Sword Art Online II – “Ice Sniper” Review

The game is set and Kirito is ready for action once again, but will he survive this game? Read on to find out.

In the desert’s of GGO, a group of player hunters led by a man named Dyne seek out their prey, a group of monster hunters. While planning to attack a previous mark they find themselves caught off guard by the groups hired gun, a minigun wielding player named Behemoth. As the mercenaries take heavy fire, they are saved by the actions of Sinon, the so called “best sniper” in all of GGO.

Just like the one before it, this episode is all set up, but instead this focuses on Sinon and the world of GGO itself rather than Kirito. This is refreshing in a way seeing as how we focus on another character and how they tick instead of Kirito and his harem (although they do show up at the end).

Sinon is the typical, “badass female” character who doesn’t talk much but her actions are very big (Think of how Asuna used to be). We get a glimpse of how effective she is in the field in the first minute when she takes out a dungeon boss single handedly with nothing but a sniper rifle. She also shows how quick she is on her feet when she takes out “Behemoth” by herself.

This episode also gives us a good glimpse at how GGO is run. There are two types of squadrons: Player Hunting and Monster Hunting, both of which are plenty explanatory. Player Hunting squadron’s hunt players for money just like your typical everyday shooters, and have physical weapons designed to take out other players. Monster Hunting squadrons on the other hand only hunt monsters and are only equipped with energy weapons to kill said monsters, which makes it hard for them to gain physical weapons. Even if the expositon is a bit awkward this is a nice change of pace from the previous season as the game mechanics are explained more.

The action scenes steal the show this episode, it was as if the creators were trying to make up for all of the talking in the pilot. Things blow up, people get shot, monsters get killed, and Sinon is a beast. From the first bullet to the last, the shootouts are really well animated and exciting. The music also compliments nicely as well.

“Ice Sniper” does a great job of introducing us to the secondary protagonist of the series. With it’s still impressive fight scenes and good pacing, SAO II continues to stay on track. What interaction Sinon will have with Kirito is unknown at this point, but it looks to be a promising one thus far.