Echoes of Aincrad May Seem Like a Dream Game for Sword Art Online Fans, But It's More of a Passable Action-RPG

On paper, Echoes of Aincrad is the Sword Art Online game you've been waiting for if you loved the anime. It takes place during the Aincrad arc, the very first one in the series, which is easily the most memorable and iconic. As your own created character, you get to experience Aincrad without having to retread the path of series protagonist Kirito. He also doesn’t have a huge role in the story, allowing Echoes of Aincrad to carve out its own identity with a brand new cast of characters in a single-player action-RPG. But even when being mostly free from the confines of Kirito’s presence, it still feels constrained by the anime’s established lore. And unfortunately, the semi-open world structure is too bare and slows down the story’s pacing to an unbearable crawl, although its saving grace is the frenetic combat that's a great mix of fun and methodical. In the Aincrad arc, players are unable to log out, and if they die in Sword Art Online, they die in real life – at certain points, I wanted to log out, and luckily for me, I could still put it down without sending myself to an early grave. Echoes of Aincrad’s story starts off with a warming welcome. As a new player, you meet up with a