September 8, 2014

SAO: Syntax Are Original?

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine suggested I watch Sword Art Online. I blew it off, since he always got super excited about different anime that I, "Just HAD to watch." It wasn't until last year when another friend compared it to Dot//Hack that I got interested in the show. Then I binge-watched the entire series (at that point) on Netflix. I fell in love with the story and the world and drank it all up, even though the thought of being trapped in an online game had a few problems.

Compared with my experiences with other MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft, I saw a few flaws in the show's premise. First was the fact that it took 2 years to beat the game, and even then, only because they discovered the man responsible for the whole undertaking was with them and were able to fight him on the 75th floor, instead of the 100th floor, shaving off another year of entrapment, more or less. In a real-world situation, the game would've been completed in a few months, since there are a lot of MMO players who level grind. And level grind. And grind and grind, killing the weakest enemies over and over again until they reach the level cap. Then the rest of the game is a cakewalk. While Kirito was supposed to be super strong and special for getting to level 100 long before anyone else, in reality, he'd be far behind those people who did nothing but kill slimes all day and night. (Since it seems like the world of SAO doesn't require things like sleeping or eating to survive.)

Second, the game split itself into elitist groups, by ostracizing and attacking the beta-testers, dubbing them cheating beta testers, or Beaters, which if the game wasn't a full-body experience, would probably be an accurate statement of a fair number of them. Not only does this seem counter-productive, it completely flies in the face of what the actual completionists in the game would be doing. Instead of driving them away, they'd become remoras, sucking onto the accomplishments and know-how of the more experienced players to get better loot, even second-hand from the better players.

And finally, it seems to me, that the explanation that the series gives to answer my first two problems is that there seems to be some sort of EXP economy in the game. Like, there are a finite number of monsters every day, and once they're dead, they're gone. Not only is that a really stupid idea (people play RPGs to watch bars increase, not wait.) but it also makes no sense. There's an infinite skill system, or rather, a highly specialized skill system at play. There is no correlation to your sword skill and enemies that you kill, but rather how long and how frequently you use a skill. This works the same for cooking, smithing, tailoring, and creating jazzy show-tunes (I'm sure it's a bard-specific skill). And before I catch flak for that last jab, yes, I know that there is no rigid class-system in SAO.

Problems aside, when I found out that there was a SAO video game for the PS Vita, I immediately began paying attention to an otherwise overlooked and awesome handheld for the first time. (What's wrong with it and all that jazz is a topic for another time.) The first game I bought for it, of course, was the english translation of SAO: Hollow Fragment (or whatever.)

I was super-stoked for this game for two reasons. First is that I miss playing Dot//Hack on my PS2 and a portable Pseudo-MMO sounds fantastic. It would fill that niche I needed for a grind-heavy action RPG that works so well on short trips on the bus. Second was the idea that SAO was already a pretty well established game in the anime, so the actual game, even if it caught a tenth of the game in the show, would have to be really engrossing and awesome.

Then I got the game.

Despite having a pretty neat character creation system, you play as Kirito from the anime. Not really a problem, except that I named my character Tekk, and so all my status screens and stuff say Tekk, but Kirito is the character. So, there's a separation from my character and Kirito. I changed his appearance to look more like Kirito in the anime (AKA the default) but I can't change the name back.

Second, was having to play as Kirito at all. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem being forced to play as a certain class or a character in these games. I mean, I happily played as Kite, a twin-blade, when I would've preferred a heavy in Dot//Hack. But I wasn't given the illusion that I could create a player at the outset of the game. So when I made a bitchin' orange-haired, fluorescent green-eyed samurai Tekk, I was caught off guard that everyone called him Kirito and he was, in all important aspects, Kirito.

The next issue I encountered was the fact that it starts you off at level 100. Now, this truncates to level 1 pretty easy in my mind, but I'm given a dozen skills that I didn't earn right off the bat, with equipment that I didn't earn, and 10,000 exp to go until 101. So I feel like I picked up someone's Final Fantasy VII save right after Aerith died, so I have no idea how to play the game nor have I grown to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of certain attacks. While some people praise the fact that you don't have to have the low-level grind of most RPGs, I actually like that part. A lot. The first 20 levels is where you can really feel the difference between level 1 and level 2. I mean, when you start off with nothing but a basic attack, and then you get a finishing move, you start to really appreciate that finishing move and when is the best situation to use it. It allows you to adjust the flow of battle to your experience and preference. And more importantly, it introduces only one element at a time.

That's where the beginning of SAO:HW falls flat on its face. The game starts off with a pseudo-boss battle, which is supposed to act as a tutorial to the combat system. But instead of doing it a slower-paced, one element at a time, way like most games would  opt for, it throws everything in a few splash panels and then starts.

In more words, I prefer a tutorial like the following: First asking if you want to skip the tutorial (a necessity, really). Then, this is the battle screen. Here is your health. It regenerates after some time. Once it hits zero, you die. (There are no resurrection options available to you) Here's your Burst Gage. This tracks your stamina. It depletes with every swing of your sword. Having a full gauge allows you to chain more attacks together to make a combo. Give it a shot. Then you play for a bit, watching the burst gauge fill and deplete. Then it would pause for a moment and explain the risk meter right next to your burst gauge. Then it would explain special moves and the SP bar. The ideal tutorial allows you to become familiar with a concept or mechanic before pushing you along to the next that relies on the previous to understand fully.

