Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment

Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment (ソードアート・オンライン -インフィニティ・モーメント) is a game adaptation of the Sword Art Online series for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). It is set in an alternative Sword Art Online console game storyline. Infinity Moment was later incorporated into the second SAO console game in Japan, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, as one of its two main storylines. Its genre is "RPG That Live In This Moment With You" (この一瞬を君と生きるRPG). It is rated "C" based on CERO rating, meaning it is meant "for Ages 15 and up".

Gameplay
Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment simulates a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) Sword Art Online. The player controls the on-screen player character, Kirito, from a third-person perspective. Within the game, players explore monster-infested fields and dungeons.

Players can attack monsters in real time. The player only directly controls Kirito, while the other characters are controlled by artificial intelligence. Players can issue a simple command to AI controlled characters (recover, defend, switch, etc.). Sufficient SP is required to use skills. Kirito will gain small amount of SP from each attack landed on target and large amount of SP from a successfully parry.

When a boss room is found, after fulfilling all the requirements, the player can initiate a boss raid and a party of up to eight people will be formed (Kirito, his partner, and other candidates from other guilds).

In street area of the 76th Floor, Arc Sophia, the character's hometown in the game, player may restock on items, customize their appearance, buy equipment, or chat with other players. The player may also undertake optional quests.

Main Characters

 * Kirito (Kirigaya Kazuto)
 * Asuna (Yuuki Asuna)
 * Yui (In-Game Daughter of Kirito and Asuna)
 * Agil (Andrew Gilbert Mills)
 * Klein (Tsuboi Ryoutarou)
 * Silica (Ayano Keiko)
 * Leafa (Kirigaya Suguha)
 * Lisbeth (Shinozaki Rika)
 * Sinon (Asada Shino)
 * Alberich (Sugou Nobuyuki)
 * Strea (new Character)

Setting
The story is set in floors 76-100 of Aincrad. The content of these floors were designed specifically for this game (and differ from their presentation in other media such as Sword Art Online: Integral Factor or Sword Art Online The Movie -Ordinal Scale-). Each floor (with the exception of floor 100) has a main town, one or more outside areas, one or more dungeons, and a labyrinth.

The content of these additional floors are as follows:

Story
"I'm sorry, but I have a request."

"What is it?"

"I don't plan on losing. But if I die here, I want you to make sure that Asuna can't kill herself, even for a little while."

"Very well."

''This isn't a duel... We're fighting to kill. That's right. I'm going to kill him!''

Infinity Moment starts at the point where Kirito and Heathcliff were fighting against each other to the death. The plot splits from the canon storyline at this point: as Heathcliff moved to finish off Kirito, a huge glitch virus in the SAO Server occurred and interrupted them, preventing Heathcliff from moving and allowing Kirito to defeat him. However, Kirito and his friends realized that the SAO server was still keeping them in the game for some reason, preventing them from logging out, and also realized that the real battle was on the 100th Floor of Aincrad. The glitch virus in the SAO server apparently wanted to take over the last 25 floors of Aincrad.

Everyone then decided to proceed to the 76th Floor. Many irregular phenomenons happened one after another, such as earthquakes, the corruption of all skills and items data, etc. They also found out that the Teleport Gate could not bring them down to Floor 75 or any other lower floors anymore.

Shortly after arriving on the 76th Floor, Yui appeared from Kirito's inventory and informed her so-called parents (Kirito and Asuna) that the Cardinal System was glitched and therefore no longer had the power to delete her. Later, Lisbeth and Silica arrived with the concern for their friends and, after being informed that they can no longer head back down to the previous floors, try to do everything in their power to help Kirito.

After the defeat of the Ghastlygaze, the 76th Floor Boss, Kirito met Leafa, who turned out to be his younger adoptive sister/cousin. She told Kirito that some kind of error had sent her here while she was playing ALfheim Online. Right after that, Kirito met Sinon, who mysteriously fell from the sky of Aincrad and suffered from memory loss. It was later revealed that Leafa likely entered SAO because she had tried to log into it by using a NerveGear while Sinon encountered a glitch while testing the Medicuboid before she fell into SAO, which, according to Yui, might have been one of the errors caused by the overload of Cardinal System which resulted in the system incorrectly recognizing NerveGear ports as SAO player.

On his way back from a dungeon on Floor 80, Kirito meets Strea, a cheerful girl who has been following him around since Floor 79. At first, Kirito is wary of her, but as they spend some time together, he begins to consider her as an important friend. Strea is always found being alone, like a solo player. From time to time, Kirito finds her acting strange, saying "I must protect this world so that it won't disappear" and having a headache as they advance to a higher Floor.

There is a new group of strong players who wanted to join the Clearing forces on Floor 85. Kirito notices that something is wrong with them and decides to test their abilities. He has a duel with their leader, Alberich. Alberich is indeed powerful, probably has higher status and stronger equipment than Kirito. However, he doesn't have any skill or combat experience. Therefore, he is beaten by Kirito and is rejected to join the clearing group. After being rejected, the group is continually found causing troubles for other players. They can eventually bypass some rules of the game. For example, they can sexually harass other female players.

Before the fight with the 90th Floor boss, upon entering the boss room, Strea has a headache again. Kirito decides to finish the boss as soon as he can and rushes over to see her condition. Strea's personality suddenly changes. She faces Kirito saying she won't allow him to clear the game and she disappears from the scene. Start from Floor 92, Strea is found powering up the boss before the fight and disappears before Kirito could have a conversation with her.

Another strange incident occurs. Players are disappearing mysteriously. On Floor 97, on his way to the dungeon, Kirito hears Klein's scream. He finds Klein, Alberich, and another player lying on the ground. Klein demands Alberich to put away the weapon, a dubious design knife in his hand. Alberich refuses to do so and uses the weapon to stab the lying player's body, causing him to disappear. Kirito can not let this go and request another duel with him. This time Alberich's status is very high, far higher than Kirito. However, Kirito proves to him that high status alone can not beat him. Alberich escapes after his defeat, but later his subordinate is captured by Kirito and Klein and Kirito interrogates him. The subordinate then leads Kirito to where the disappeared players are sent to. Kirito finds what seems to be a research on peoples' feelings and a research record. He notices that the days written in this record are the same days when Strea has a headache. Kirito recalls that when he first met Yui, she had broken down because of players' negative feelings. He believes there is a connection between Yui and Strea, therefore he decides to destroy all the research data.

After defeating the 98th Floor's boss, Alberich appears before Kirito again. He tells Kirito about his scheme, a research on the manipulation of the human soul. His identity is also revealed to be Sugou Nobuyuki, who works for RECT Progress. Alberich also explains that he has high level stats and strong equipment due to using a super account. Alberich intends to kill everyone who is in his way and he starts by paralyzing all the players and summoning «Hollow Avatar», the 100th Floor's boss, to assist him. However, Kirito breaks free from his paralysis status and defeats the boss. But, before he could reach Alberich, he is paralyzed again and Alberich takes out a special blade that holds an incurable poison, which would gradually but inevitably reduce the target's hit points to zero. However, this attempt is negated by Strea, who took the attack for Kirito and removed Alberich's super account privileges before being forcibly fused with the Hollow Avatar and disappearing. Vowing to rescue her, Kirito and the group agree to save Strea by reaching the 100th Floor.

After defeating the Hollow Avatar in the Ruby Palace, Strea appeared in a large monstrous form and attempted to eliminate the Clearing group. Her defeat led to Aincrad being cleared and her temporary freedom. Strea slowly disappeared as her fusion with the Hollow Avatar had revealed her true identity as a mental-health care program in the game, and led to her returning to her true form. At the last minute, Yui absorbed Strea's program and assured the rest of the group that she was still alive.

Heathcliff reappeared shortly afterwards to congratulate the group for making it all the way to the end. Apologizing for his sudden disappearance and return, he explained that the accumulation of negative emotions from players' distress had overwhelmed Strea's program, resulting in a catastrophic error that infected the core of the Cardinal System. At the same time, outside interference from Sugou Nobuyuki and his associates had forced the system to assign most of its capacity to handle the new problem. Together, these two challenges had caused parts of Cardinal to malfunction and begin operating independently, triggering a system error that interrupted the duel. As the system reached a level of emergency, Heathcliff had been automatically reassigned to an administrative role. Due to being too preoccupied with mending the situation, he had been unable to inform the players of what had occurred.

Admitting that things did not always go according to plan in worlds where human engagement was deep, Heathcliff declared that all the players had earned the right to leave Sword Art Online due to their defeat of the 100th Floor Boss. Listening to Kirito's outrage at the deviation in plans for the final boss fight, he accepted the Black Swordsman's demand to log everyone else out of the game, before resuming their duel. Impressed when the other players refused to leave and instead chose to fight with Kirito, Heathcliff wondered if he had created Sword Art Online to see people unite for a common cause.

After his defeat, Heathcliff commended the players for their triumph over him, confirming his intention to keep his promise to return them to the real world. When the Black Swordsman questioned him on his own status, Heathcliff revealed he would have to remain in Aincrad to abide by his own rules. Voicing his gratitude to the other players for contributing to his vision, he bid them farewell, before vanishing.

Multiple Endings/Epilogues
The game has many different endings. The ending that the player gets depends on the characters the player teams up with before the final battle. Particular character side story plots need to be completed to open up the character's team up option.

