Compared to the first season, this one seems a bit jumpy. The story and plot of the first season seemed to have a very good flow. This season is almost just completely split into 3 different arcs. It doesn't have any real flow; once one arc is over, another one begins.
1st Arc is the Sinon story.
-Basically the same as the first season of this series.
2nd Arc is the Excalibur story.
-Almost completely unnecessary, just some quest that everyone does so that Kirito can get Excalibur.
3rd Arc is the Yuuki story.
-The crying part of the show. Literally, you'll be fighting back so many tears.
I feel like Yuuki kinda pisses me off because her character is going to live on in the story, but characters like the girl that Kirito couldn't save in the first season and left him that message are just forgotten.
The most enjoyable part of this season is the Sinon Arc. Kirito and Sinon make such a cute couple. It really helps illustrate PTSD so well. The 2nd Arc feels like extra random filler that wasn't needed at all and it actually deterred me from finishing the series. I took a huge hiatus before I continued to watch at this point. The Yuuki part is really sad and it isn't bad at all, but it also feels really thrown in as well. If the whole series just focused on the first story more and left it at that, I would've probably enjoyed this a lot more.
Side note - Why is Asuna such a loser? She could've talked to Kirito about how she felt, she felt so alone and really needed someone and he definitely would've been there for her. I'm not sure why he was left out of all of this and it actually feels really rotten.
