Review: Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream Will Only Appeal to Hardcore Fans

Sword Art Online left an indisputable imprint on the anime landscape since its adaptation in 2012, and it continues to influence shows that are coming out today. Of course, with the premise centered on people playing a VR MMORPG, many video games naturally followed. Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream is unequivocally made for veteran fans of the franchise, which might sound great on paper, but it packages itself into a niche category that only die-hard enthusiasts will find the experience cathartic, isolating much of its casual audience.

The main attraction of Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream is supposed to be its multiplayer experience. But as you need to make a reasonable dent in the primary campaign to unlock the multiplayer and the characters available, let’s dive into this aspect first. Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream harbours an independent brand new story tailored for the game, presumably occurring sometime after the Alicization Arc. Without going into spoiler territory, characters introduced in this arc play a pivotal role in the overarching story. A new, updated beta system called Galaxia has been added to ALfheim online, aiming to enable players to relive their most cherished memories of the game. However, a critical error has now ensnared Kirito within the Galaxia system. Kirito will now need to navigate Galaxia, assisted by many familiar faces throughout the Sword Art Online timeline, to figure out how to return to the real world.

Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream has the best storytelling and cutscenes across all the games, and some of the moments that transpire are superb. One that stands out vividly is right at the beginning of the game, where Kirito realizes he is participating in an anomaly of the programming, and a fight quickly ensues. It felt like the scene could have been ripped straight out of the anime, which will surely place a gleeful smile on any fan’s face. My only critique is that the overall plot requires a good knowledge of Sword Art Online. The story can be very “meta” at times, as characters across the Sword Art Online multiverse interact with one another. It’s like watching Avengers Endgame without seeing the prior Marvel films leading up. You can do it if you want, but you’ll be confused about certain parts.

The gameplay structure of the primary campaign is where things get a bit iffy. There are five chapters in total, all with several quests. Initially, your character will be transported to a new location, and you will have to travel to specific points on the map while fighting monsters along the way. In order to conclude the quest and move on to the next part of the story, you must defeat a minor boss battle. As you can tell from that description, the setup is very basic. What also does not help is that every location in the game feels empty and rigid due to an invisible barrier stopping you from fully exploring the environment. This often made me awkwardly zig-zag across the map to find a direct route. There are a few collectables you can pick up as well, which I assume is an attempt to make the environmental space not feel barren, but they are tedious to gather because of the terrain layout.

The combat is somewhat of a mixed bag, but enough distinction between the classes make it more enjoyable than not. There are six fighting classes: fighter, tank, rogue, ranger, mage and support. Each character is automatically categorized into one of these classes and plays distinctively differently from one another, which adds a lot of diversity to the combat. Kirito, in the fighting class, has his iconic dual blades, which allow him to excel at close combat while moving reasonably fast across the battlefield. Agil, part of the tank class, will move slower in comparison but will be able to endure more hits, and Llenn in the rogue class will utilize a massive gun, allowing her to attack from far away, mimicking the Fatal Bullet gameplay format. Usually, in a quest, you will pick one character to be your main fighter and can then select additional characters to join your team, but sometimes, you’ll have to play a particular character, forcing you to try out all the classes. If you want to complete the main storyline as soon as possible, you’ll want to stick with the fighter class as they feel stupidly overpowered, but all the classes have some merit to them.

Regarding the real-time combat system, there is the standard stuff you would expect to see, like normal and heavy attacks. Each character also has special and ultimate moves, which are excellent to use if you find yourself in a tight spot. However, you will have to wait for a brief cooldown before reusing one of these manoeuvres, which encourages you to think before you act. But the lock-on system is what brought down the combat for me. The game encourages you to lock onto opponents, as you can then dash towards enemies and unleash a string of combos, but it rarely works. Most times, when I tried to implement it, I would be left in mid-air or at a strange slant, so I would often attack opponents without using it, which made any flying monsters a bit trickier than the game intended.

After progressing through an hour or so of the primary campaign, you will then unlock the multiplayer mode, which shares a lot of parallels with Granblue Fantasy: Relink, as it encompasses real-time combat mashed up with MMO gameplay mechanics. The multiplayer is divided into three modes: free roam, co-op quest and boss raid. Free-roam is by far the best, as you can leisurely walk around the entire map, fight enemies and take on daily challenges. This was a breath of fresh air compared to the main campaign, which constricted where you could explore (yes, the invisible barriers are a sticking point). It reminded me a lot of Dauntless’s open terrain environment, which may not be a complimentary statement to some, but I always like the relaxed atmosphere the game attempted to encapsulate.

In comparison, the co-op quest inhabits a more frantic vibe as twenty players are split into five squads, running through a massive dungeon to reach a boss at the very end. You have thirty minutes, but most lobby groups should be able to do this within the 15-20-minute range. On successful completion of this mission, you will then be rewarded with better weapons and different cosmetic appearances. Although looking at the scoreboard at the end to see how your performance faired to other players was interesting, the rewards didn’t really incentivize me much to continue playing.

The boss raid was easily the weakest mode out of the bunch. Again, twenty players are broken down into five squads, but this time, your goal is to defeat an astronomical boss battle while your team attempts to score the most points. It felt repetitive as there was not much cooperative play, as you’re mainly just striking the enormous adversary with endless attacks. The enemy’s fighting pattern is nothing special either, and they would repeatedly recycle the same moves. Honestly, I got bored during the first boss I took on. I did a few more for good measure, but it somehow became even more mind-numbing.

There was a clear executive effort towards the Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream multiplayer experience, but it’s average at best. When you’re trying to get players to commit hours to multiplayer content, you need to offer something unique and different, but throughout, I got a severe case of déjà vu because I’ve partaken in this repetitive action in endless other titles. Within a short period, I felt like I had seen everything, got the t-shirt and was ready to play something else. You would only start investing serious hours into the multiplayer if you were a massive Sword Art Online fan who wanted to gain every item possible. But you would probably be a lone ranger in this pursuit because convincing others to tag along would be hard unless your friends are also gigantic fans.

Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream shines in some departments but flops in others.  
I wish the game had concentrated more on the primary campaign because the story here is terrific, and with a few tweaks to the open map environment and battle mechanics, it could have been a quintessential play for any fan. But the multiplayer feels so half-baked and unrewarding that only hardcore fans will enjoy the long, tedious grind to grab every morsel item.

Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream is now available on the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.

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