Sword Art Online II Episode 4- First 5 minutes, does 2 “impossible” things

The game finally begins, and Kirito already accomplishes two things deemed “impossible”. How far will the perfect human being go this series?

At least we’re going at a slow, developed pace with some explanations going around. Hell, I hear we won’t see too much of Asuna either so that’s always a great thing. So while you may consider the slow pace to be boring, it’s sort of nice getting some actual explanations. Even so, I hear GGO isn’t all that great but oh well, as long as Asuna doesn’t show up, I’ll be keeping up since I like Miyuki Sawashiro.

Kirito logs into GGO and right off the bat gets himself a very rare avatar. An avatar that makes him look like a girl apparently is coveted by the many players so I can already tell what kind of people play these games. Anyways, Kirito’s account is special since he has converted his previous stats from ALO and even if he wanted to trade avatars, he wouldn’t be able to. Kirito traverses the cyberpunk city in search of a weapons store while constantly being ogled by the players.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Kirito encounters Sinon and he approaches her but he assumes that she will think he is hitting on her. The girlish looks come through and Sinon is fooled and helps Kirito out with starting out. They go to a gunshop and Sinon starts explaining the gameplay aspects of guns. Energy weapons, caliber sizes, physical guns, and all that technicality. However, the main problem is that Kirito doesn’t have enough money to afford anything decent at the store. He asks if Sinon knows a place where quick money can be earned and she points him toward the minigame in the store.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The minigame sounds simple enough but no one has ever cleared it. It involves the player to run through a few meters of ground to reach a cowboy who will take aim and fire at certain intervals. Once the player crosses a certain distance however, the cowboys AI changes and is able to draw and shoot the gun a lot faster. Everyone who has played has failed and money won once cleared is all the money that has been spent on attempting to clear the game. We get to see a first hand example of how the game is played when a player decides to go for gold. Kirito notices that instead of actually dodging, the player takes a rather queer pose. Sinon explains that he’s doing it to dodge the predicted bullet path. The player gets crosses the thresh hold and immediately loses.

Kirito decides to try his hand at the game and of course, he is able to constantly run and and dodge at the same time. Kirito makes it past the thresh hold and even then he can predict and dodge the bullets. As he closes in on the cowboy, the latter runs out of physical bullets but pulls out a laser pistol but Kirito is able to dodge that too. Kirito is victorious and earns loads of money to spend in shop.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Kirito decides to purchase a high grade beam saber. Sinon still mentions that nobody uses them because it involves getting into close combat range but acknowledges Kirito’s speed and reaction time. She then picks out a pistol for him and the two leave the shop after Kirito learns how to aim. Sinon then notices that she has 10 minutes to get to the registration center to enter the community BoB tournament. They have around 3 ingame kilometers and by running it would be impossible.

Kirito then spots a buggy/motorcycle and decides to take to take them both to sign up.

Well, only a month after does the series pick up. It’s a weaker start than SAO’s first but anything is better than 3-4 episodes of Kirito doing jack shit with his waifu.