Sword Art Online 13/14

The podcast is back this week with Sushi and I chatting about episodes 13 and 14. They really did have to be looked at as a whole rather than two separate episodes especially in regards to us not spoiling everything last week.

In short though I really enjoyed the last two episodes. The lightheartedness of the fishing scene coupled with Asuna’s monolouge about her personal motivations really ramped up our motivational and emotional investment in the 75th floor boss (The Skull Reaver) especially when it’s making front line, top level players explode into those pretty shards left right and center in just one hit each. There was a genuine feeling, well at least I felt so, that they weren’t going to beat this one.

What did annoy me here though was the lack of a tiny bit of exposition from the novels where they explain that every 25th floor had been inexplicably hard in comparison to the previous floors, hence why the Army stopped at the 25th floor and why Heathcliff wanted more players for #75 as well as why he used a Corridor crystal which, and again this wasn’t explained, is a very rare and expensive item. Which obviously allowed the group to get to the boss room without wasting time and stamina.

Both boss fights were disappointingly short, especially the Skull Raeaver, I was expecting to see more of a frantic struggle for both not just full hp -> low hp -> end -> Heathcliff -> logout

What I really did like was the final scene above Aincrad, this was beautifully animated and getting to hear Kayaba’s motivations was interesting to say the least. I’m still not sure I understand his reasoning for trapping people in the game. It sounds like he wanted people to live their lives there like a little community of sorts but still you could have let people log out on death. That would suffice as a one life for one world sorta motif.

So next week is ALFheim Online. I’m looking forward to seeing how they transition from Game to real life then back into a new game but most of all the new opening and ending sound amazing. Here they are for your enjoyment and please like the podcast so we know that you like it :)