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Okay, let me tell you why I like this one much more than it actually deserves.
But, before I do that, I'll tell you why it's really bad.

Also minor spoiler alert.

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Why it's bad?

Firstly, the novel was written by an inexperienced kid and it was written badly.
... Parts of the plot were missing, other parts were misleading, some parts were controversial, some were just inconsistent.

Secondly, it really is just another isekai where just another Mary Sue is collecting her harem of waifus while also saving the world in the meanwhile.

Lastly, it'd be 10/10 if only they would die in the episode 15.
Sincerely, ease pacing a bit, add back a few skipped parts, and make them die and be buried like it was originally planned by the author.
And also make an uncensored version of chapter 16.5.
And all will be forgiven.
I sincerely do hope that some day they'll actually remake it this way.

But it's not and they didn't and they didn't.

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But why it's sooooo good!

Originally it was just a bunch of poorly written separate stories.
But, somehow, the anime team managed to put all these dull beads on the rich string of plot they managed to weave so it started to look not like a bunch of raffle but a rather nice necklace.
They've managed to pace it as good as anime gets, drawn it without slacking, spiced it with gorgeous audio and added enough action, it actually started looking decently.

But all that decency is meaningless in comparison with the most precious gem they worked on so hard:
LOVE STORY

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Love story

Nowdays I often see love stories to be like "here's a boy and here's a girl and now they love each other".
But that's just some bullshit and I don't believe it.

SPOILER ALERT: if you enjoy good love stories, don't read any further. I promise that the love story in this one is at least decent if not perfect (different people have different taste), so just go and watch first fifteen episodes. And then watch some more if you want, as it doesn't get too too bad too too fast, but it's ain't as great later on.

Everything is just perfect about the love story.
We can see how tho persons meet, how they then part their ways, we see them living their lives occasionally meeting each other here and there and at some point realizing they are friends to each other.
We see events happening in their lives and we see them sharing good and bad moments, intensively tense moments and relaxing moments. Fun moments and sad moments.
They start to care about each other not because we were told that they do so, but because it's only natural that two persons who've shared so much so broad-ranging moments will start to.
And then, a grave danger occours and one saves another's life while he's at the death's door.
Emotions truly overwhelm both viewers and characters and long developed deep friendship bursts into blossoming and everlasting one true love.

Unlike many other love stories, this is not the end but only the beginning.
And everything else is just not bad enough to distract me from it.

Tl; dr: all the budget went for the pilot episode (or call it season preview or whatever) which is relatively nice. But that's the only really nice thing in this season.

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Sincerely, Kawahara was one shitty writer long time ago when he published SAO, but somehow it was made into relatively good anime series.
It hadn't had any pacing, story was nonexistent, it was all about just waifus and there wasn't much plot, yet somehow they was able to produce an enjoyable thing.
They're basically rewritten the entire thing, adding some logical links that should be there (but was never actually thought by the author), paced it and ... directed it into one good show.

Why, for the love of god, why couldn't they make at least something not horrible when they had one of the latest Kawahara's stories? Kawahara honed his writing skill for decades, finally making something with good setting, with story, plot and pacing all included, with characters instead of placeholders this time and with reason instead of waifu hunt.
All they needed to do this time is to just not fuck up.
Yet they fucked up royally.

Honestly, I had very little hope after the season II and that shitty spinoff.
Yet, when I saw the budget, some hope was resurrected inside me.
Sadly, only to be raped and slain mercilessly.

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I don't want to go deep into details on this one, I'll just point few moments and I promise that these are the best moments and everything else is just boring and doesn't worth your time.

Moment #1:
So we have this relatively decently directed PVM scene where one of two main characters got seriously injured and at this point combat scene just stops so they can have their moment of yaoi. This moment is minute long! The fucking whole minute (that is more than enough to rip those kids to shreds during their sudden homosexual stroke) bad guys just stand still and watch them talking to each other.
Martial arts choreography is already shitty at this moment.

Moment #2:
10 minutes long rape scene with two girls tied up. Bad guys spent 10 minutes demonstrably spreading girls legs, yet we haven't saw a single pantsu nor a single nipple. Why was that scene had to take 10 minutes instead of one second? Probably for that we can be sure that this series is far beyond point of no return.
Death scene later in that episode contained a lot of ad-libbing bullshit. Probably to double confirm passing the point of no return.

Moment #3:
Not really a moment, but rather a long standing tendency: there's a lot of info dumps where there was none in the novel (including some accidental major plot distortions just because someone was too lazy to either actually read the novel or to just ask the author), while also some big and meaningful chunks of story are just skipped. Those info dumps wouldn't be needed if only we had the story.
But, I guess, it's much easier to draw just a talking heads than to draw an anime.
Sadly, when in the novel we have a story about a character and then we have a plot twist so we can feel emotions, in here we are just being told the end result without any reason given for us to care.

Moment #4:
A lot of screen time for naked woman who looks and moves surprisingly similar to Yuuki Asuna while having nothing to do with her.
Firstly, it's one very cheap trick to beg for higher ratings.
Secondly, she looks and moves like Asuna probably because character design was too expensive.
Lastly, not a single nipple nor anything was shown despite exposing completely naked female person for more screen time than I can count.
What was the point of her being naked?
If not service, then why couldn't we have this scene shown in just ten minutes instead of SIX FUCKING EPISODES, so we can have at least a few episodes for some story (which is available in abundance in the novel, but I guess we are not worthy to see it animated)?

Moment #5:
Amount of minor plot fuck-ups hides the fact that there actually is very good, detailed, structured and well developed interesting multilayered plot in this story.
It actually feels like someone deliberately sabotaged it.
I can't believe such amount and such magnitude of fuck-ups is even possible.

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Written by me on ninth of April, 2019.
Licensed under CC-BY-ND-SA 4.0.

This piece of masterpiece is just too good to receive just score of 10, it also have to receive a review from me.

Long story short, the only real downside I see is that the story is too short and the series itself are too short too. What could stretch at least for one order of magnitude longer and should take full 26 episodes season is rammed down into 6×25 minutes long chapters.
But, thanks to this ramming, the pacing is just insane!
Without losing any part of the story nor any aspect of any character, Gainax keeps bombarding your brain with awesomeness through your screen every second.

This ... pacing leads to literal impossibility to absorb everything in one go. Human brain just can't process so much data so quickly. This is why everybody agrees on that watching this title at least three times is absolute necessity to really get what is going on. And it is worth watching and it is worth getting.

Action, drama, relationships, plot twists, giant robots, comedy, tragedy, silliness, seriousness — it not just have it all, it have so much of everything of it, it's simply overwhelming!
The only thing missing is time travel with time loops, and it's probably for good, otherwise it'd be too much.

And, even though every frame is overfilled with deep meanings and story, it all packed the way it's easy and enjoyable to just watch and to feel cozy.