The light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec has certainly kicked off over the last few years, expanding to a manga series, a major anime television series and a video game release on the Playstation Portable. Namco Bandai Games have determined that Sword Art Online is worthy of another video game release, this time making the jump to the Playstation Vita. The developer has recently shared new screenshots and a trailer for this release titled Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment.
For those not aware about the SAO media franchise, it is similar to .hack// in that it primarily takes place in an online world. Upon entering the game, the 10,000 users of “Sword Art Online” find themselves completely trapped in the game world by its developer. The only way to make it back to reality is either live out their lives and eventually pass away or escape by climbing to the top of the 100-story tower SAO is based on. The catch is… if a player dies in the game, their brains are fried effectively killing them in the real world.
Rather than following the events of the light novel or anime series, Hollow Fragment follows a unique storyline where Kirito begins to explore mysterious parts of the game known as “Hollow Areas”, where he eventually meets a mysterious “orange” player named Filia. Filia is not the only character in this title, with familiar faces including Asuna, Silica and Lisbeth all having supporting character roles on the field. Building up Kirito’s relationship with the female cast can lead to a few other perks as well.
