Impression
First off, apologies for the lack of screen caps – I’m travelling at the moment. This’ll be a one-off thing though, I’ll be back by tomorrow. Onto the episode!
In line with last week’s odd depiction of autonomy from these NPCs in Jotunheimr, Yui managed to follow up with some explanation as to exactly why that was – and it stems back to the fact that ALO’s server is practically a copy of SAO, featuring a full-spec Cardinal System that had auto-generation quests. I suppose this does make sense, as SAO needed to be fully self-sufficient with Heathcliff logged in for days while masquerading as a player. The idea of the system itself moving to destroy the entire game map is introducing another brush with danger as a result, although it’s of course hardly as pressing as anything else we’ve seen so far – ultimately it’s a game, and I’m sure there is some sort of contingency rescue opportunity even if it’s not as straightforward as rolling back the servers. I’d actually like to see their version of Ragnarok animated, which took the form of Caliber SS – Failure Side in the novels, which was a “what if?” sort of scenario imagining the situation if Kirito’s party had actually failed.
I’d have liked a bit more of the actual adventure through the dungeon. I know we’ve only got three episodes and it was never really elaborated upon in the novel, but it’d have been nice to have had a bit more, if only in the form of tactical insight during the boss fights themselves. Maybe it’s just me being influenced by Log Horizon, as SAO really isn’t the same sort of show – I doubt it ever aimed for the same sort of realism the former has been presenting anyway. ALO Sword Skills (which have been mentioned in passing a couple of times now) are a game mechanic brought over from SAO, meant to emulate the automatic system skills performed for you there – a couple of minor differences and changes exist, but they’ll be touched upon more in the next volume. Funnily enough, Kirito and Klein had a strangely identical conversation to the one they had when Kirito pulled out a new technique in the past – it was also against a minotaur to boot.
Klein’s suffering was definitely the highlight of the episode. It was actually one of my most anticipated Caliber scenes that I hoped would be animated well – and it was! I don’t think Klein gets as much time in the spotlight as he usually does, so it’s great to see something like this happen. Plus, you don’t have to have read the novel to tell that there’s something important about Freyja, which means Klein’s… wholesome, honourable and uh, rational decision was actually really significant. I don’t know about Klein x Freyja though. And it’s not because she’s an NPC…
Somehow SAO got to the point of boring like hell. Only the first half of the first season was great for me. Beside some nice charakter skits i dont feel motivated anymore in watching this. The Novels were way better.
Sorry for getting back to you late, your comment must have been swallowed up before I could see it!
I see where you’re coming from, at best it’s mellowed out a lot from what it was before. Maybe it’s because it’s been around for some time now and the hype train’s derailed, but I’m definitely not as excited as I was this time two years ago. I think in almost all cases the original novels will be better, but stick around for Yuuki in Mother’s Rosario!