Sword Art Online - Episode 16 Discussion / Poll
 

Welcome to the discussion thread for Sword Art Online, Episode 16.

The Land of Fairies - 妖精たちの国 ~ Yousei-tachi no Kuni

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Finaly saturday. :cool:

Hope to be able to watch it tonight.

The reason why I chosen Sunday as my OFF in duty.....

Can't wait to see the Fairy World; I wonder how they'll portray it...?

Darn can't wait to see this animated. The preview got me all excited. :)

Well, two things, they really are going slow with the story compared to first 14 episodes, two, was that Sugu choke scene really needed lol.


And holy shit Recon looks stupid and sounds stupid as hell.

This episode was quite good, considering that they are taking it slower as compared to the SAO arc, leaving more time for character development.

Sugu in this episode was very cute, but Asuna is still the best xD
Looking for the next episode

Question for novel readers..

Where does this ep. end??

For some reason, the cappers this week forgot to take a clear version of the End Card. So I'll just give this GIF from the episode that they did make:

Dynamic tag cannot be rendered. (PrintableThread)

Red Sweater Suguha > Red Pajama Suguha

:hyper-^v^:

*looks around and sees no one has done so yet* It looks like it's my turn to shine.

END CARD GET!!!!

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Yui! Yay! And hooray for Kirito bad*ssery! From "beater" to cheater lol. Recon was okay for the most part. He's "in-character" I guess.

lol - so, in this episode Kazuto enters the world of Alfheim Online, which is basically a modified copy of SAO run by RCT (run by you know who...), but there's one huge bug/exploit: Any player from SAO who logs in with the same NerveGear gets to keep all of the skill points from the previous game, giving them a massive advantage. And so that's why, even as a n00b, Kirito is able to be "h4x" out of the gate. As he says in the episode, he really is a cheater this time. :heh: I suppose they never actually tested this scenario, considering I'm guessing most of the SAO players aren't really interested in playing any more Virtual MMOs for the time being -- except, of course, Kirito.

(Oh yeah, and in this game, it's okay to die, and you can logout. Thanks goodness... :heh: )

I suppose the reappearance of Yui also points to the odd correlation between the NerveGear (client) and the game -- it seems all the items are stored in the NerveGear memory, but just interpreted by the game. (That seems initially like an odd way of doing it, but it would be faster, plus I suppose they don't expect anyone to be able to hack into their own NerveGear while they're in the MMO world.) That would explain why Yui's Heart was represented by an item in SAO. Here, she respawns, but the system considers her a Navigation Pixie, so she takes that form (presumably to avoid detection by this game's version of Cardinal).

Anyway, thanks to the unique advantage Kirito has, it seems like he'll be able to level up really quickly, which is necessary if he wants save Asuna before the week is done. So it's definitely a plot hack, but probably a necessary one, and it does raise some interesting points about how this "rip-off game" was created, and just how it's related to SAO. (One thing they didn't say is *when* this game was created. If Asuna moved there right after SAO ended, does that mean the game was launched before hand? They also say that the version of Cardinal they're running is a bit out-of-date, but does that mean the copy was made even before SAO launched, or just that Cardinal evolved by the end of SAO? Anyway these are all rhetorical questions, and I'm not asking for novel answers -- I'm sure we'll get our answers in time.)

Edit: Oh, and I should also say we met Lyfa in the game. They alluded to the fact that, in this game, "PKing is encouraged", so it seems like the races are in competition or at war with each other (sort of like Horde vs. Alliance in WoW?). But Lyfa and her friend were kind of severely outnumbered -- perhaps they stumbled into enemy territory. The also talked about a "death penalty" -- you must get respawned somewhere and probably take some sort of hit on your stats or equipment. Hopefully it's not as steep as the death penalty in FFXI -- levelling down was horrible! :heh:

Edit 2: Oh. If Kirito kept all his skills when he moved to this game, then I suppose that means that Asuna kept all of her skills too, along with the rest of the 300 who got transferred over. Not that I suppose it might help them at the moment if they're all trapped the way Asuna is, but if they manage to get free...

So the depowerment of Asuna continues with the revelation that she's being held in a bird cage. Meanwhile, Kirito's off playing the white knight for the first random female player he meets in the woods -- just like always.

And why exactly did Kirito decide to go this alone? Put in a call to Liz and say, "Hey, I've found out what happened to Asuna. Wanna help rescue her?" Then call Klein and say, "Hey, wanna meet a really cute 16 year old girl? No, I'm not sure if she's an imouto. Just bring all your Fuurinkazan buddies."

I'm not sure that, after all they just went through, all these people would really be up for another MMORPG just as they're getting readjusted to their real lives... Plus, at the moment, it's just a suspicious photo, not confirmed fact. His goal at this point is just to confirm the validity of the photo and see if that's really Asuna. If it is her, then he has to come up with a way to rescue her...

Besides that: a) Kirito has been a loner since day one, so that's nothing new, and b) there are other people in the new game anyway.

That said, if he knew they'd all get "hack points" like he did (keeping all the old skills), there may be some advantage to it... :heh:

Well some peeps might not like it but it's what we get so either we grin and bear it, enjoy it for what it is or quit watching all together. Why don't you give it some more time.

On a side note Kirito's skills max out at 1000 huh? And from what Agil said Alfheim put's emphasis on skills rather than actual levels so it's not just a major advantage. It's overkill. A noob OHKOing a vet player? I'm surprised they didn't report him to a GM.

Yeah, I'm sure that'd go down well, "Hey, Liz/Scilia/Klein, wanna Trooper Transform and We are VR For a while?" I'm sure some people wouldn't ever touch the broadside of a NervGear again if they could get away with it.

I kinda imagined to look more like an independent coffee shop than something out of Bebop. Now I have Jet's VA Stuck as his voice actor for the inevitable dub.

That said, after the Bay-tastic way things exploded when killed in SAO, It's kinda lame to go to the Death Flame.

VR Troopers? That's like ancient man LOL:D I think the death flame is ok for the theme. I mean in SAO shattering represents the fact that when you're gone you're gone forever. In Alfheim it's not the case.

So, thoughts:

* Incestoul cousin-love was kept to a minimum. Even better, blonde elf girl in OP is apparently not incestous cousin, which raises the possibility that the incestoul cousin-love will continue to be kept to a minimum (keeping fingers crossed that none of the other characters seen in the OP turn out to be the cousin).

* SAO has always strived to keep a balance between catering to and away from otaku cliches, so I can't fault it-I guess-for increasing Kirito's harem I guess.

* Great to see that this new world seems to have more PK occurring (which, makes sense, seeing as you really died in SAO, which in turn probably kept PKing way lower than it would have normally). I thought the PK angle was grossly underexplored during the SAO arc, so as a die-hard PKer myself, I'm hoping it has more play here. :heh:

* The awesome that was PK occurring was mitigated a bit by...well....fairies. LoL. I'm not sure Aion would have had as much success if the Daeva were flying around on fairy wings. :p

* I wonder what the death penalty is? Regardless of how bad it is, I've always played from the philosophy of high risk, high reward. I don't know if these players are just far more conservative in their approach to gaming, or if this death penalty is on a completely different level than anything I've encountered in a real MMO (though, I admit, in early games 0f the 90s, it was pretty annoying).

* Kirito seems completely overpowered, so it'll be interesting to see what is thrown in his way to not over-trivialize his rescue of Asuna.

Kirito seemed to positively relish the freedom to kill players this time around. :heh:

I was a little doubtful about a new game set in a fairy world. Not because I don't like fairy lands, I do. But I was afraid this new game would be cutesy. However, I don't that's going to be something I'll have to worry about going forward. :D

I've been in Kirito's position with bugged/hacked/cheated stats, this makes me feel all tingly!

Lets hope kirito's unique skill this time if there is one involves magic

I really enjoyed hearing more mmo jargon, we got away from that after awhile when the episodes blended into a reality

I've been waiting for Kirito's action for 2 whole weeks and I guess he didn't disappoint me as a newbie. heh.

Agil mentioned that Alfheim Online emphasize on skills rather than levels. He also mentioned that this time around it does not have any sword skill but magic skill. So why bother having sword as the weapon when the player is not even having any sword skill.

The impression I got was that sword "skills" may be gone, but that's just because you are 100% in control of your use of the sword, as opposed to how SAO fired off sword skills as you started them. So, having no "skills" doesn't mean you can't fire off a thousand-swords of doom or whatever. You just have to do it 100% yourself.

Magic skills exist, presumably, because there's no way to do magic on your own? :heh:

As I write this, I'm suddenly getting worried about incestous cousin girl. I'm wondering if her kendo match with Kirito was simply done to show us, "hey, in a game where you are 100% in control of your sword skills, incestous cousin girl is going to be awesome". Which means, now I'm starting to be scared that she really does show up in-game in this arc. :(

Well, "sword skills" meaning like automatic combos. You use your own ability to swing the sword, so you can still use it as a weapon to cause damage. I imagine using magic probably has a skill cost and cooldown, so your mainstay would still be weapon attacks.

damn Kirito is so OP. wonder if he'll be able to use nitoryu again in this game. Also 6 days for him to beat the game before the wedding. Going to be interesting.

Well, this is sort of a technicality, but I'm assuming you probably can't actually "beat" this game. The different races are competing against each other to get to the top of the World Tree, but even once one of the races wins, I imagine it could become a sort of castle defence proposition (where the other races are trying to take over).

Of course, for Kirito "beating the game" has a different definition, so your statement still applies. :p

Oh yeah:I think not (that skill was unavailable), because two-handed weapons (and having weapons in both hands) aren't practical in a game where you need one hand to fly.

