Review of Sword Art Online

[The Good] 1. The attention to detail. A lot of the game icons, the interface, and the actions are very similar to what actual video games are like. -Healthbars -Regeneration -How leveling works -Skills. 2. ActionWhile the action is PG13, it is done very well into the lore and relation to how games work. I won't give it points for choreography, but I will for the animation quality.
-SAO-the original world, was a lot better than alfheim in this regard.
-Most of the action is true to the "classic" rpg style.

3. Animation.
Now i'm not gonna lie, the animation isn't top quality or stylized. This isn't SNK or KLK or whatever else I could list out(seriously i love animationt). BUT the animation is solid for most of the show and is well done in most of the fights. There are some pretty obvious dips in quality, but it's to be expected.

The animation quality in alfheim just divebombed though.
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[The Weird]

/SAO
1. The idea of traps wouldn't be much fun tbh.

/After SAO
-First off no action was taken against a company/device that killed hundreds of people
-Second, kirito is weak but asuna's fine?

/Alfheim
1. Racism.
There is an absurd amount of implied racism in Alfheim. Literally every non-same race person is commenting on the other person's race in an insulting manner. Why is this even a thing? they both look exactly alike too.

2. Parties.
So in Alfheim escorting a noobie to a main area is "betraying the guild". I'm not sure how but this seems like a pointless hate. I mean that's like saying "oh you are escorting a newbie to a raid in a horde territory? YOU CLEARLY ARE BETRAYING THE ALLIANCE".
-It just caught me as really stupid.

3. Marriage
The whole thing with Asuna marrying some guy while in a coma. Yeah....that was kinda stupid.

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[The Bad]

1. Game Design
I could make a whole thread on this alone but it boils down to three major things.
-No tutorial
-Meaning SAO is designed as a Trial-and-Error.(meaning you are SUPPOSED to die).
-Even in normal mmorpg's you are usually led to die at least once so that you don't reach max level not knowing what happens after you die.

+ This is just SAO. Alfheim was such a shitty game It would take me a whole page to explain how awful it was in basic game design.

2. Inconsistency.
-Kirito can move at instantaneous speeds, but then he can't later.
A) He runs up this huge wall at a ridiculous speed in SAO, then he's slow as balls everywhere else.
B) In Alfheim he literally teleports in the start, but then in a later fight he has trouble with a 3-shield group who can be avoided since the area is rather large, but he charges straight at them and fails.

-Kirito is super powerful, now he's not.
A) Kirito can regen hp in a pvp fight, but the next pvp fight he can't.
B) In alfheim kirito transforms into a giant beast, but then can't do it again.
C) Kirito can get stabbed in the face and be fine, but depending upon the guy, it could be life-threatening.

3. Plot.
-It's all awful. From SAO to Alfheim everything is pretty overdone.

4. Overhype.
-The anime barely beats other mediocre shows but it's hyped to be this great anime. Don't understand why, since the anime as-is doesn't beat anything THIS season, much less does it contend with the "best of" in any of the season's prior.

-I'm not joking. Black bullet, Jojo's, whatever comes out that is mid-popular blows SAO away in every regard, and that's not even counting the "best of" the season's.

5. Half the Anime was terrible.
-Alheim takes up half the season, which makes the show a lot worse than just dropping it at SAO.

6. Asuna with the whole "i'm going to rape you" thing in Alfheim. I can deal with a single scene of this but the same guy for like 5+ episodes? Come on, that's just insensitive.

7. Players don't act like gamers but like NPC's.
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Final thoughts

SAO isn't terrible. It's not great either. It's just mediocre. It doesn't have any aspirations to present original ideas, but it does have good animation and a good design.

"A decent looking virtual reality with sword fighting" would sum up all the positives.
"A video game anime made by someone who doesn't play video games" would sum up all the complaints I have with it.

I give it a 5/10.