「セカンド・スクワッド・ジャム」 (Sekando • Sukuwaddo • Jyamu)
“Second Squad Jam”

After an episode of prep and build up, it’s finally time for Squad Jam 2 to start!

General Impressions

All things considered, this week’s episode was actually pretty good. With the focus on LLENN and Fuka, it was great to see that our pair works just as well in the virtual world as they do in real life. From a game play standpoint though, I definitely think I have some reservations about someone deciding to leap straight into things with two grenade launchers as their primary weapons. Assuming it was a fairly long reload time due to its inherent firepower as well as the possibility of splash damage because it shoots freaking grenades, the idea of wielding two of them at the same time doesn’t sound like a great idea. That said, if there’s something that the world of GGO has taught us, it’s that just about anything can be an effective weapon if the person wielding it has the skills. Be it a sword or a pair of grenade launchers, I can’t wait to see how the story decides to utilize the things since the surprise of seeing things used outside their normal use case is really what makes this show fun to watch.

Fun times with big explosions aside, I’ll admit that this week’s episode did a rather good job at convincing me that I should be concerned about Pito’s situation. For those of you who didn’t catch it last week, I was rather unpleased with the story’s decision to turn toward the infamous death game scenario we’re all so familiar with. However, after watching the idea of a death game get side lined in favor of LLENN focusing on taking out Pito and in turn hopefully giving her a metaphorical slap in the face, I was surprisingly on-board with the whole thing. It probably didn’t hurt that Fuka has such a strong personality (filling the hole that Pito left if you really think about it) and she takes things so whimsically that it’s just fun to watch her exist.

Overall, not too bad of a starting episode to kick off the second Squad Jam. With a good chunk of challengers for LLENN and Fuka to face, I’m really hoping we get some great battles this time around since I highly doubt the strategy LLENN and M utilized the first time around will work. Anyways, I’ll catch you guys next week where it sounds like things might go wrong straight from the start with the episode titled “Booby Trap”. See you then!

 

Preview

16 Comments

  1. it is interesting that leader of the one of the rival teams gives us a bit of insight about pito in-game behaviors – risky, courting death and not hesitating to do a team-damage…
    I fully expect her to bring all that madness to the SJ second edition 🙂
    Also, certain girl needs to ease up on the ice-ceam, otherwise upset stomach will be least of her concerns…
    And lets not forget our band of “soviet amazons”, I can’t wait for them to get fighting again.
    And I think poor LLENN will now get huge target tag on her now the sat scan shows the team name… most of top teams are out to get her for various forms of revenge, and then there is Pito and her craziness…

    ewok40k
  2. Greed
    1. What a blood thirsty woman. Honestly, where was she when Death Gun was around?

      She wasn’t able to make it into the BoB. During the qualifiers she faced off against a sniper and was eliminated.

      Wanderer
  3. I’m not really liking the changes from the first SJ, they’re little more than plot devices meant to stretch out the story by making LLENN’s life more difficult.

    The names coming up on satellite scans means everyone looking for revenge or fame goes straight for LLENN. That increases the number of battles, stretching out the story and putting off a quick resolution with Pito and M.

    Destructible scanners means LLENN’s is probably gonna get destroyed, making finding Pito even harder and again stretching out the story and increasing the likelihood of encountering other teams and adding in more battles.

    I mean having more battles is going to be great… but if this is how things end up it’s going to feel pretty forced.

    qwert
    1. While all that is true every change has a good ingame reason. If Pito is the sponsor, as seems likely, she wants to be able to find LLENN easily. As for the scanner I think they just wanted to get rid of an indestructible shield after all the shenanigans in the first one.

      Magewolf
    2. I am surprised the anime didn’t explain the scanner thing properly: in the LN it was all spelled out at once in that scene so there could be no confusion.

      The scan terminal cannot be destroyed. It simply now cannot block weaponfire either. Attacks of any sort will simply pass right through it as if it isn’t there. It is intangible to attacks.

      This isn’t a plot point that needs to be kept secret: viewers are expected to know and understand this right away. The game company is simply fixing the exploit that saved LLENN in the previous tournament.

      Wanderer
  4. I don’t understand why haven’t the moderators BAN Pitohui? Clearly she is playing for herself even after joining guilds or platoons.

    This scene was great! Lots of dairy and a brown mess.

    Note: Per my linguistics teacher’s belief, Ladies don’t poop, fart or get diarrhea…

    https://randomc.net/image/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alternative%20Gun%20Gale%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alternative%20Gun%20Gale%20Online%20-%2007%20-%20Large%2021.jpg

    RenaSayers
    1. probably this is kind of game where nothing short of real life money scamming gets puunished…
      you want justice on someone who killed you? go buy a gun and avenge yuourself!

      ewok40k
    2. This is funny. In what games do moderators intervene so easily? Just for an example, I do hardcore modding on a particular online game and fuck with people all the time in a way that I don’t even try to hide what I’m doing or play innocent and yet I go 6 months at a time without being banned. I don’t read the lightnovels so I’m not sure, but in my experience, GMs almost never get involved unless there is an explicit rule against something (doesn’t seem to be the case here), no sportsmanship BS, and even if it is against the rules… well good luck.

      Ameri
      1. Admin would only get involved if you’re involved in a major rule infraction generally and that would be behind the scenes stuff and usually not ingame(Like someone confronting you from the company). The player in question would just find themselves banned with an email explaining why.

        I’ve personally only ever asked for help from a GM/Admin whatever a few times, such as being stuck in the environment and needing to be warped away(lol). Or if something has glitched on my screen and I dunno how to get it back.

        Lyfe
  5. Prediction: llenn will not be the champion on SJ2. Why? That green haired girl triggers my danger radar. As the forbidden kingdom movie says, “He who speaks, does not know; He who knows, does not speak. Surely you’re masterful.” that girl is just quiet in a corner like she was analyzing the teams or something… It seem like she knows her stuff very well. I am guessing #1 green haired girl, #2 LF #3 PM4 (pitohui is sure to be defeated by LF because it is needed to happen) then the amazon group at #4 in final rankings

    Jeffers

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