It was only a matter of time before I did a review of Fatal Bullet wasn't it? Way back in July of 2019, I watched the Sword Art Online anime for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. I liked it enough to the point that I really wanted to play one of the games so around Christmas I started playing Hollow Realization and I fell in love with it. It became one of my favorite Switch games for a number of reasons.

I loved it so much and there was so much to talk about that I ended up doing my first ever mega review the following month. But I never really got around to playing Fatal Bullet. A couple months later I played the demo and I thought it was okay but I didn't even buy the game until earlier this year. I guess a part of me thought it might be much worse than Hollow Realization but I finally got around to playing it and here's what I think of the game.

GRAPHICS: 10/10

Personally, I kind of like the look of Fatal Bullet a bit more than Hollow Realization for two main reasons. First of all, I already thought that the graphics for Hollow Realization was amazing. The recent Sword Art Online games simply have some really good quality graphics overall. There's really good character models, large environments and scenery full of color and detail, really good background, good animation/movement, and some great fully animated cutscenes. From a visual standpoint, the Sword Art Online games sort of hit a sweet spot between large world Action RPG and Anime.

But two things that I liked more in Fatal Bullet were the character designs and the environment. When it came to character designs, they felt bigger at times with a better 3D model and more detail. It also felt like the images of the characters were clearer and sharper than in the previous game. For me, this really stood out when you were able to look at characters closer and it just seemed like more effort was put into the models in Fatal Bullet. Characters just seemed much better overall and that was something that I really appreciated about the game.

I also really liked what the developers did with the environment. From a gameplay perspective, I’m not a big fan of the new environments at all. In the anime, I really enjoyed watching the GGO arc and thought it was pretty good overall but when it comes to gameplay, I prefer the open world fantasy type setting with trees and mountains versus the noir city feel and from a gameplay view, I much rather prefer the original gameplay mechanic of sword and close combat versus guns. But from a visual perspective, I think that the GGO aspects took the game to the next level.

The trees, mountains, and lakes of Hollow Realization was all beautiful, but there’s only so much that you can do with those kinds of scenery items. But in Fatal Bullet, you have these massive buildings and the city aesthetic with a decent amount of detail. As a result, I feel like from a development standpoint, more effort went into the detail of creating the world in Fatal Bullet because of the nature of where the game takes place. I’m fine with that too, because it’s much harder to add in details for skyscrapers and other city aspects, so the end result had a fresh, sleek, and detail filled look.

Other than that, the rest of the visuals department are pretty much on par with Hollow Realization. Lots of pretty good animation and when you’re in the middle of battle, there’s just so much color and lots of different things being thrown at you on screen. Fatal Bullet is visually a delightful game and the graphics gets a 10 out of 10 from me.

SOUND: 9/10

Have you heard the soundtrack? The main theme alone is a weird mix between rock and your standard game theme. The first time that I heard the main theme, I was like “Okay, this isn’t bad” and the more I listened to it, the more I liked it afterwards. By the time I got like 10 hours into the game, I found that there were a handful of tracks that I ended up really liking. Many of the tracks are very high paced and energetic Like, if you listen to the boss themes, you might have a hard time not rocking out to them.

Many of the tracks really help the game and action feel way more exciting and they do a great job at improving the immersion at times. The soundtrack is also pretty big too with more than 60 unique tracks in total that come out to around two or so hours worth of music.

Just like in Hollow Realization, there’s a ton of good voice acting as well. There’s even an in game library where you can listen to different game lines from many of the characters. The only downside is the fact that it’s all in Japanese, just like in Hollow Realization. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that but it would have been nice to have the English voice cast work on the game as well. Other than that little personal hiccup, there’s just so much when it comes to voices.

Lastly there’s the regular sounds of the game, which is something that I’ve been liking. You have a ton of random combat sounds which I think work better than they did in Hollow Realization and you have all sorts of city sounds and little things like footsteps and doors opening. Overall, the developers did a great job with the game when it comes to sound, and that aspect gets a 9 out of 10 from me.

ADDICTIVENESS: 7/10

I have a weird predicament with Fatal Bullet, especially when comparing it to Hollow Realization. I still love Hollow Realization way more personally, and I’m not a huge fan of Fatal Bullet’s gameplay, but I think that Fatal Bullet might be as good as Hollow Realization if not a little bit better based on a few areas that were improved. But why don’t I like the gameplay of Fatal Bullet? I don’t hate it but I just don’t really like the guns aspect. I absolutely love swords and I really enjoyed being able to get up close to the enemies and swing away with hundreds of different sword customizations.

