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I remember watching and enjoying the first season of the Sword Art Online anime years ago, thinking how solid the Aincrad Arc was. Once I finished it and learned how the plot jumps the shark, my interest faded. Time passed. When Bandai Namco announced Echoes of Aincrad would focus on the original SAO storyline, taking a step back from Kirito and Asuna, my interest sparked again.
Echoes of Aincrad starts during the closed beta test of the fictional virtual reality MMORPG. The first 6-8 hours are a slow burn, but I found myself really enjoying the setup and the mundanity of participating in the game while it still was one alongside all the players my character met. When Akihiko Kayaba revealed the death game that SAO actually is, I was eager to meet the people I befriended and see how the reveal changed them, then party up and fight the odds. Unfortunately, it became clear the slow burn from the prologue would stretch across the rest of the game.
Despite the sense of urgency introduced, the plot of Echoes of Aincrad relishes in postponing all important developments with unexpected diversions. It took me over 15 hours to make any real progress after the prologue, with the main missions sending me to do things like collect a random sword and resources to upgrade it. Interruptions like these happen every 5 hours or so. Characters sometimes disappear for 30 to 40 hours, padding out a plot that could have been interesting otherwise. Which is a shame, because I quite enjoyed the “trope-y, but charming” banter of the main party. Shoutout goes to Musoh as my favorite character for his unique skills, his slimy looks, and rotten personality.
This issue with pacing extends to exploring the two floors of Aincrad. While these floors aren’t open worlds, each mission allows roaming in a limited subset of areas. Each one is populated by monsters, treasure, shortcuts, and boss challenges, as well as a safe zone that reveals the map upon activation. Beautiful and varied in their biomes as they may be, the vastness is a detriment to the game, especially when cutscenes and events only occur at the end of missions.
Aside from the prologue, a highlight in Echoes of Aincrad is combat during the first floor of the SAO game. Acquiring all the abilities in a weapon class is really easy, and the cost of changing builds is meager. Being able to try all weapons in a single playthrough is cool and offered variety during my long treks in Aincrad. On the other hand, I found no reason to use anything but rapiers, with maybe swords and daggers as the exception. The damage values for any weapon is about same across the board, but lighter weapons have better recovery from normal attacks and can hit faster for the same amount of damage. The rapier offers amazing Sword Skills to boot. Stat bonuses when leveling up also pushed me towards a nimble build, as the walking speed and dodge bonuses are the best available.
The second floor makes these issues more apparent, with the introduction of new enemy types that break the rhythm of combat up to this point. The desert biome of this floor is full of enemies that only use attacks that knock characters down while going into temporary invulnerable states. They didn’t do a lot of damage, but often I’d be surrounded by 10 hurtboxes moving around erratically while knocking my character down between one to three seconds each over and over again. The best counterplay is to have a weapon that can hit hard and fast,. This issue could have been offset by the party member system, but I found it oddly implemented. Having to hit an enemy and dodge in Switch Mode to activate my partner is imprecise, and I rarely used it. Meanwhile, turning to Free Mode and seeing my partner run to attack enemies I wasn’t locked-in on didn’t offer me the defense or cover I desperately needed for these fights.
I enjoyed the opening of Echoes of Aincrad and the new characters taking the spotlight over Kirito, Asuna, and company, but this SAO game’s structure reminds me of a portable title made for modern consoles. While gorgeous to traverse, the large open areas don’t have much depth after a dozen hours of exploration and combat. These aforementioned pacing issues, paired with other oddities like being unable to change equipment unless you’re in a city and settlements existing only as background decor, make Echoes of Aincrad feel stiff and hard to chew through.
Echoes of Aincrad will come to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on July 10, 2026.
