The combat has been streamlined nicely, with shortcuts allowing for smoother battles and less fussing with menus, especially during the more demanding showdowns. This makes an already substantial experience one that can suck away countless hours, and some of those hours are indeed fulfilling. Much of the direct path from that point features content from Infinity Moment with some much-needed tweaking, but there’s also a foreboding new region to explore in the form of the mysterious Hollow Area. Thus, he and the other surviving players in this high stakes, death-is-final MMO are free to advance through the remaining floors. Hollow Fragment kicks off with Kirito battling the final boss on the 75th floor, just like in the anime, only the fight comes to an abrupt conclusion when the boss ends up glitching out, handing victory to a confused but relieved Kirito. Hollow Fragment on PS Vita marks the second time for the franchise to fold back in on itself and enter an actual game world, and while it contains many refinements over its PSP predecessor Infinity Moment, it’s still very much a fans-only affair. After all, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is a game based on an anime based on a light novel series about players trapped in a fictional game.

To someone unfamiliar, Sword Art Online might seem like the most backwards property ever.

Sword art online hollow fragment