4.5/5 ★ – VongolaBox's review of Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet.

Very surprised at how much fun I'm having with this. Feels like an anime version of The Division. Not even a SAO fan at all, but the .Hack vibes are very welcome. I love that I get to create two characters, and also fill out the rest of my squad with cool looking folks with guns. The gunplay is kinda clunky, but I find swapping between free aim and lock on camera to be pretty simple. The gadgets are cool, and the way you learn skills by boosting up stats is intuitive. It almost feels like Souls style leveling, where you have to return to home base to spend skill points and level up, only if your whole team is wiped you don't lose your XP. Rather it's doled out to you regardless of successful mission completion or failure. There are plenty of weapons for you and your companion, called an Arfa-Sys, to play around with. As of writing I haven't unlocked the sword-gun style or dual wielding, and I can imagine those will open up combat options even more. I'd say this is probably one of my biggest gaming surprises, and I'm quite glad I gave it a shot. If you're looking for a JRPG with a character creator (which are few in number for sure), you can do a lot worse than SAO Fatal Bullet. In fact, I'd even venture to call it a bit of a hidden gem.