LN: Sword Art Online Progressive

[shinta|hikari]

As always, the sub characters are the best. Argo and Kizmel make this series. Frankly, I'm a little tired of bath-obsessed TAsuna and fake-geek Kirito. I would've also liked it better if Reki aged both of them by 2-3 years to make their decisions and actions more believable. That, or he could at least explain why these two are so mature for their age instead of going out of his way to say the opposite about Kirito, the middle-school geek boy.

Some parts don't make sense, like how you move the gondola. IIRC, it was controlled like a joystick, but then Kirito used STR to paddle later on. I may have missed something because I got distracted by Kizmel's hotness though.

I honestly don't think this series will ever reach a point where it connects to the main story ending. It comes out once a year and Aincrad has 100 floors. TBH, I think 100 floors is pushing it. That's just plain too massive for any MMO. I would've been fine with Reki cutting it down to half. 50 floors make more sense. He's done a ton of changes already anyway. I don't mind him abandoning the original story, which was vastly inferior to this one anyway, completely.

I guess the weakest aspect of this story is the same as the original: convenience. Everything is just so convenient for the heroes. They need a specific item to get ahead? Lo and behold, there it is at their feet. They need a critical piece of info? Of course Kirito knows it from the beta, or Argo does for some deus-ex-machina reason. Sometimes, it breaks suspension of disbelief. There are times I honestly wish something bad happens to them just to balance it out and make it more realistic. If you can get past that, it's a really fun adventure with hot side characters that you can't miss.

The most improved aspect from the original is definitely the dialog. The wit and jokes are much better than before. Those things hardly existed in his earlier works and only began showing up in Phantom Bullet. I have to say that Progressive is like the culmination of all his experience before and shows his growth as an author.