Echoes of Aincrad Hands-On Preview

Many years ago, I played Gundam Breaker 3 on PS Vita with no prior knowledge of anything relating to Gundam or Gunpla at all. I had heard it was a good import-friendly series, and I gave it a shot with the Asia English release of Gundam Breaker 3. I enjoyed it quite a bit. This led to trying other anime games I had heard good things about, and those that were approachable without knowing much about the IP itself. I enjoyed One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 without having watched One Piece. This is when I decided to try out more games based on anime properties and that led to getting Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. I did not enjoy it at all, and was ready to write off playing Sword Art Online games without watching the show. Then came Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet.  This was excellent, and is a game I've played on multiple platforms after enjoying Freedom Wars a lot.

Next month, Bandai Namco Entertainment will launch Echoes of Aincrad, a new Sword Art Online action RPG, for consoles and PC (Steam). Ahead of its launch, I had a chance to go hands-on with the PC version of Echoes of Aincrad and sample three different sections of the game. I was curious to see how approachable Echoes of Aincrad would be for someone like myself and also the state of the PC port. This is a preview build so things will likely change leading into launch, but I've spent about four hours with it and it definitely has the potential to join Fatal Bullet as a Sword Art Online game I can see myself playing through, but I can't speak to more than the few quests I've played so far.

Those who played Fatal Bullet know that Echoes of Aincrad isn't the first Sword Art Online game with a custom player character, but it is the first Sword Art Online console game with an English dub option that I'm aware of. With that out of the way, my preview build let me sample the game's tutorial dungeon including character creation, a quest focusing on exploration aspects, and also quests in more open zones featuring combat and exploration together. I also had a chance to explore the dense town area which I didn't expect to be as populated as it was.

Echoes of Aincrad is an action RPG, and it doesn't really do anything out of the ordinary with its combat, but I like the current setup. You have light and heavy attacks, dodging including a perfect dodge, partner skills (when you go on a quest with your NPC partner), guard breaks, parrying, and light combos. The parry system also has a parry slash skill that has a cinematic camera cut. Echoes of Aincrad also lets you perform powerful slashes after dodging or reversing based on timing. I don't need every action RPG to reinvent the wheel, but I was hoping the combat felt a bit heavier in Echoes of Aincrad. Right now it lacks the visual impact I was hoping for. Hopefully this can be tweaked for the game's launch.

While the tutorial dungeon was very basic in its layout, two aspects surprised me. The first is the level of aggression from basic enemies. The opening area had some spider-like enemies that went down quickly, but I didn't expect Echoes of Aincrad to throw multiple enemies at me early on. This is where things got a bit dicey, and where I realized the developers weren't just releasing yet another licensed game. The normal difficulty felt more challenging than other licensed games, and I also had multiple basic enemies in quests later nearly down me after two shots or chase me quite a bit longer than I expected. I also had to resurrect my partner within the first fifteen minutes of one quest because two giant enemies started charging at us with elemental attacks.

As a single-player action RPG, the gameplay loop so far based on the few quests I've played involves accepting a quest, preparing in town, selecting an NPC to join you based on the quest and their skills, setting out, unlocking more of the map, and returning. The challenging quests I mentioned both took place in the open zones and these don't feel like just areas you run through to reach your destination. They felt like large portions of a bigger dungeon in their layout, collectibles, and challenge. 

Exploring lets you unlock Safe Areas that serve as rest locations. These reveal portions of the map near you, restore your healing, and also respawn enemies (not bosses). Yes, that specific soulslike mechanic is here as well, and it adds to the challenge given some of these Safe Areas are spread far apart in a specific zone. This is where preparing with an appropriate NPC partner comes in handy, especially if their skill heals.

My main takeaway after a few hours was I wish Echoes of Aincrad had online multiplayer support. When revisiting the quests with another NPC partner or just exploring more, I thought it would've benefited from being able to just hop on a quest with your friend(s) online and work towards getting better gear together. I knew it was always going to be a single-player experience, but the whole structure and gameplay loop has me hoping multiplayer eventually is added in some form. Maybe a potential DLC could bring in the ability to play with friends after you finish the main story.

Echoes of Aincrad feels like Bandai Namco Entertainment finally giving a Sword Art Online game a big budget. You see this right from the opening town to the first zone you can explore. I'm also glad that it doesn't have the stock Unreal Engine 5 look that some recent games have when it comes to their overall visual direction. Since it has been developed in Unreal Engine 5, and given the larger scope compared to prior games, it is more demanding to run. 

I had access to Echoes of Aincrad on PC, I wanted to briefly cover the PC port's state right now and how it plays on PC handhelds. The current PC build I had let you adjust resolution, window mode, v-sync, anti-aliasing (off, FXAA, TSR), model detail, texture quality, texture filtering, frame rate limit (60fps or unlimited), and a preset to prioritize performance, quality or offer a balanced experience. It also compiles shaders on initial launch and verifies them on each launch after. I was warned about my GPU drivers when launching Echoes of Aincrad on ROG Ally and Steam Deck, but I imagine this is something that will be addressed for launch. 

I set Echoes of Aincrad to the lowest possible settings on my ROG Ally when playing and it was holding up mostly well with some dips below 30fps at 1080p using TSR. There are no TSR quality settings, but you can adjust the anti-aliasing level. I left this on the default setting. Even on the low settings, Echoes of Aincrad looks surprisingly good. I hope it can be optimized a bit better for PC handhelds though since it is nearly there on ROG Ally, but not good on Steam Deck. I was unable to get a solid 30fps even indoors on Steam Deck, but I spent most of my time just playing the game on ROG Ally for this preview. I will wait until I get access to the full review build to properly judge handheld performance. 

Given the sheer amount of releases this year, I was going to hold off on playing Echoes of Aincrad until later on. Playing the preview build has me interested in getting the full game and seeing how I feel about the main story as I get to explore more of Aincrad. I just hope the gameplay loop holds up if it remains the same as what I've played so far. 

Echoes of Aincrad is set to release on July 10 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam).