The plot is pretty thin: gone are the stakes of the first game, where you played as a gamer trapped in an MMO in which video game death meant dying in real life. See, whereas the first game in the series was basically a continuation of the show (but one that still told newcomers like me everything they needed to know), and the second one gave you an interesting world to explore - and, more importantly, fly around in - with a clear sense of stakes and goals, Hollow Realization doesn’t have either of those things going for it. While that didn’t stop me from enjoying either of the previous two games in the series ( Lost Song and Hollow Fragment), this time out it feels…different. I come into Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization at a double disadvantage: I’ve never watched the anime, and I’m not into MMOs.