But I guess I’ve just never been a big fan of shotting games in general. Not a fan of FPS games or other shooting games and when I choose long range combat for games, I will often go for archery, RPG’s, and magic before guns. I still had so much fun playing the game and combat is enjoyable and very fast and fluid, especially against the tougher boss enemies that could take five to ten minutes to defeat. I just don’t personally have as much fun fighting from a distance with a weapon that’s eventually going to run out of ammo.

But, even if I didn’t like the combat, the RPG aspect of the game is still great. When you’re not directly fighting, there’s still so many other things that you can do to make yourself stronger or to make the game more fun. The party system alone is amazing and working on your teammates is so much fun. There’s so many ways to customize your party to your liking, and I’m not just talking about who’s in the party. Just going back and grinding for hours to improve the other characters or to improve your friendship with them is lots of fun as it is.

I was constantly going back and grinding so that I could level up my character, or try out different party members, or test out different weapons, or even outfits to see how they look in combat. Just like in Hollow Realization, the game keeps giving you more and more reasons to come back and play for a few more hours and those few extra hours here and there will quickly turn into 100 hours. Whether you want to finish the story, improve your character, be friends with everyone, improve all your party members, or just get EVERY SINGLE WEAPON, there’s very few reasons to get bored of the game.

If you like the game, you’re going to keep finding new things to do, or you’ll find reasons to go back and do the same things over again. It can get very addicting and my grade for this aspect is going to be a 7 out of 10. The only issue is that just like with Hollow Realization, once the game is done, you won’t have any reason to start over really.

STORY: 5/10

Personally I like the campaign here a bit more than in Hollow Realization but there’s still a lot about the story that doesn’t really work for a number of reasons. The story takes place in GGO and follows your own new character alongside other original characters. The game is basically a direct sequel to Hollow Realization and also follows a different timeline than the anime and manga. There are two main campaigns that you can follow, the base one that the game follows and one that follows the events of Kirito and Death Gun.

One thing that I do like about the main campaign is that based on what you do, there are multiple possible endings. Overall I didn’t really focus on the story as much as the gameplay and characters, and it didn’t really stick out to me that much beyond the variety.

DEPTH: 10/10

Just like with Hollow Realization, Fatal Bullet has EVERYTHING. All I have to do is tell you how many weapons there are in the game and that alone will tell you that Fatal Bullet is not messing around when it comes to depth. You have eight different kinds of weapons to choose from including Hand Guns, Assault Rifles, Gating Guns, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Launchers, Light Machine Guns, and yes, swords too. Between those eight options, there are so many weapons to choose from.

For Hand Guns alone, there are 35 to choose from and that’s not including all the different kinds of customization and improvement options that you have for them. In total, there’s literally hundreds of different weapons to choose from and when you couple those with accessories and outfits, the number of options for what you can have on increases to close to a thousand.

Just like in Hollow Realization, there’s a large cast of characters for you to meet and invite into your party. This gives you so many options on how to build your party and you could end up spending dozens of hours building the perfect party like I did in Hollow Realization.

Beyond the sheer number of items and people in the game, there’s also a ton to do in terms of story, quests, and dungeons. There’s lots to do and you can do them as many times as you like in order to get stronger or for more items. You also get a lot more things to do, a lot more characters, and a lot more customization items simply by having the Complete Edition of the game.

WHAT IS THE COMPLETE EDITION?

If you buy Fatal Bullet for the Switch, you aren't just getting the base game for whatever price you pay. No, you're getting the Complete Edition which also comes with a bunch of extra stuff in addition to the game. But what kind of extra stuff are we talking about? You actually get quite a lot, and if you were to buy this on another console, you'd end up spending a ton too. For instance, in the PlayStation Store, the base game costs $40 while the Complete Edition costs a whopping $70, meaning the bonus contents of the Complete Edition are worth around $30. It even costs more if you were to buy the upgrade by itself.

Fortunately, this is the Switch we're talking about and not only is the bonus stuff automatically included with the game, but it's much cheaper too. In addition to the game, the Complete Edition also comes with an Expansion, three DLC packs, and an assortment of in game items. I wouldn't exactly say that the cost of the upgrade by itself is worth it but since it's included with the Switch game, it's definitely one of the most cost efficient expansion passes that you could get on the Switch.

