SWORD ART ONLINE: FATAL BULLET

If you can withstand mucho texto from the opening tutorial and occasional story heavy exposition, Fatal Bullet Complete Edition succeeds at being "Better Borderlands".
Observe the pros!
+You can make your own character
+You can make that character "hawt"
+ Guns! Guns! Guns! (As expected)
+You can customize your own Assist AI similar to how you make your pawn in Dragon's Dogma.
+As divisive as SAO is as an anime/manga the characters are a generally likable bunch!
+Relationship building and romance options.
+ Fatal Bullet also has energy swords! (A weapon from a more civilized time!)
+ Many skills to unlock that offer myriad buffs,assists,and new ways of approaching the battlefield.
+"Level up" passed 100 and become John Wick!
+If you want a more sleek edgy sci-fi-future-punk-setting because you are tired of "Elves,dragons,and wizards" dinner is served!
+ You can recruit many unique characters with their own specialties and behaviors.
+A constant rotation of side quests that offer up some nice rewards.
There are some issues though......
-While there is convenient fast travel there is no vehicular traversal or combat. The one thing Borderlands can proudly laud over Fatal Bullet!
-Some may find the various hubs and environments to be generic. I thought they were well done for the most part but once you transition from the over-world into the dungeons repetition and monotony will rear their ugly heads.
- I have a nostalgic fondness of Fatal Bullet's enemy catalog. If you appreciate franchises like Phantasy Star,Earth Defense Force,and Fallout you will understand where my warm fuzzies come from! There is a fantastic blend of mechanoids,giant insects,demonic looking monsters,robot soldiers,human outlaws,and AI controlled tanks. However,you will get a sense of deja-vu after you see the upteenth re-color of metal scorpion,buzzing sniper drone,or ED 209 with decals! The same recurring lazy resource-recycling found in MANY rpgs!
-There is a way to get a penultimate perfect ending but it is a Herculean task unless you have a faq on stand by and A LOT of free time on your hands.
-Fatal Bullet suffers from its' license as much as it benefits from it. SAO is not a bad anime/manga in the slightest but it is distinctly the "gateway to the genre" many appreciated as teens whilst they simultaneously snub their noses at it once they age into their mid 20's or mid 30's.
Suddenly in current year waifu harems,fan-service,and protagonists whom look like Neo from The Matrix offend sensibilities and are now considered negative out-of-touch tropes of a bygone era. Isn't it amazing how quickly we can lose our wide eyed sense of wonder and guiltless enjoyment of something just because "society" shamed us whilst turning a few metaphorical screws in our heads?
For this reason perhaps you outgrew SAO and put the fairy dust away. Perhaps as an adult it now embarrasses you. That is why I list this as a potential con. Not everyone will be comfortable playing this with their associates and family members peering over their shoulders.
I can only speak for myself when I tell you that I have "NOT" declared war upon the realms of make believe and fantasy escapism. Though I am older I'm also happier having kept my inner child alive!
"I do what I want! Kirito is my bro! Going to the promised land where everything is AWESOME and nothing is LAME! BOOM,head-shot!" ~Cartman voice

We are seeing a sudden blitz of bad reviews for this game. Nearly all of them can be safely ignored, they are due to the newest SAO game Fractured Daydreams drop in review score so they are bombing this one. This is safely the best SAO game ever made, but more importantly it's a competently made game, you don't need to be an SAO fan to enjoy. It won't blow your socks off, but it's a solid experience as long as you don't expect an engrossing story. Played this game for countless hours on PS4 and it's one of only 2 game I've re-bought for Nintendo Switch and Steam (other being NFS Hot Pursuit remake). If you have to choose between the two, pick this one over the newest SAO game, that one will surely drop in price soon with it's trajectory.

