Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris – Guides and features hub

Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris has players journeying with Kirito in a VRMMO realm called the Underworld. There are many friends and foes to meet, sword skills to master, classes to unlock, challenges to complete, secrets to discover, and technical issues to dislike. Here’s our guides and features hub to help you throughout your travels with Kirito and co.

Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris – Guides and features hub

Features and fixes

Official review – Our official review of Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris looks at the game’s narrative structure, gameplay mechanics, combat and exploration, and overall presentation. It has a lot of promise, but there are too many problems that you can’t ignore.

Technical review – Our technical review delves into the game’s graphics settings, graphics comparisons, controls, and performance. There are several technical issues from wonky controls and framerate drops to freezes, crashes, and long loading times.

Speeding up your loading times – Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris is mired in a lot of loading screens. You’re bound to encounter so many of these during your playthrough whether you’re about to start an encounter or just watching Kirito and friends talk during a cutscene. Loading a save might also take up to a couple of minutes to finish. There’s a quick fix for this, though.

Increasing your FPS – There’s also another quick fix to help slightly boost your framerates, and disabling EAC might help.

In-game mechanics

Beginner’s guide and making money – You’re going to need some cash, and maybe a few tips, to help you on your adventure.

Leveling up faster and increasing XP gains – You’re going to be grinding until you hit the level 50 cap, so you might as well speed up the process by a bit.

Customizing your characters’ appearances – Once you finish the game’s first chapter, you’ll be able to change Kirito’s appearance and even his avatar’s gender. There’s also the “Visualize Attire” option for transmog effects.

All recruitable characters – Many characters that fans of the anime have become familiar with will be able to join your party.

Affinity and heart-to-heart guide – Looks like you can engage in a little bit of romance with some of your companions in Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris. You can even unlock their affinity costumes and have a “special’ conversation.

Crafting items and farming materials – Do you want to find more loot, or do you want to make more loot?

CUBE shop, CUBE tickets, and daily quests – There’s additional stuff for you to do each day, and you’ll even get CUBE tickets for the in-game cosmetics shop.

Combat and battle tactics

The basics of Sword Skills – Sword Skills function as your main damage-dealing abilities. With nine weapon types in the game, you’ll find that there’s a lot of skill trees and attacks that you can unlock.

Combat guide: Chain bursts and skill connects – You’ll want to keep punishing your opponents with a lot of hits, so make sure to master these combat techniques to avoid “C-c-combo breakers.”

Unlocking character classes – There are six character classes to unlock, and each one provides you with powerful perks to help make combat a breeze.

Unlocking secret Ex/class skills – After unlocking the class trees, you can still unlock secret skills thanks to specific Warrior Statues.

Increasing your weapon proficiency – You’ll need to boost your proficiency with weapons if you want to unlock better skills and improve your accuracy.

Sacred Arts and Goddess Statues – You’re a wizard, Kirito! Well, okay, maybe not. But, at least you can learn magic spells via Goddess Statues.

Treasure chests

Cordea Plains (chapter 1) treasure chests – Here are the treasure chests and items you’ll find in Cordea Plains, the first expansive, semi-open world area in Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris.

Sothercrois (chapter 2) treasure chests – The southern region of the map has several zones (ie. Warmia Greenbelt) that have golden treasure chests.

Norlangarth (chapter 3) treasure chests – There are several golden chests in the northern region of the map (ie. Lockiss Rocks, Uetra Valley). You’ll even revisit some of these areas (ie. Lodend Mountains) in chapter 3.

Wesderath (chapter 4) treasure chests – The Western Empire has more chests for you to find in Mildea Plains, Villind Plateaus, and Snild Snow Fields.

Eastavarieth (chapter 5) treasure chests – At dawn, in the fifth chapter, look to the east. No, Gandalf isn’t there, but we do have more treasure chests in Great Mound Road, Sarole Mountains, and more.

Quests

Beast Sightings main quest – You’ll need to complete tasks for Reunalt (someone you’ve probably never met) and Enanza (not the fourth Schuyler Sister).

Stone Statue Submission sidequest – There’s a sidequest in Warmia Greenbelt where you’ll need to find some “friends” for a stone statue.

Lockiss Rocks service requests (Empress and Grand Chamberlain costumes) – You can obtain two more cosmetic options — the Empress and Grand Chamberlain costumes — as long as you complete all the service requests in Lockiss Rocks.

The Three Keys main quest – You’ll need to find these quest items to enter Drugo’s Temple and retrieve an artifact.

Back to Rest/The Golden Shoot main quest – If you thought those quests were a doozy, then Back to Rest — which includes finding the Golden Shoot, a durian fruit, and a lost necklace — might frustrate you to no end.

Boss fights and endgame content

Skyfish the Whirlpool boss guide – It’s the Big Kahuna, and it’s time to turn it into a yummy grilled tuna sandwich.

Commander Gunther boss guide – The leader of the Dark Knights will do battle along with his army.

Divine Beasts and Monoliths mega guide – These creatures aren’t even part of the main quest, but they’re tougher than bosses due to being level 80+. You can spawn them once you complete the Monolith seals in various zones.

Raid Dungeons mega guide – Four new maps (aka. Raid Dungeons) have been added, each with their own mechanics, bosses, and types of loot that can be obtained.

Additional news

Incoming fixes – It’s been announced that Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris will have a slew of fixes towards the end of July.

Patch 1.03 content and fixes – This massive update will fix a number of issues as well as adding loads of new content.

Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris is available on Steam. You can purchase the game for $59.99.