The three DLC packs alone give you so much content. The main points of the first DLC pack is a new story and new dungeons along with three new characters and a new offline mode. You also get a ton of new customization options for weapons, outfits, and hairstyles. The second DLC pack gives you even more customization options and dungeons along with two new characters. The third DLC pack has all the same stuff as the second but also adds a couple extra quests.

The expansion is a bit bigger than any of the DLC packs individually but it's mostly just customization options and cosmetics. You get a ton of outfits and some weapons. You're basically getting four DLC packs worth of content in addition to the base game for just the cost of the game by itself.

If you take all the contents of the base game and all the stuff added from the Complete Edition upgrade, you’re honestly getting hundreds of hours worth of content and as a result, my grade for depth is going to be a perfect 10 out of 10.

DIFFICULTY: 5

The game can be quite difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing or if you’re still trying to get the hang of it. If you’re under leveled near the start and you’re battling an enemy, then it might take a lot of hits to defeat or if you’re battling one of the big bosses, you’re going to have some trouble. But once you start grinding and you work on your levels, party, and weapons, then it’s going to become much easier to battle. Soon enough the easier enemies are going to start taking just a few hits to defeat and the tougher ones will be easier as well.

For me, it was a bit on the harder side of things because I wasn’t too fond of using guns, but I still got the hang of it and it became much easier after I started grinding for a couple hours.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There's definitely a lot of problems with Sword Art Online games in general, though many of them are for people who try to play the game without being a fan of the anime. But other than that, there are also a few minor issues behind the story of a Sword Art Online game. Not only that, but before I even started playing Fatal Bullet, everything I heard about the Sword Art Online games was that Hollow Realization was the best game in the series and that all the others were significantly worse.

But even with all that said, there are two reasons that you should buy Fatal Bullet. The first is determined by whether or not you're a fan of Sword Art Online in general. If you are a fan of the anime or manga or you just loved the characters, then you will definitely find more enjoyment in the game than someone who is a big gamer but has no standing with the characters. If you don't believe me, look at the Metacritic score.

Critics were pretty harsh towards the game, but critics play all the games and review them based on the game itself, very rarely without outside knowledge, factors, or bias. Many official reviewers may have scored the game the way they have purely based on the game itself including all the issues, but never saw the anime and don't have a real connection. That shows in the user scores for the game, showing that actual players and fans liked the game significantly more than critics did.

Though, I couldn't find any scores for the Switch version and had to use the PS4 version as a comparison for this example. The critics gave the PS4 version a 6.4 while the user scores was a much more acceptable 7.3, nearly a whole point higher. My point is that if you like the franchise as a whole, or even played Hollow Realization and liked it, then you'll at least get a decent amount of enjoyment out of Fatal Bullet.

The second reason that you should give Fatal Bullet a chance is because of the value. You get a really good amount of content and the game is almost always on sale. When I first got into the games, I was just coming off loving the anime and I really wanted to try out the games but both Fatal Bullet and Hollow Realization were full priced at the time. Then eventually the digital deluxe version of Hollow Realization went on sale from $50 all the way down to like $20 so I picked it up.

At the time, Fatal Bullet was still pretty new so it didn't go on sale often. But eventually it went on sale for like $40. Then it went on sale for like $20 multiple times. Like every two months it was on sale for $20 for a while. Then in May of this year, the Complete Edition of Fatal Bullet dropped to only $10 so I finally picked it up. But that wasn't the end of the sales. The game kept going on sale constantly afterwards, there was even a sale that ended the final week of September where the game was only $12.

If you're a fan of Sword Art Online, $12 is a price that you just have to agree with. Even if you just got the base edition of the game, $12 is a great price for a game that has so much in it. But it's not the base game, it's called Complete Edition because it comes with so much more than just the base game which makes $12 even more of a steal. According to howlongtobeat, you can spend more than 100 hours with Fatal Bullet if you do all the things there is to do, especially if you get it at a cheap price. I definitely wouldn't recommend picking up the game at full price though, not even at half off.

But if one day you're in the eshop and you see it on sale for $20 or less, then it's something that you should look into. If you're a fan of the anime or manga, you will like the game to an extent. Overall, it's a good game that's often at a great price so my overall grade for Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is going to be an 8.2 out of 10.