Review of Sword Art Online

As a kid I remember picking up a lot of different games for systems. The first console I ever touched was a SNES and the first operating system I used was Windows 3.0. The first Action RPG game I ever played was in 1996 and a product of Blizzard North and Activision, you may know this game as Diablo. To this day Diablo is still one of my favorite games to play. Sword Art Online to me was a mixed bag of emotions because it employed a melting pot of a number of negatives and positives. I've always been a huge fan of anything remotely consideredRPG and I couldn't help but picking this up. I can't say I'm a real die hard fan of this because some of the elements pissed me off.

I really had some good expectations leading into this just reading a basic summary and the story was definitely something I could enjoy on a weekly basis. I liked the idea of what you would call a permanent hardcore mode, really just a casual gamers way of describing the nature of the game being life threatening or as someone from the ghetto might call it "YOLO". The first episode definitely hooked you in and kept you coming back for more per usual ending episode cliffhangers. I liked how the story progressed into what you would typically see in a RPG: level up, meet some friends, and making a name for yourself. Kirito seemed to really become the typical hero you would expect him to be and properly utilize his knowledge of the game. Although my expectations were not fully met I can say this was a decent half and hour spent per week.

Thats not to say I didn't like the entire plot, the different arcs is where I started to branch of different feelings. I enjoyed the SAO arc but when the ALO arc came around I found myself not liking the content being presented. The story seemed to be sluggish and slow progressing compared the the SAO arc and there was more conversation time and drama build up over a love triangle. The lack of fights and all out battles in the ALO arc really left a sour taste in my mouth. They still managed to keep the "Game of Death" theme because Kirito was really fighting for more than his life for the majority of the story. I felt the writers could have split this into two different seasons rather than combine them, the SAO ending was appropriate but they seemed to lose focus after it. I'd rather not even say anything about the rushed ending. The writers focusing a majority of the central plot around a Kirito and Asuna relationship is what made the chains move for pretty much all 25 episodes. But one of the one things that pissed me off most was the cheap tactic of overused cliffhangers. It seemed that at the end of almost every episode the writers used a cliffhanger to draw you back in, this gives birth to the reference "Enjoy your crappy show".

As a gamer; visuals and end game content are probably what is most important to me, my recent bitter taste of hate came after the release of Diablo III, guess why? No end game content just excellent visuals. That's not to say Sword Art Online didn't have above average visuals. The environments of these VRMMO's were animated very well, I liked how Takeda Yusuke and his team put effort into blaring battle visuals and scenery that could match real world environments. There were a number of different environments that you would typically see in a MMO that made it feel realistic and not cheesy. The characters were all crafted as not to seem completely un-realistic despite what would have happened if the writers allowed them to keep their SAO alter egos rather than doing what they did and revert the players to their real world images.

The one point I have to overlook however is some character designs and inconsistencies. Some of the visuals tried to force a gross amount of fanservice which can really derail any series due to its nature to disgust people. Panty flashes and breast hops aren't really something fit for a series like this, it makes it turn a slightly different direction of hack and slash. The character known as Suguha seemed to have implants through the second part of the series and the animators and writers tried to make the character more appealing. The level of inconsistency had me shaking my head because it frustrates some people to change a characters design mid way.

Some of the characters seemed like they were just put there for cameos and the writers focused too much on the main characters rather than incorporate everyone in the story. I can't really say much about them, I never had a particular favorite character.

Still, a game isn't a game if you have just visuals and amazing content. You need sound effects to put you in the mood. Iwanami Yoshikazu put some feel into the battle scenes with intense choir vocals that gave battles more edge and combined with the animation the battles were probably all I looked forward to. I never really favored any of the ending or opening themes, I wasn't a fan of the visuals or sound tracks, I rarely find a series with good original sound tracks. I heard a lot of hype around the first opening done by Lisa but I didn't jump on the bandwagon. The voice actors all performed their jobs well and I can't dock them any points for bad performances.

The sour taste makes me think the writers could have done better job in the second half of SAO with the ALO arc. When the writers tried to throw another person into the relationship between Asuna and Kirito it felt too forced. The whole scenario could have been avoided due to the nature of it being a cousin on cousin relationship even if it was one sided. In the ALO arc I really hoped for more battle scenes and fights but was only presented with a handful of average fight scenes and maybe one good scene. The whole idea of the second half was to travel some distance to the World Tree which ended in a number of episodes of wasted time. It made it feel like the Frieza/Goku fight from Dragonball, really just a lot of wasted time. Then the writers tried to add another plot branch which involved the world of ALO simply being a test bench for mind control. This concept seemed idiotic because it adds multiple goals to derail the central theme and goal along with everything else. The writing was just really not that great for the second half.

The concept of a virtual reality RPG isn't something I wish on the world. There are a number of people who die from gaming incidents already in the modern age. To some people a virtual reality world would have more of an appeal to someone leading to a decline in their mental and physical health. Simply put its not something I would wish on the world as a casual gamer. I liked SAO for the most part but it was just put up a little higher than it deserved but I still enjoyed it.