u2019s the focus of this videogame adaptation.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 2 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98350\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98350\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 2 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>In terms of exploring issues such as the nature of love, life and death in a VR realm or the effect of sustained exposure to VR on the human psyche, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/sword_art_online_fatal_bullet_complete_edition\">Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet<\/a><\/strong> does away with most of the series&#8217; more cerebral flourishes in favour of giving you as many guns as you can possibly handle and letting you shoot massive robots in their faces repeatedly in a variety of offline and online modes whilst keeping the melodrama \u2013 and there\u2019s a lot of very slow-moving melodrama here \u2013 firmly grounded in oddly misogynistic conversations, teen relationships and subservient robot ladies territory.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Sword Art Online has also often been criticised for its attitudes to women, who tend to exist or survive in order to placate men. For the most part, it seems women&#8217;s futures are controlled and often roundly cut short because of the &#8220;heroic&#8221; decisions of the male characters, and it doesn&#8217;t take long for misogyny to raise its head in this game in the form of a new character, Basalt Joe, who&#8217;s introduced early on in the plot and is, for all intents and purposes, a grubby middle-aged man with a worrying fixation on young girls, their bodies and the idea of owning them completely.<\/p>\n<p>In something of a departure for the series, rather than assuming the role of a Sword Art Online character, here you create your very own avatar with which to engage the world, planting you right in the middle of the action as a blank slate for the first time. There is an unlockable Kirito mode available as you progress through the story \u2013 complete with its very own ending \u2013 but to begin with, you have an all-new identity.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 3 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98352\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98352\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 3 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The story begins with your carefully created character (there\u2019s a robust creation suite on offer here, especially if you like to spend time making sure your boobs are <em>just<\/em> the right size) winning a rare item in their very first game of Gun Gale Online, which turns out to be an ArFA-SYS robot, or Type X, which takes you as its master as soon as it clocks you for the first time. The Type X will be your fighting companion in Gun Gale Online; the most advanced robot of its kind, everyone wants a piece of it but it\u2019s all yours and you\u2019re almost immediately whisked back to the character creation suite to give it a name and make sure it\u2019s proportioned to your tastes. You can even give it pocket money if you like, so it can buy things. No, really.<\/p>\n<p>From here, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet proceeds to spend in the region of around an hour slowly explaining its various systems to you whilst introducing a cast of characters no doubt familiar to fans of the series. It\u2019s glacial stuff and isn\u2019t helped by the fact that in the aftermath of such a long tutorial we <em>still<\/em> didn\u2019t know how to equip new weapons or have the gear we found in our first match evaluated without having to resort to looking it up. There are lots of menus and access points to get your head around here, points to assign, gadgets and skills to unlock and level-up and XP to spend. There\u2019s crafting, customisation and clothing galore, and you can even make your own outfits. The wealth of guns at your disposal can all be upgraded and fitted with as many different boons and traits as you could possibly imagine and at the end of every match you play you\u2019ll be hammered with stuff to sift through in your inventory, walking off the battlefield with all-sorts falling out of your pockets. It really is all quite overwhelming.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 4 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98349\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98349\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 4 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Most of this would be fine of course if it wasn\u2019t for the fact that the actual gameplay in Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, the famous Gun Gale itself, is actually rather boring, bland and repetitive stuff. Arenas tend to vary between the tiled corridors of an industrial complex \u2013 grey room following grey corridor, following grey room \u2013 or endless featureless tundra filled with identikit enemies who may <em>occasionally<\/em> vary in colour but generally always stick to the same combat pattern of standing about in exposed areas shooting at you until you kill them. To be fair, they do occasionally do stunt rolls, but rarely to anywhere that gets them out of harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside the wealth of traditional weaponry at your disposal \u2013 machineguns, sniper rifles, pistols and rocket launchers \u2013 you\u2019re also equipped with the Ultimate Fibers Gun (or UFG for short), which you can use to fire at a location and then transport yourself there via a magical laser tether. As a means of traversal, it\u2019s certainly got potential, but it\u2019s never utilised in any meaningful way and it&#8217;s actually its secondary function \u2013 knocking airborne enemies out of the sky then nicking bits off their bodies for equipment \u2013 that you\u2019ll find yourself using for the most part.