A Recollection Of The Past... | Sword Art Online Last Recollection Review

Yes its finally time for Sword Art Online Last Recollection, this review is long overdue but here it is, we are finally diving in to it! And honestly as it’s been awhile since I played a Sword Art Online game I was looking forward to it!

Last time I played a Sword Art Online game which was not the greatest success… To a degree I can get over the heavy focus on monetization, lack of design or something like that. But I can’t get over the fact that whenever I boot up a Sword Art Online game there is a huge amount of good potential wasted on purpose.

My hope for Sword Art Online Last Recollection where unusually high. The trailers showed and promised things that got me very excited. Exploring the Dark Realm, a land the anime just skipped through, a direct continuation of story and world of Alicization Lycoris. And the newest waifu for the Kirito gang –Dorothy- looked very promising.

In other words a lot potential a lot of hope aaand lot to be ruined… but who knows! These games have surprised me a lot in the past! Sooo maybe it will do it again.

#sao #swordartonline #swordartonlinelastrecollection

--Credit--

--Chapters--

00:00 Intro
02:05 Story
05:05 Dorothy
06:07 Visual Presentation
08:49 The Kirito Issue
10:51 Combat
17:21 Conclusion
19:47 Outro

[Nathoryane-LM]

“Yet I still get my hopes up every single time” I feel you brother

[ark]

Funnily enough, iirc the devs said that LR initially was supposed to be Lycoris dlc but that plan had changed early on. My guess is because the Lycoris game engine was barely holding itself together. While was prolly the smart thing to do, it ended up hurting both games in the long run. Imo Lycoris shouldve been the game made on Unreal 4 and LR just a large scale expansion. Maybe then both could’ve reached closer to their full potential.

[Innocuousmale]

You would think they'd have the common sense to make enemies less spongey but I swear it's even worse

[ExtraHecticana]

What do people generally dislike about alicization lycoris? Is it the story?

[IAmTrash]

I hate how our FB OC got sidelined. Two mentions and that’s it? Why!!!

[edboi]

Yeah, I felt the same way about this game.

In the end it just boils down to play Hollow Realization or Fatal bullet (occasionally Hollow Fragment for me personally)

I think what made me dislike this one is just the fact it plays and is just a Lycoris sequel. They got rid of the accuracy stat which was nice but even then..I’d rather just play the older games because I feel like those just play better. A shame. If they make a new game somehow I hope it’s more like fatal bullet or Hollow Realization.

[Gwindios]

The combat looks fine the first you show it, but when 4 characters are all attacking with that many visual effects it gets really busy on screen. This is a shame as most models shown like great.
Thanks for yet another review

[MinhLe]

While I dislike think gameplay is oversimplified version of Lycoris, this game has the best story by far with consistent theme and likable character in the form of Dorothy and a great conclusion to SAO Gameverse.

[MsSaskue]

all that left is acel world vs sao, the new annouce sao game that will have 20 players raid will have a single player story as they confirm, is being made by the same guys who made fatal bullet.

[smellymewi]

I always felt Last Recollection is quite redundant as a series. They could have easily integrated LR into Lycoris as a final massive DLC. The simplified battling mechanic is something I do like as Lycoris has this stupid annoying accuracy stat that make it annoying to deal with at times. I love how they make Dorothy special and unique as a new character. Not the best game I played but it is definitely one game I wont be replaying much as I havent touched the game after finishing it due to the lack of post game content.

[Kirigahime]

I feel like the overall problem here wasn’t Last Recollection but rather Lycoris itself. This game couldn’t help being compared to its predecessor which causes the negative impact of that game to linger on this game.

While yes, you could argue that War of Underworld could be added on as a DLC for Lycoris, I believe it would be limited to Lycoris’ Phyre engine. Comparing the game’s performance and how it looks visually on UE4 vs Phyre engine is a massive difference. The game runs better on UE4 which allows exploration to feel like how it did on Hollow Realization which is good. The models look way better on Last Recollection compared to Lycoris hands down and it honestly made me wish Lycoris was done on this engine rather on the Phyre engine that they used, so many stuff from that game could've benefitted from using that engine alone. Oh and swords don't magically disappear when sheathed that's a plus.

Moving over towards combat it still feels almost similar to Lycoris mainly with the animation being the same but with slight changes. Some may prefer the change while others may not to which I fall on the former. Aquria was going for the skills being more than just skill combo, trying to match it with what was provided on the audio-visual format mainly being the anime. They tried adding skills that deflect, that break, that weakens and skills that bring powerful combos. The combat kinda approached how they did with Hollow Realization with Sword Skills being the focus unlike in Lycoris where they added Sacred Arts for variety. Last Recollection's Sacred Arts were heavily downgraded in that it left many people disappointed.

Putting Lycoris aside, this game is actually solid with the story following the main points placed by Reki in the main timeline with that mainly being Vecta and Vassago's eventual dive to Underworld and how they will be forced to Re-Dive as Subtilizer and PoH later on. Eventually PoH becomes a tree and Gabriel dies irl from Fluctlight overload (Complete with the Alicia scene too). HOWEVER, since Kirito is awake as well as Eugeo being alive in this what-if scenario, the story goes differently in that regard as they have actual cause and effect that changes the approach we got here compared to canon.

The story is done by Akatsuki Kana, if you're familiar with Violet Evergarden, she is the author of that franchise. Bringing back Lycoris here for just a moment, she was the one who done the Ancient Apostle DLC 1 with Kirito and Sinon vs Fatal Scythe. She comes back to do the story for Last Recollection bringing the spotlight towards Kirito and co. and the mysterious Dark Territory Knight Dorothy.

SAO LR +
- Story is paced way better than any SAO game.
-The balance of each characters were improved meaning characters don't over stay their welcome in a scene. If they're needed than they speak but if not, no need to add non-sense comments every 24/7 of the game.
-Game original character Dorothy didn't suffer the same thing about what made Medina's character bad which was again poor pacing of the main story.
-Unison arts with unique combos taken from the anime
- Setting up the Switch mechanic for both game and story relevance. Ironically, it also explained to players and viewers its significance in Aincrad arc (canon) as well since it's a must use tactic to maximize damage, minimize casualty.
- The largest roster in a SAO game, some coming from a dead mobile game (Eydis Synthesis 10), from movies (Mito, Eiji and Yuna) and others from previous SAO titles (from Hollow Fragment - Fatal Bullet)
- ReoNa's OP and ED is top knotch
- Finally this game is also the symbol of 10 years of SAO games which primarily was continuation of the what-if scenario stemming from Infinity Moment. It could also potentially mean Aquria's final send off to the gameverse ( Infinity Moment, Hollow Fragment, Hollow Realization, Lycoris).