The latest outing from the multimedia franchise finds its heroes still trapped inside an RPG, where they learn lessons about cooperation

Online trolls, squabblers and that scourge of MMORPG, player-killers, come in for a severe ticking-off in the snappily titled second film spin-off of the light novel, manga and TV anime Sword Art Online franchise. This aims to school teen gamers in online etiquette, but goes about it so sententiously it’s enough to send anyone scurrying for the dark web.

Scherzo of Deep Night’s lead pair of avatars, long-tressed fencer Asuna (voiced by Haruka Tomatsu) and big-fringed warrior Kirito (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka), are still trapped inside Sword Art Online, a D&D-style online role-playing game. They are solo adventurers, but find themselves caught up in the rivalry between two guilds that players can sign up to. When Asuna and Kirito get wind that one is planning to lay hands on an artefact that would allow them to wipe the other guild out, upsetting the cooperative spirit of the game, they decide to make a chancy, pre-emptive attack on the boss guarding it.