That extremely cool way of landing will surely set new anime standards:heh:
Seems like no matter which VRMMO, there exist the counterpart of SAO's The Army and Kirito killed one like a boss. Somewhat surprising, even if his skill levels are high, for an experienced/regular player to get owned just like that.

Aura Yui so cute.

Alfheim online - a new game...
That Kirito just can't learn his lesson on games.
Seems like Asuna's fiance is keeping her prisoner in another game.
It was really cool how he got Yui back ^^
So this game is practically a SAO copy.
Him keeping his stats is good 'cause he's probably gonna need them soon enough.
Looks like another adventure is about to begin!

well flying and melee isn't practical anyways. If I could fly I'll rather be Nanoha (long-mid range magic) type then Fate (melee) type. Although I'm a huge Fate fan.

How do they even fly when u control the flying with the controller and hold a sword in the other. It seem like the girl with the sword wasn't even holding the controller when her sword was out. Recon the guy that died was holding the controller and a sword how does that work?

Well, they haven't established what it'll take to free Asuna. The OP seems to show a character that looks awfully lot like Heathcliff, but based on his closeness to a character introduced in this episode as presumably a good guy, I'm not sure if it is him, or what to make of it:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_...2520AM.bmp.jpg

This seems to be this arc's Big Bad:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...2520AM.bmp.jpg

Presumably that is Asuna's deranged fiance?

If that really was "Heathcliff" in the first picture, does that mean he's going to side with Kirito against Glasses-Kun?

Hmm... that's a good point. I wonder if the controllers is only for beginners, until they learn to control it using their minds or other means? You're right that Lyfa doesn't seem to be holding a controller, but Recon was, and he was in every way a n00b. Perhaps it'll be explained next week.

(Edit: Yeah, in that battle scene, everyone was holding a controller except her, so I imagine you can "graduate" from the controller, if your skills are a high enough level or so on. Lyfa does seem to be a lot more agile in the air than the rest of them are.

Edit 2: In the ground battle part, we see one of the fighters (the leader?) holding a shield in his left hand. It could be that the shield has the controller functions on it,or perhaps he too doesn't need a controller anymore.)

ALfheim Online huh? So...why is this series called Sword Art Online when its not even involved in the series anymore?

World's a bit lamer than SAO IMO. Faeries aren't exactly what one would call "cool". I liked it a bit more when they were just regular human swordsmen. That said though, it does make me glad that there's actually player avatars this time around, which helps it feel more like a game. (What's even the difference between those 9 classes anyway? They're all faeries right? Seems to me like just alternate colors.)

So, considering how Kirito retained all his character data from SAO in this game, would that mean that anyone who played SAO would retain their data here as well since they run on the same server? (Btw, the scene where he was hesitating to delete his inventory was pretty amusing.)

Yui's back. Don't really care myself since she's going to be even more useless and annoyingly cutsey here than she was in SAO now that all she has is navigation purposes. She'll be SAO's equivalent of Navi. :heh:

This Lyfa chick seems alright though, even if she's obviously just going to be a replacement for the position of female lead until Asuna gets rescued. As much as I'd like her player to be male, that's probably not going to happen considering how this show seems to like continuously injecting estrogen into itself.

Not really a bad episode, but unfortunately my interest in this show is starting to wane thanks to it. Some of the interesting aspects are beginning to disappear. I'll probably watch it to the end anyway since I've come this far though.

While it wasn't spelled out in this episode, I'm 95% certain that your "class" is like selecting a "race", and that the 9 classes are essentially 9 factions, ie: 9-faction world pvp.

I could be wrong, but that's the impression I got.

decent episode though it only will be 10 eps long T.T

i hope there will be no more still shot in battle scene

what quite bother me in my mind is how that world tree doesnt looks like a tree at all ?
It looks like tornado cloud

Yeah, that's what I thought too. They may have some small differences and advantages for each one, but the nine different factions are fighting against each other. So it's more like picking your allegiance/team. (And Kirito picked his team purely because they wore all black. :heh: )

Seemed pretty spelled out to me. They called them races as far as I saw, not classes. And since Agil mentioned the races compete to the tree, it's pretty obvious that it implies factional warfare.

Egil said that their 'fight' (SAO) hasn't ended yet, so it has some connection with Sword Art Online. Besides, if the name changed from Sword Art Online to Alfheim Online, it'd cause confusion for viewers.

Alfheim is the world inhabited by elves, while Midgard is the human world, they are part of the 9 worlds of Norse mythology.
Since it's called Alfheim, it makes sense the avatars are fairies.

Well, she said she's a navigation pixie in this game:heh:

The way Yui called it an assist-controller during her explanation of flying makes it sound like it's a noob-tool. Maybe it's like Aion, where noobs press the buttons on the GUI to fly, or something? :heh:

Also, Kirito is not using the controller to fly in the OP, as his hands are full dual wielding swords. :p So, presumably, he won't stay a noob for long!