Sword Art Online

If VRMMO's actually existed, you can bet I'd be using them just to hang out with and shoot the shit with my friends.

We don't all live in the same place anymore, and it would sure as hell beat Skype.

So, I might be a bit late to this but I've been watching SAO and just finished Ep 11 of Season 1.

I have to say that it's pretty good. And no, don't ask me if I'm watching it dubbed or subbed as I don't really care either way.

I don't think anyone here would ask anyway since both sets of casts do damn good jobs. Of course, everyone here talking about Season 2 is watching it subbed for obvious reasons.

Well, yes.

Honestly, SAO's first season right now for me is really good.

I heard that it goes a bit down the second half so can someone explain why?

It really depends on why you watch it.

For me, I watched it because I loved the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. Everything else was pretty neat but that was my primary motivation. After Fairy Dance (the second arc which is the second half of the anime), the story really stops because about Kirito and Asuna and becomes about Kirito and some new person (except for the current arc, Mother's Rosario, which is about Asuna and someone else).

If you watch it for any other reason then you should be more-or-less fine.

Quite a significant number of people dislike the "damsel in distress" kind of story.

edited 16th Nov '14 4:42:09 PM by HanabiraKage

Oh, you're probably talking about Fairy Dance rather than Season 2.

Yeah, Asuna gets reduced from a badass to a damsel in distress so that's annoying. It does, however, provided some great moments for their relationship (namely Kirito's first attempt at the World Tree) and has one of the most satisfying villain deaths ever.

I just noticed the countdown for Yuuki and Asuna's duel averted Magic Countdown - exactly 10 seconds passed between the point where the countdown appeared and the start of the duel.

@beaver: The fairy arc has some problems. If you're not a fan of characters suddenly being helpless and fanservice you're probably not going to enjoy it as much. Kirito's just as badass as ever and the fight scenes are still solid if that's more your thing.

I'll have to disagree on the fight scenes still being solid in the Fairy Dance arc. At least, in the novel they were acceptable...but the anime kind of copped out on most of them.

The Leafa fight was shit, the Eugene fight was budget skimping, and they went screw it to the point of having two swords breaking through the gate. I think the rest of them were fine...not that much is left.

Kirito's first attempt at the World Tree was really good, I think.

Oh, and the second attempt was kind of...meh(mostly in terms of choreography I guess?) but passable I guess. it also kind of makes Kirito look weird for putting so much effort into killing the things when Recon just spams wind spells to OHKO the guardians.

Kirito kills them like a man.

Recon kills them like a punk-ass bitch.

That's why.

I kinda expected the guardians to be tougher.

But that zerg rush at the end though, which is no match for twin swords.

I think they were supposed to be like, mid-boss tier or something in stats. We already know that Kirito has his SAO stats (even if it isn't as effective in ALO due to it being a less stat-based game) and his brain is like totally awesome at this VR thing so he has a decent excuse for killing things so fast(even if it isn't necessarily depicted in such a way based on the images) but Recon...yeah Recon is just a punk ass bitch. Who the hell puts points into self-destruct magic anyway. Unless it's just a weird alt or something.

He doesn't have an alt, so he's probably either stupid or has really really low self-esteem.

Yui said they don't actually have very high stats, I think they were said to have lower stats than SAO's first floor boss.

edited 21st Nov '14 6:47:52 AM by doineedaname

Selfdestruct spells can totally be a legit thing, if the goal is the survival of the party rather than the survival of the player.

Only thing I seem to be able to find is "they fall short of the floor bosses of SAO" which is too broad of a category to refer to the...level 1 to...11(I doubt it's level 11 since that would mean Kirito had to level up to 21 on the first floor...but I may be misremembering when they started that "over 10 levels of the boss" rule)? Kobold Lord. It also seems that my "about as strong as a midboss I guess?" memory is either totally made up or is the result of bad subtitles or something (but probably totally made up as I can usually check the accuracy of subs in real-time by ear) though.

...I don't understand the reason why anybody had to prepare high level equipment for them if they're too weak, though. Maybe ALO has like, no good Ao E magic or something. Or they only needed armor?

edited 21st Nov '14 10:57:02 AM by YuukiAsuna

You mean the equipment for the generic players making the raid on the World Tree? Presumably they thought the raid was meant to be at least a gear check fight.

I just recently watched episode 17. While I'm glad that the series is back to incorporating the larger cast of characters they've incorporated over time, Kirito is starting to bug me. Although the creators have tried to make him relatable, giving him a couple of angst moments in Sword Art Online II, he just feels too ideal and too perfect as a hero since part one of series 1. He hasn't shown enough weakness, or enough moments of failure for me to find him compelling at all. It's gotten so bad for me that I almost WANT something horrible to happen to him just so that he will be more interesting.

Almost? That's new.

Well, for something to break Kirito, it would have to involve him failing to protect one of his friends. And while I dislike Kirito, I don't have nearly as much hate for the other characters.