Instead, this game starts you off with a 3-page splash panel that uses terminology that you're not familiar with yet. What is a burst gauge? What does it do? Why is there a risk gauge next to it? Are they connected somehow? Probably. But you only get the vaguest kind of answer from the game as it sums up the entire use in a sentence before moving on to the next part, the SP bar and special attacks. So you're still reeling from the first part, then they throw part two and three at you. Very confusing.

All of this is compounded by the worst part of the game: the translation. On the whole, the game is pretty okay. But the translation has less care than some early PS1 imports, and in this day and age, that is an unpardonable sin. I've heard others complain about this, but a lot of people shoot them down by being all, "You can get the gist, and that's all you need!" to which I respond, if I just wanted the gist of a game, I'd watch someone else play it. SAO has a fun array of characters and an interesting world I'd love to get lost in. But when someone says something like, "He has a pair of ace" it makes it really hard to get lost in that world. But the mistranslations range from laughable like the above, to almost gamebreaking. In the game, you can talk to your companion to change their battle-tactics. They'll say something like, "Attacking quickly is a great strategy." Then you can respond, "You're a great help!" or "You've got my back." It took me a couple of tries to understand that what they're saying to you at the outset is a question. (I.E. Would you like me to focus on normal attacks?) then the responses follow the normal RPG convention of positive option one or negative option two. To make the exchange more understandable it should read more like, "Attacking quickly would be a good strategy... Should I focus on that?" to which you could respond, "That would be really helpful, thanks!" or "You're doing great with what you're doing now."

But that still holds nothing to the dating sim part of the game. Now, this bleeds into another gripe which I have a little further down, but the companions you have can get closer to you by having chats with them. This turns into a small mini game where they say something and you get the opportunity to respond with either "..." or "!!!" to which I figure means, a passive statement to move the conversation along, or an agreement or contribution to the conversation, depending on what the companion is looking for. I don't know if this is an error in translation, or if the original game text made this impossible to deduce out of logic. Because the conversations usually follow something like, "...The legendary table..." to which you can (correctly) respond "!!!" which belts out a hearty, "Indeed." I mean, it seems like you're only catching snippets of the conversation, which is fine. But if you want me to know what you want me to say, give me a little bit of background. And I'm not making that example up. That's one of the first ones I ran into talking to Asuna and got correctly by guessing.

I don't know what the relationship system is supposed to do. Especially since the start of the game starts after the happenings on Floor 75, but before the end of the game world or something. Which means that the relationships that Kirito has are already set in stone. He's married to Asuna and they have Yui, who is like a surrogate daughter. That is canon both in and out of this game. But they treat Asuna like someone else who is just vying for Kirito's attention, not like they've already been married and spent months together living alone. So when I try to hold her hand or carry her in the town, she gets embarrassed like, "Wh-Wha??? Do you think we're at that relationship level yet?" To which I respond loudly to my Vita, "We had crazy cyber sex and you're embarrassed to hold my hand? WHAT THE HELL?" And this segues into my largest gripe that I've run into: Leafa is there.

Leafa, is actually Kirito's sister who started playing an MMO called Alfheim Online after Kirito beat SAO and released everyone. Her appearance in SAO:HW is not only anachronistic, it flies in the face of several canonical issues in the lore of the game. First of all, how did she get a copy of SAO and access to the server two years after the news broke that everyone in the game is trapped in a digital prison/game of death. Second, why does she get to keep a custom avatar from a game that hasn't been developed yet, when everyone else had their avatars removed at the outset of the death game? And thirdly, and most importantly, why does she tell Kirito that she's his sister? And then constantly make suggestions raging from oblique to explicit that she wants him in a romantic way? It took most of the Alfheim saga for him to realize that Leafa was his sister, and for her to realize that Kirito was her brother. And even then, they didn't discuss her incestual feelings of attraction to her brother until a while after that momentous occasion. In the game, they stumbled across her in a forest and she's all, "KIRITO! There you are! It's me, your sister! lol" Which, again, makes no sense any way you slice it keeping the world they're living in, in mind. The only rational explanation you can make is that they added her to keep the game fresh and exciting. The developers of SAO:HW, not SAO in the game. When the only explanation for a key character existing in the game is a meta-answer, then you've failed.

All of those points aside, it's a pretty fun game and it fills the exact niche I was looking for. The combat is repetitive and if there's a lot of variance, I haven't really found it yet. I'm sure if I wanted to, I could find something online that explains it in more detail, but I haven't gotten there yet. On the whole, if you're a fan of the series, you might enjoy the game, but if you're a fan, you'll also run into the same issues I ran into. If you're not a fan of the series, but are looking for a action/RPG with MMO elements, then you'll probably enjoy it more than a fan of the series.

In the end, I really hope that they make an SAO game that allows you the freedom of starting a new MMO. Character creation and exploration starting from the ground up. Dot//Hack had a great set-up for that. While you played as only Kite, it let you understand how he worked from the beginning and you got to customize his abilities through the ability system in that game. What's more you were more attached to Kite because you suffered through so many deaths together in those low-level moments. I would kill for an SAO pseudo-MMO for the Vita that has nothing to do with the core-story of the anime. Or if it does, it's tangentially related, so as not weigh down the player with a bunch of canon. I mean, again, Dot//Hack did a great job of keeping Dot//Hack.Sign and the game series separate and connected. SAO is already set up and established for that, they just need to create a little more of a game. Even if the entire game was the plot of SAO with Kirito and Asuna removed (or left in, but in the background) the game would be fantastic.

But that's all my own gripes, I suppose. It's not the game I really wanted, but it's pretty fun as it is.