The story itself is overall okay, but the Aincrad portion (first half of the anime) is the highlight. The situation of "you die in the game, you die in real life" made the possibility of your favourite character being slain by one of the few (unfortunately) floor bosses faced by Kirito and his crew a very real and painful one. This made the defeat of the main villain something that you really wanted and made me want to route for the good guys. However, the ending falls a little flat and is feels like it was an afterthought, with 'game breaking' things happening that don't really make any sense. The Alfheim Online portion is not nearly as good as Aincrad's. The fairy setting wasn't nearly as appealing to me as the fantasy setting of Aincrad, and because there was not threat of actually dying, all the actions of the characters had little to no weight behind them, the only consequence being that the characters would re spawn a little farther away (oh no? how terrible?). The main villain is well done, however, and you will very quickly be anticipating the moment Kirito gets to enact his revenge.
I really enjoyed the art style of SAO. It used very little CGI and the backgrounds all felt hand-done. It all lent to the feeling that these 'worlds' were massive digital creations, full of both beautiful and terrifying locations. The character designs were well done; each character in the main party had a distinct way of dressing that made them instantly recognizable. Overall, I have no complaints about the art in this anime.
There are no memorable tracks in SAO, save the title sequence from the Aincrad story arc. I found that many of the tracks were dull and reused far too often. The sounds effects were acceptable and the voice acting was more that acceptable, but the sound design here is nothing to shout about.
The characters...Hmm...They're kinda bad. They are definitely the worst part of the anime and I think they are one of the reasons that many don't like SAO. While the characters are admittedly memorable, they have NO depth whatsoever, and none of them go through any kind of character development. Kirito is the worst: he is always more powerful than anything else in the anime and he has next to no flaws. It's very upsetting because the extensive list of side characters have a lot of potential with their unique personalities to help Kirito evolve a little bit, however there's nothing to evolve to because he's already the most powerful thing in either SAO or Alfhiem Online. The Romance between Asuna and Kirito also has very little weight behind it, as it basically takes two episodes to evolve from nothing to full fledged marriage. The best character in terms of actual development in Kirito's sister (kinda) Suguha, and I thoroughly enjoyed her evolving relationship with Kirito. I just wish the other characters had anywhere near as much depth as her, and I will freely admit that the Characters are by far the weakest part of SAO.
For some reason, even though my review has been mostly negative, I really liked SAO. I can't really explain why, but I think that it really is worth a watch. I think that the Aincrad story arc alone is worth a watch by any casual anime fan. Whether you watch the rest of the series, however, is up to you. I found that the entire experience was enjoyable, while many others would completely disagree with me. I think it is a personal thing, and to find out you should watch the first episode at least to try it out. Either way, it gets my recommendation with an overall 8.
