Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online – Episode 1 – Squad Jam [Review]

By: v.o.lynnGod, it’s good to be back in the land of SAO. Not Sword Art Online the game, or its direct sequel, but its extended universe. With the release of the SEED data, this sequel series spins a new set of tales in the same universe as the original SAO series: immersive MMORPG’s are a thing (and they don’t kill you).And this series promises to be wicked.While there have been a lot of MMORPG styles covered in the past, for this series and others, Gun Gale Online is a whole new playing field. The series pass at a First Person Shooter style franchise is fun, refreshing, and the chipper LLENN promises to be a fun alternative identity for our main character. She joins forces with a burly-looking character by the name of M for a multi-team battle royale.Don’t let her pink suit fool you. She’s had some time leveling her character in-game.We get the core mechanics of the game fed through the dialogue as M and LLENN talk strategy. (I think my favorite moment was seeing the “dead” sensor pop up over the first character to bite the dust. After all, the intro DID announce that the “killer software” had been defeated, right? So, nothing to fear...) What little commentary they have with each other is pleasant, too, and appears to be setting up a two-person powerhouse.There's pretty recognizable terrain: You'll see classic FPS cover like trees and abandoned buildings. There's also commando nonsense and grandstanding, pretty much everything that you'd expect from an online game feed if you're on one long enough. If nothing else, it's enough to give a mild Twitch vibe.I know that SAO has tackled quite a few plot lines in the past regarding the mix between real life and the online world, and the series itself is fairly divisive. People either love the series or really think that it took on the same plot lines as other fantasy MMORPG games before it.With a whole different style of gameplay, quests, and PVP fighting in a less hostile venue than the PK of the original series, everyone in the SAO fandom that hasn’t read the light novels will be excited to see how this series unfolds.