This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
I know of but have never played nor watched anything Sword Art Online. But i do know that the main concept is that it's meant to fake an MMO. so i was curious if that would extend to how it saves. MMO's will keep track of your character, what they're doing, where they are, and their stats their end but would this fake one? If it did, it would mean i would never have to worry about the 20 second warning before being disconnected.
But after this first hour it seems clear that there are only auto saves in Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization and, unless it was somewhere i couldn't find or i haven't unlocked it yet, no manual saves. for some parts of this game, like moving around the main town Aincrad, you trigger the auto save when you exit one area and enter another. this might be doable when a 20 second warning appears. but other than that, it wasn't too clear how and when it auto saves nor what would trigger it.
As is somewhat expected for a game of this type, this first part is full of cutscenes, character introductions, and expositions. this means there are minutes where we aren't able to do anything other than continue the conversation or, by using the L1 and R1 buttons, try and skip through it. skipping isn't ideal as for me, someone not familiar with this series, i'd want to watch them and learn about the past and the present. The auto saves are clear in the top right, but if you're going to get a 20 second warning during one of these cutscenes you're going to either miss out on story tell, assuming it'll autosave when it's done, or have to go back and sit through the same story piece again.
From this first hour, the save system and lengthy cutscenes do make Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization somewhat unsuitable for being streamed from the cloud. We'll see in Part 2 if things improve in regard to this. other than that, and the games odd camera delay, there are positives in regards to it's design and it's suitability. the graphics are simple, big, and colorful, which meant when we had some hiccups with the stream it never got in the way of gameplay. the controls feel responsive and i felt no lag there with the stream either.
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