Review of Sword Art Online

Sword art Online is a good anime (rated as 7). A lot of people are being vocal about it being some of the worst things they’ve seen, for me this was not the case. Sword art is however an anime of two halves (as you may have already found out), with the first half being much better than the second (a separate story in the novels). I urge you to see it through though and you can even finish watching before Alfheim online begins (second part, pretty obvious) as the Sword art section is very good, Hence why I’ll look at them individually SaO: The characters arequite likable however, each of the characters you see on the cover picture (Kirito and Asuna notwithstanding) will have one episode each and I think that is one of the areas it could have been improved upon as there was not nearly enough development on secondary characters.
The story is a good one, and it will make you want to keep watching, as you really will feel the threat hanging over every character that one wrong move could result in their deaths, that being said there is far too much time skipping. The first level boss has a devoted episode, yet the very next episode Kirito and co have advanced about twenty levels, and personally I think the beginning of the 100 levels would have a been a good place to put a larger section of the series.
The romance sub-plot develops naturally, and you really want to see it advance, however I believe it goes a bit far towards the end of the series with talks of children.
There is a very good twist during the series which leads to the end of SaO and start of Alfheim which I never saw coming, which is a good addition, and makes you instantly interested in how things are going to unfold.
Watch it, it is a very good anime, and separately would get 8/10

Alfheim:
My biggest grudge here is how Asuna: Ass kicking female lead has suddenly been demoted to damsel in distress, and the romance sub-plot here is a little less likable and a little more…not….
The story progresses even more quickly that in SaO and could have done with another handful of episodes, but there is absolutely no threat involved, as you’re just watching everyone play a game, and death isn’t death.
This far through the anime you’re quite committed, but there is not really a draw in this one and is merely ok, separately would get a 5/10.

Ideally they would be separate series’ with SaO as 24 episodes and Alfheim as 12, however, I suggest making room in your day for Sword art Online, even if only the first part, not to mention that the score is pretty fantastic as well.