<\/p>\n<p>The arena combat in Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet reminds us of nothing more than when you decide to \u201cgo loud\u201d in any <strong>Metal Gear Solid<\/strong> game pre-<strong>V<\/strong>. There\u2019s that very same feeling of unease. You\u2019ve got all the latest equipment, you\u2019re armed to the absolute teeth, you\u2019ve got a gadget for every occasion stuffed into your trousers, but you <em>still<\/em> can\u2019t shake the feeling that the controls are going to let you down when the heat gets turned up.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 5 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98351\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98351\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 5 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Everything is slightly more awkward than it needs to be here; even throwing a grenade \u2013 which requires you to tap the right shoulder button to get to gadgets, then hold it in, press whichever face button you\u2019ve assigned to grenades and aim in roughly the area you want it to go, which it usually won\u2019t \u2013 is painful. You can dodge out of the way and do a little forward roll, but neither of these manoeuvres is 100% guaranteed to get you out of harm\u2019s way. You can also crouch behind things, which is, we understand, universally regarded as a good thing to do if you&#8217;re being shot at, but you can\u2019t shoot over barriers, so when you want to return fire you\u2019ll need to get back out there, fully exposed, take a shot and move again.<\/p>\n<p>The shooting also feels rather imprecise with no tangible feedback, even with the &#8216;assisted&#8217; mode engaged, and this is partially down to the fact that enemies don\u2019t react to being shot beyond the obligatory damage numbers floating out of their bodies. The guns also tend to feel light and don\u2019t have any real bite or satisfying noise to them, which is a real shame because a lot of time and effort has obviously been spent modelling them and providing as much information as you could ever want as you purchase them from the game\u2019s store.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, if you\u2019re willing to forgive Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet its long and drawn out melodramatic sequences, bland level and enemy design and slightly clunky combat systems, there is plenty for you to sink your very forgiving teeth into here. The aforementioned customisation options are deep and you can gear and spec your avatar up in an impressive number of ways. XP earned by defeating enemies can be spent on levelling-up the skills required to handle better guns and accessories that grant you special tactical effects. CP can be poured into six different areas of growth \u2013 the usual strength, vitality, intelligence, etc \u2013 and the weapon and outfit customisation really is almost endless.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 6 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98347\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98347\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 6 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Returning to SBC GLocken, the VR world in which you live outside of the VR tournament in which you partake, you\u2019ll always have a ton of merchandise to sell for credits to use for endless tinkering. Your Type X is also fully customisable and levels-up alongside you, and you\u2019ll certainly be kept busy organising both it and yourself for the next quest or battle.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of modes there\u2019s an impressive number of things to do, from solo story missions, side quests and bug or treasure hunts, to co-op battles with up to 3 other human players (and their Type-X companions) and a PvP Mark mode, which sees one specific human player with a bounty placed on their head being hunted by other players for a big prize. One unfortunate thing we did also notice over the course of this review is that currently the online modes seem pretty sparsely populated and getting into a game or joining up with other human players was a real hit or miss affair, at least in our experience.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 7 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98348\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98348\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Review - Screenshot 7 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Fans of the series are, obviously, guaranteed to get much more out of what\u2019s on offer here as they\u2019ll likely be much more engaged in the drama that\u2019s wrapped around the gameplay, and with that aforementioned unlockable Kirito mode and multiple endings to see there&#8217;s certainly plenty of story here for those who&#8217;re into it. For everyone else, if you can somehow ignore the often troubling attitudes to female characters, there\u2019s still an <em>okay<\/em> experience to be had if you\u2019re really, <em>really<\/em> into shooting stuff and hoovering up collectables in between long breaks for interminable chatter between Sword Art Online\u2019s cast of characters.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of the port itself, in both portable and docked modes, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet runs pretty much flawlessly on Switch. There&#8217;s a very definite blurring of the image in handheld but with a huge game that looks as good as this often can it&#8217;s not really a big surprise to see the resolution dropped for portable play, and, although the image is much sharper docked, it still looks good in both modes. Furthermore, we didn&#8217;t notice any framerate problems or bugs in our time in SBC Glocken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sword Art Online has been around in some form or another since all the way back in the prehistoric times commonly referred to as 2002. Originally a series of light novels, it\u2019s been praised for its exploration of themes relating to the intertwining of real and virtual worlds and the effect this has on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}