When you begin the game, you will be thrown to the character creation screen. Note that for story moments, the character will always be Kirito, but when actually playing the game, it will be your created character. Once you are finished, start the game and watch the opening cinematics.
You will then be immediately thrown into a fight with the Skull Reaper, with the unnamed female acting as your partner. There will be a tutorial of sorts here, explaining the basics of battling. Basically, the Circle button is attached to your Burst skill, with every press lowering the Burst gauge by one bar. Keep pressing it and you will do a combo, ending up with a Burst Finisher skill, which consumes SP.
| The Skull Reaper was the floor 75 boss that Kirito and others fought in the anime, which is why Kirito was surprised to see it at the beginning of the game. It was able to kill 14 players before it was finally defeated. |
Even though the Burst gauge is empty, you can still do Burst attacks, although they don't deal as much damage as when there is some gauge left. You're also introduced to issuing commands to your partner, which can be done by holding L or R (each has a different set) and pressing one of the directions on the D-pad. The X button has the Step skill, which is basically a dodge and consumes one bar of the Burst gauge.
The last tutorial introduces you to Risk, which directly affects how much damage you receive and the regeneration of the Burst gauge. The higher the Risk, which maxes out at 5, the more damage you take from enemy attacks and the slower the Burst gauge will recover. While Risk will slowly deplete on its own, you can instantly reset it by using the Switch command with your partner (this switches aggro from you to the partner and vice versa).
With the Skull Reaper now dead, you'll be treated to a cutscene and will regain control of Kirito. For now, check out your Skills and see which ones you have already learned. The things you see on the skill tree are more like nodes and each one has skills that are a part of it. For the Battle Skills, you will see a Passive at the top, but you have to equip it to work and you can only equip one Passive at a time.
Feel free to purchase anything you want, but it is very good to get the Enemy Search skill underneath the Scout tree. This skill is great, as it will reveal the locations of every enemy on the current map, even if you don't have the full map available, with no SP cost. You don't need to set it to any of the preset spots, as you can press L and R and press Triangle on that skill to cast it. The duration of the skill is shown above Kirito's HP gauge.
The Mysterious Symbol
Back on the map, you'll notice the enemies are there. Some of these will attack you if you get too close, like the Orcs or the large spiders, but others will not, like the bees. Either way, make your way down the slope with the Orcs and head to the next screen (Verdant Street of the Offering). Not far in this area, you will see a cutscene that will bring you to another area.
This will bring you to your first Hollow Mission, which are pretty much random quests in the Hollow Area. It also allows you to view the Hollow Map option from the game's menu, although it can be tough to figure out. The entirety of the Hollow Area is divided into five large areas and the circle shown is a Hollow Mission.
The first Hollow Mission requires you to kill a single Muscle Bull Horn, which if you use the Enemy Search you should have gotten earlier, is the dark purple dot towards the southwest corner. This area isn't mapped out like previous ones, but it will as you explore. To get to the Muscle Bull Horn, go west at the first fork, then follow that path as it goes south to an east/west fork. Go east and then south at the next fork to find the monster, where you'll get a short tutorial on skills.
Note that if you explore, you will likely run into some big Orcs, which are too high level for you at the moment (one's around level 117 and another is around 128). There's chests near each of them, but they are sealed and require you to defeat all enemies in that area before they can be opened. Go back to the one monster and kill it (it's not too difficult), then go to the exit to finish the Hollow Mission.
After a short scene, you'll appear in the sphere that was pointed out earlier, which is called the Control Area, where you can teleport to other areas with the console. You also learn about the Teleport Stones, which are scattered across specific areas in the Hollow Area. In the single-player portion, you have to interact with them to be able to teleport to them, but they're all available to use in multiplayer.
Whenever you bring up the Hollow Map, hold down R and you'll see a bunch of dots. Each one represents a map in the Hollow Area, with purple ones indicating ones with a Teleport Stone. The other thing on the ground is a teleport gate that allows you to go back to Arc Sophia in Aincrad. After the long scene where Kirito reunites with his old friends, you'll get an option whether to recall the events or not about what happened in Aincrad before the game happened.
Back in Aincrad
If you've watched the anime, then you should know already, but feel free to watch it if you know nothing about the Sword Art Online universe. When it's finished and the next cutscene is as well, exit Agil's shop and there will be another scene. This will introduce you to a character named Strea, who ends up becoming a friend.
| Arc Sophia is split into three main sections: Shopping Street, Central Plaza, and Teleport Gate. The last one is where you can go back to the Hollow Area, as well as teleport between different floors in Aincrad and even get sidequests for Aincrad. Central Plaza is where Agil's Shop is located, as well as your room. Shopping Street should be self-explanatory, as it contains shops for weapons, armor and items, as well as Lisbeth's shop to upgrade weapons. |
You're free to explore Arc Sophia now, so do whatever you want to do to find out where everything is located. When you first arrive at the Teleport Gate area, you'll see a short scene with Argo and also get a mail from Lisbeth, telling you to visit her shop. Head to Shopping Street to view another scene with Lisbeth, then visit her shop to get a short tutorial on how to enhance weapons.
That's it for the prologue and what you want to do next is entirely up to you, as you have two paths before you. You can revisit the Hollow Area to either continue the story or play multiplayer by yourself (or with friends). The other option is to work on clearing the floors in Aincrad, with you starting out at floor 76. The game suggests starting with the Hollow Area, but doing that first will make Aincrad very easy, as well as make the equipment obtained from there kind of worthless.
