Review of Sword Art Online

-Story The basic premise of Sword Art Online is that players are stuck in an MMORPG game with no way of logging out until someone completes the game by clearing all the levels. The catch is that if you die in the game, you die in real life. The premise is great, it's very interesting, but the way the story is delivered seems quite strange. The first few episodes can be a bit confusing as there are a lot of time jumps without any type of warning or explanations. The overall goal of trying to survive and escape the death game is interesting. However, the story isderailed by several filler stories that bring little light to the game world and forcibly progress an underdeveloped romance.

Although the first half of the season had an interesting enough driving force as the plot, the second half's story seems much more frivolous. The driving force behind the second story arc seems incredibly weak but one of the problems is that the story takes itself so seriously. It becomes incredibly difficult to relate to the characters and the story when they're acting like they're trying to decide the fate of the world rather than just playing a game.

-Art
There's no complaints on this front as the visuals are beautifully done and especially stand out during the excellent combat sequences. The boss fights feel epic and grand because the art really helps to convey the size and power of these monsters.

-Sound
The soundtrack is solid without a doubt. The orchestra/choir songs work to convey an epic feeling to fights and there are also other pieces during emotional scenes that work well. In my opinion, there really weren't any songs that stood out but the soundtrack complements the show well as a whole.

-Character
This is, in my opinion, easily the weakest part of Sword Art Online. The character development reaches levels far below mediocre and is downright horrible.

Kiritio - This is the main character but there really isn't anything that we really get to know about him except that he's an awesome gamer that attracts every single girl.

Asuna - The main female protagonist, she starts off with a huge bang and seems to be set to become a very strong character but completely disappears for several episodes before returning to become completely dependent on Kirito. An absolute waste of a potentially great character.

Kirito's Girls - This is probably one of the worst parts in the anime. Throughout the series, Kiritio basically amasses a harem of girls who all inexplicably fall for him. They get almost no character development at all and it's utterly ridiculous how they all fall in love with him immediately. The character development here wasn't just bad, it was so nonsensical that it just pulled me out of the scenes to facepalm.

Yui - Feels like a character just shoehorned in to make emotional scenes. Doesn't really work and seems completely forced.

-Enjoyment
Despite all my complaints, I never was bored during Sword Art Online. The character development and 2nd story arc frustrated and annoyed me. But the visuals and action scenes were excellent and the intriguing premise wasn't completely put to waste. The 2nd half of the season also takes massive dives from the already weak character and story development.

If you can overlook the ridiculous character development, then I think it'll be very easy to enjoy this story, but it becomes a very frustrating aspect. However, the show is still decently enjoyable to watch once.

-Overall
It's by no means horrible, but there are some really glaring flaws that make this show mediocre at best.