Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris ultimately failed to meet the growing expectations I had for it in the months before its release. Still, as a die-hard Sword Art Online fan - and a JRPG fan in general - I was more than willing to give the series another chance. But with the anime series not being active lately, what kind of impact can Sword Art Online Last Recollection make?

Sword Art Online Last Recollection adopts the setting from the last season of the Sword Art Online anime - War of Underworld.  Kirito and his party are diving into an experimental virtual reality world called the Underworld, striving to reach a peace agreement between the two factions of this highly realistic fantasy universe. This is where Bandai Namco's title immediately deviates from the story of the anime. In the anime, the Human Realm and the Dark Territory clashed violently until the total destruction of the latter. In this title, however, the publisher opted to form an alliance between the two territories.

While I admit that I'm generally pleased with such positive outcomes, the narrative in Last Recollection barely adds anything to War of Underworld. The new relationship between the party and Dark Territory characters such as Dee Eye Ell is certainly entertaining, but the story content pretty much ends here. The last part of the game involves storming perilous shrines, but there's a surprising lack of additional scenarios likely to enhance the experience. I spent hours battling relentlessly in said shrines, which is fine in itself, but I couldn't figure out what was at stake. An RPG doesn't absolutely need a strong story, but the absence of one is a bit of a pity for an IP as story-heavy as Sword Art Online.

Bringing the Human Realm and the Dark Territory together is the perfect occasion for Bandai Namco to further increase the number of playable characters. The publisher duly provides the largest number of allies in the series, including some Dark Territory characters who died in the anime. Moreover, it brings back every original heroine who has appeared in Sword Art Online games for the last ten years, which the company stopped short of doing for Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris. That's 43 characters in total - enough to make several different teams in each chapter. It's safe to say this is paradise for any fan of the anime series. That said, I don't like the original heroine of this installment: Dorothy. She spends half of her screen time weeping and ends up playing a somewhat passive role. Frankly, she comes across as a fairly unnecessary inclusion from the publisher.

Visually, Last Recollection is quite decent, although not on a par with model rival JRPGs like Tales of Arise or Star Ocean: The Divine Force. The anime rendering of the characters is likable, although uneven, and battle motions are quite convincing. The world created to materialize the Dark Territory actually impressed me quite a few times. The total surface area is much smaller than the Human Realm in Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris, but the developers took the time to give to every place a unique look, with monumental architecture and surprisingly interesting level design. Some dungeons and fields have verticality, which spices up exploration. It's a step back in terms of scale compared to three years ago, but I prefer the trade-off here. There are also tons of weapons with classy designs.

A lot has been made of the battle system in this entry, and I do think this is critical when recalling the (poor) state of the previous game. The development team gave this sequel a genuine strategic side by introducing roles. Characters are divided between three roles: Arms, the attacker who deals maximum damage; Invincible, the defender absorbing damage; and Alliance, the support units who can share any buff with the whole team. Dodging and guarding has become much more dynamic and prominent; evading and guarding briefly slows the action and nullifies damage, and the execution of this is quite natural. The changes combine to make a clear difference on the battlefield, both in terms of the flow of combat and player enjoyment.  

Last Recollection also retains the classic action-RPG formula of combo-based gameplay. You can customize the combo of your current player character by setting three attack skills of your liking. On the top of this (already extensive) combo, you can set and use four other skills via R1 plus the PlayStation button. You also have commands, so you can give orders to your three other teammates to, most notably, attack or defend at the same time. There are quite a few options to make the system more interesting to play and the major battles become really intense. 

Finally, on top of all that, there's a break gauge system, which unfortunately ends up being wholly inefficient. There are quite a few types of break, which are used when an enemy prepares a charged, air, bullet, or defense skill, and there's a specific attack skill your current character needs to have to perform them. Four types of break attack is frankly too many and makes the feature overly complicated. And even when I had the right attack skill at the right time, the opponent's guard wouldn't always be broken. It ought to be a lot more intuitive and have a more tangible impact on battle performance.

In Last Recollection bosses have a considerable amount of HP - one dungeon towards the end had something like seven bosses, each with seven million HP, for instance. This is far too much. Worse, many of these large fiends actually aren't very aggressive and they don't do much damage, so it just makes the fights... long. A great action-RPG needs to be exactly the opposite of this. Fortunately Last Recollection also provides better-balanced, enthralling showdowns like the sensational final fight. Roles could do with being tweaked too; the defender tends to fall rather quickly (quite ironic for a role called "Invincible"), and the attacker's power could be leveraged more in order to cut down battle times. But while balance issues clearly still remain, the improved battle system makes the overall experience much more enjoyable than what we got three years ago.

The tracking of sidequests is frankly awful. It's very difficult to figure out what needs to be done and where. Thus I couldn't clear that many of them, and they're of little importance anyway since you get equivalently strong gear in treasure chests along the way. This meant I cleared the story in about 35 hours. As a bonus, there are numerous named (very powerful) monsters on the map for anyone who feels the zillions of HP they already had to work through wasn't enough. The main story has some really nice real-time cut scenes, but character quests are made of cheap 2D cut scenes, so the side content has to make do with an older style. These quests do unlock some fancy artwork, although I only saw four pieces in 35 hours. You have to increase the friend level of each character but, seeing as I couldn't max even one in all my playtime, it seems like a massive chore to achieve this with all of them.
 
While Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris was bitter, Sword Art Online Last Recollection turned out to be sweet enough for me to enjoy it. There are more characters to choose from than ever before, the combat has improved enough to feel great despite annoying balance issues, the world is interesting to explore, and the game is visually convincing. It's a genuinely good product for Sword Art Online fans, but a bit less so for others. The clumsy storyline and the lack of polish for certain gameplay mechanics prevent it from qualifying as a truly great JRPG overall.

After graduating from a French business school, Thomas felt an irresistible force drawing him to study Japanese, which eventually led him to Japanese Profeciency Test level 1 in 2012. During the day, Thomas is a normal account manager. But at night he becomes Ryuzaki57, an extreme otaku gamer hungry for Japanese games (preferably with pretty girls in the main role). His knowledge now allows him to import games at Japanese release for unthinkable prices, and then tell everyone about them. You may also find him on French video games media. Feel free to contact on twitter at @Ryuz4ki57