This is like the only SAO game I feel that isn't an awful cash grab. They genuinely cooked with this one and I wish other games were like this. End game does get extremely grindy and I tend to not like that sort of repetitive mind-numbing gameplay but it was always fun in Fatal Bullet. Online is basically dead, it was hard enough to find people to play against like 5 years ago nevermind now but speedrunning the leaderboards and despite the AI being quite easily to manipulate the game is really fun. Would love for a higher budget game to be made just like this one. Never watched any SAO although I know vague bits of it and this was my first piece of media relating to it and it was easily the best

Oh SAO a series that some would say peaked after the first 13 episodes of the anime. I personally, like the first half of the GGO season. But let's get into this pros cons list of if the Gameverse GGO is any good!
Pros
- Third person shooter (though does have melee if you so desire)
- Tons of loot (You will be swimming in it)
- A story where you do NOT play Kirito!
- Battle System (while very straight forward for the most part shoot weakpoints get behind enemy etc. They have a vertical element to the combat that allows for much more strategy than you would expect.
- New Characters (though the usual cast show up. it is nice to see new characters with different stories to start)
- Overall Story (they definitely tried doing something different with the story with ArFA-sys and different endings.)
- Multiplayer
- Solid voice acting, music, and sound effects
- The game world aesthetic (Personal taste here, I am a sucker for any type or Cyberpunk look to a game)

Cons
- Multiplayer (Mostly because it has felt dead since launch though it does bounce up and down on occasion when on sale)
- Animations (for characters be it in game or in cutscenes can feel stiff)
- Third Person Shooter (if you prefer Hollow Realization or the sword play of other SAO games this probably wont be up your alley)
- Story (While good and it does not focus on Kirito, it runs parallel to the main GGO story. It does not do anything themes wise the games have not already done AI is it real? etc.)
- Loot (you will be seeing so much of it that its almost overwhelming when you get into the menus)
- The Game Atmosphere ( some might find the game world a bit drab and not enough variety in its design.)
Overall, for me I think Fatal Bullet is probably the best SAO game simply for the fact you do not play Kirito, the story runs its own course but is parallel to the main GGO story, something I wish the SAO games did more often. I like the game world and the overall gameplay. For me, I would give this a solid 40/50 (8 out of 10 for those who want the "traditional scale")

I have played more than 200 hours on PS4. This game is absolutely fantastic as a just generic shooter.

DO Buy this game if you're looking for something that you'd see in the background of a movie to show you that a character plays video games, and if you want a subpar story with poorly written characters, that treats you like you're the noobie, while also giving you gear that ONLY YOU have access to. Like I said, poor writing. BUT despite that all. This game is genuinely fun. You don't need expansive skill trees, and tons of features, it's just here's a gun, here are missions, go shoot things, and farm bosses and materials. AND here's a ton of different outfits to boot. And the character creation is EXACTLY what you want out of an anime character workshop. I also recommend modding the game turn of gender lock restrictions on clothing, because the clothing is equally cool for men and women, so you may wanna mix that up a bit, I don't judge, you wanna put a boy in a bikini? May as well allow yourself the freedom. You wanna put a girl in a coat that DOESN'T show all the skin? Offer yourself that freedom.

DO NOT buy this game if you: do not like Kirito(optional), do not like Asuna(optional), do not like Sinon(optional), do not like grinding, do not like farming, do not like complex loot systems that make very little sense, do not like when games have very few QoL features, and do not like generic gameplay that somehow NEVER gets old.

I rate Fatal Bullet a solid 8/10, it's ONLY that way because some features are locked behind difficulty walls, beating the game, certain game modes you unlock by beating the game, you cannot import your character when going into NG+, so have fun remembering all of your settings if you want the same character. BUT I rate it so high because the gameplay loop is more fun than you're gonna find in a lot of games.

I stand by my words when I say Bandai Namco makes good concept games, but subpar experiences. This game feels like a beta for something to come, and it's a GREAT beta at that.

Actually really fun ONCE you get past the crazy amount of cutscenes/dialogue that seem to drag on forever at the beginning. The gameplay loop is solid and addicting but the story is whatever and really forced. 6/10
Not bad considering I got this for ~$4 on CDKeys.

Honestly an okay looter shooter. Can't talk for the story as I skipped most of it (80%, most of the time they're just talking so meh) but for the lootin' n shootin' it's a good game for just turning off your brain and going ratatatataatat a lot.