DO NOT BRING OPTIONAL CHARACTERS TO STORY!! Huge problem, game doesn't even indicate anything. But if you party up with anyone but the *implied* current story characters, you do not get the story dialogue, including actual mission cutscenes like these. #EchoesOfAincrad

How the devs look at you when you choose the “wrong” partner pre-mission. (Perhaps they wanted to avoid the cutscene vs. player party mismatches from AL & LR and went too far in the opposite direction?)

I wish they would have, at least that'd make us realize that there is something... I brought Kirito along after unlocking him and I was like "It's awfully silent, missions usually have some dialogue at the beginning and end, as well as during progression... So I redid with Zash

This might sound stupid, but did you retry with another non-story char (like Argo) or another story char (like Iori) to see what happens? I kind of like the idea of a slightly different cutscene based on who you bring (ala 3D Sonic), but no cutscene at all would be bad.

I was wondering why the game felt even more quiet than normal when I was using Asuna and Kirito for everything… 🧍‍♂️ Sigh.

Same... Wanted to try giving different characters a try as I unlocked them but realized things were.... too silent..

Aww so I can't bring Silica to the illfang fight? XD Still kind of weird they don't make an ingame message telling you that little issue like 'I should bring x instead of y' Unless they do idk I've only just gotten to horunka myself in my file.

I did get these tho, despite playing some of those missions with asuna as my support character?

I had this happen to me when I wanted to take Asuna with me on a story mission and it was just dead silence for 5 minutes. I imagined that'd be the case but it was too obvious that they didn't really plan for people to prefer other characters.

lol... that's awful! We didn't have this problem with any SAO game before

What in the world... whaaaat

That is so stupid

There is a game survey going on writing it in there

So this is wrong. Any main dialogue brings them into the party with you. You can only pick 1 party member at ALL times. And considering you have upwards of 4 main party members (not including purple quest companions) you will always only get the dialogue of the 1 you pick

Please read. I am not talking about the fade to black bug. I am also not talking about field chatter changing based on your party member. Im talking about optional, unlockable (purple) characters even causing story cutscenes to be omitted.

And I’m telling you that is not the case. Any main quest will bring everyone in and have you walk with the whole party. Any quest where you pick a party member is just optional dialogue based on who you bought. If you think otherwise please show an example

This cutscene is the example. This cutscene does not play unless you have either Iori or Zash in your party, nor the cutscene at the beginning of the mission. These are not field flavor dialogue, they are integral story dialogue that sets up Zash's mistrust for Stina.

I got these and I didn’t have iori or sash in the party. The game will teleport party members in if they are part of a cutscene or have you call them over(sometimes a “bit”it plays out differently). I don’t know how you haven’t noticed this happen throughout the whole game.

Mate, I literally posted these because neither cutscene played when I brought Kirito over with me. They never teleported in. I entered the quest without a scene, and immediately after activating the teleporter at the end, I got teleported out without one.

Then show the Kirito scene and how it cuts off all the main dialogue of the scene. So far all you have described is that you didn’t see the scene where everyone meets up for 10 seconds just to say they will regroup back at town.

Also just noticed this is the original sin quest that they already fixed and have talked about. This is the same scene/mission as the black screen bug that everyone has talked about since release. That got fixed…

Seems like a YOU problem if you aren’t paying attention

"Story cutscenes not playing is a you problem" This is why blind fanboyism is just as bad for the series as blind haters.

I try it once and i get a black screen, so be careful guys

Oh so it wasn’t a bug that Wyzeman said something about never being to that cave system even though I took him with me to find it, and not Iori? D:

Always take Iori, i roughly realised that such a thing could happen

Is there any way to know who to take?

Intuition I guess... This 9ne was about exploring F2 with Iori, Zash and Stina, with Zash seemingly quite untrustworthy of Stina. Stina was the designated 3rd wheel, so I brought Zash for field dialogue. Im sure Iori has some too. End scene here should play with either.

Thanks for the info

There's actually lack of communication in the field when you're in a story mission. I was just replaying the mission where Iori ask Liz what she is saving money for. When I brought Kirito instead, there was no convo.

Seriously?

Lol this is a known issue and the work around has been posted on all socials xD Bring 1 of the original party members is the fix. So not Klein, Kirito,Asuna or the other.

They didn't patch this yet have they? Well I'll hang on with Iori till the end then ^^