Asuna's ending
In this ending, after returning to reality, Asuna and Kazuto met together at a spot within Tokyo and spoke to each other about the events that they experienced together throughout the game, referring to their marriage ceremony quest and when they wore matching outfits provided by Agil. Asuna then brought up the question of what Yui and Strea must be doing, as SAO was now cleared. After a brief chat about their ideals, Kazuto and Asuna both vowed to come see the sunset again together as a family, including Yui and Strea, someday, and they shared a kiss against the setting sun.

Sinon's ending
In this ending, after Heathcliff was defeated, Sinon thanked Kirito for his care. Kirito replied by telling Sinon that the reason the game could be cleared at that moment was because of her long distance weapon and praised her for her calm attitude. Sinon then told Kirito that she believed that her calm attitude might have been influenced by him. Sinon then confirmed that Kirito remembered her real name and the promise of protecting her in real life as well.

After their return to reality and Kazuto's narration of the events that followed the collapse of Sword Art Online, Kazuto held his promise of shopping with Shino together in reality. Shino then revealed that she had a burden from the past that she could not tell anyone else and that she felt that Kazuto had a similar burden on him, thus they agreed to fight together from now on to share their burdens and overcome them one day.

Yui's ending
In this ending, after Heathcliff was defeated, Yui said goodbye to Kirito and Asuna. They asked Yui to wait a while before they could meet again and then told Yui not to hold back on crying and to bear with it. Yui then asked to be with Kirito before they parted, all three of them believing that they would meet again one day.

After their return to reality and Kazuto's narration of the events that followed the collapse of Sword Art Online, Kazuto and Asuna received an invitation letter from ALO, signed by Heathcliff, with an invitation code. After they entered ALO with the code, they appeared with the appearance of their SAO's avatars without even being prompted to choose their race. After checking his inventory, Kirito found «MHCP-001» in his inventory, with which they were able to summon Yui.

Silica's ending
In this ending, after Heathcliff was defeated, Kirito talked to Silica and she was concerned about the fate of Pina. Thus Kirito asked Yui help save Pina's data into Silica's NerveGear by converting the monster into item. Silica then said goodbye and made a promise to Pina to live with it together again one day. Kirito and Silica also made a promise to form a party together with the others, including Leafa, Lisbeth and Asuna, in other VRMMO games to play, adventure and level up together with Pina and Yui.

After their return to reality, Keiko (Silica) invited Kazuto (Kirito) to visit her home and Kazuto exclaimed that her room was cute. Keiko also showed Kazuto her real life pet, a cat that was also named Pina. At that moment, Kazuto felt tired and asked Keiko to lend him a place to sleep. When Keiko saw Kazuto sleeping, with the cat Pina lying on him, Keiko remembered a certain scene in Aincrad. She then lied down to sleep next to Kazuto on her bed and felt like it was dream. She also commented that Pina in the game world was safe after converting to ALO, and that all of this was thanks to Kazuto, thus, she kissed Kazuto's sleeping face. Keiko then commented that while SAO was scary, it was fortunate for her to play the game, as she met Kirito and Pina there. Keiko then wished that, with technical advancement, there could be a day when the Pina in-game and the Pina in reality could come and sleep together.

Lisbeth's ending
In this ending, after Heathcliff was defeated, Kirito talked to Lisbeth and she was concerned that Kirito did not look happy, even though they could go back to the real world. Thus, she recalled the many good and bad things that had happened while they were trapped in SAO. For instance, how Lisbeth and Kirito found the legendary book of weapons and how they found the materials to make the legendary weapons. She claimed that she had caused Kirito problems with her pointless pride, but Kirito argued that it was not pointless and how she supported him. After they finished the conversation, they exchanged their real life names, so they could meet some time in the real world. After that they are logged out of SAO.

Soundtrack
A Sword Art Online -Infinity Moment- Soundtrack is bundled with the game's limited edition.

Gallery

 * See: Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment/Image Gallery

Trivia

 * The Guilty Scythe boss has a very similar design to The Fatal Scythe, which appears in the SAO anime. The Rebellious Eye and the Genocide Eye also have designs similar to The Gleam Eyes.
 * All side quests, including main character side quests, can be done in a single play-through.
 * Alberich, during his second fight on the 97th Floor, is level 200, which is even higher than Heathcliff's level. However, despite this abnormality, Alberich is not too difficult to defeat due to his lack of combat experience.
 * Some of the Floor Bosses' Last Attack bonus items are weapons that had appeared in the canon SAO storyline, even though the Last Attack bonus items from Floor Bosses are supposed to be unique in the game.
 * Sinon had been spelled as Shinon in this game, but it was corrected back to Sinon in Hollow Fragment.

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