The new installment of Sword Art Online has surprised many fans of this incredible franchise, as no one expected a new game to be announced. This time I have had the joy of being part of the closed beta of the game and I can say that the game looks pretty good, no doubt they have improved in many things over the years.
Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream has shown off its closed beta
During the week of March 11 to 16, all those who applied to be able to test the closed beta of the new game Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream, and in this note I will tell you what Bandai Namco has prepared for us with Kirito and company. The closed beta will last for three days in total, being March 11 the first day where the servers were opened, after that day the servers would reopen on March 15 and 16, 2024.
The new Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream game brings with it some pretty fresh ideas to the franchise, as the first thing that can be noticed in general is the aspect given at the time of playing. The first thing that stands out is that in this beta we have Kirito’s life bar at the bottom left of the screen, also, in this adventure we have the “ultimate skills“, which, as the name says, are skills that characterize each of the characters in the world of Sword Art Online.
In this opportunity that I was given to test this beta, I could notice that from the beginning Kirito is the main character. However, we also find quite mythical characters such as Leafa, Sinon, Agil, Argo, Oberon and the protagonist Kirito, each with their characteristic clothing and iconic weapons, in addition, I could see that the only one who carries two swords from the beginning is Kirito, while the others only carry a single weapon.
During the first few minutes, the Sword Art Online beta focuses on teaching the basics that every gamer in general knows. However, Kirito’s abilities must now be charged through the hits he makes on the enemies, that is to say, Kirito in this beta does not need to consume any type of elixir to regenerate any mana bar to use the abilities. Although we must take into account that the skills need certain combinations of buttons to be activated, although it is not necessary to have a control with a million buttons to be able to activate these skills.
But undoubtedly, one of the main attractions of this beta was the fact of being able to obtain the “ultimate skills“. These skills are characterized by being the most iconic attacks that we got to see in the first season of the anime, so when activating Kirito’s skill, he will make his Starburst Stream attack, giving a total of 16 consecutive hits with the two swords he wields.
And speaking of the two swords, Kirito wields his iconic swords from the anime, being the Elucidator and the Dark Repulser, both swords are in his hand and so far there is no animation where the swords are kept.
Something remarkable in this beta is the incredible ease with which you can level up, because even in full combat you can level up. Although this does not mean that new skills will be unlocked, since in this beta the skills are already predetermined and they cannot be changed for others, nor can the skills be “boosted” so far.
Among the most striking changes is also that the game feels more user-friendly, that is, you do not have to be aware of so many things on screen as in the Hollow Realization game, although for the moment there is no dating system within Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream.
In this closed beta, we meet one of the iconic enemies of Sword Art Online. This boss monster is one of the first ones encountered in the Aincrad dungeon in order to advance, and for all those who watched both the anime and the movie Sword Art Online Progressive will understand that this boss monster is the one that many remember for almost taking down Asuna and Kirito in the fiercest battle of the early days in Aincrad.
While there were many good things to highlight in this beta of Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream, there are also things to improve. For in this first look, I could tell that enemies suffer from a lot of “teleporting” from one place to another, but always in the same range. That is, you can have the enemy right in front of you and be in the middle of a combo of blows and out of nowhere the enemy teleports to your left or right or even behind the character.
This affected me on more than one occasion when launching a combo, even when launching Kirito’s ultimate ability. So if your combo was only focused on attacking from the front and the enemy teleported, your combo can’t change sides, so if you had just started it, it will be completely lost.
In addition to this, also the CPU of Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream that accompanies you in the adventure, although they are iconic characters, the same CPU does not perform actions if you are immobilized or you need assistance if you have removed the life bar. So it’s practically a respawn in the area, but keep in mind that this respawn does not do it near where you have been killed, but you will reappear farther back from the place of the battle, so, in my case, I had to return to the combat arena on more than one occasion and it was quite far from where I reappeared.
I should also mention that the version of which I had the opportunity to play the beta was the version of Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream for Nintendo Switch. The same was tested on both desktop and portable, the performance in both modes is quite stable in terms of exploration. For once the enemies begin to appear and you must make combos, performance begins to drop at times, as the frames in which Kirito attacked more than three enemies gave enough downturns, but without crashing the game.
The graphics in terms of scenarios is quite decent for a beta, as for the characters, they are quite well defined. So the designs have not suffered from any alteration in terms of the original designs, but if there is something to highlight, it is that Leafa was made a mega buff on her bust, so when she enters the scene to fight or support you in battle.
The physics favor her quite a lot, and although this is the beta of Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream, the bust design does not suffer from any kind of cracking or bug at the time of mobility, so we must be quite grateful with the incredible detail that the developers have marked in this first beta.
Undoubtedly, this game is on a good path and without fear I can say that this game has an air of being able to attract the attention of many new players, who have never played any of the previous games. As if that were not enough, this game will have the option of online cooperative, so the experience could be quite good, no doubt we are facing a new air of the Sword Art Online franchise and certainly with a good direction in terms of gameplay we are sure that the game can call many new players.
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