There's an obvious shoestring budget. It's been a while since there's been an anime this clearly underfunded. It's hard to say the animation is bad, when it's barely even existent.
Voice acting is noticeably poor, especially for previously unvoiced characters. Mephisto especially misses the mark. I'm unaware as to if the casting was bad or the direction was. It would not be surprising were it both.
They're absolutely butchering chunks of the story out, yet leaving in scenarios the game used to tie in game mechanics to the story. What they've left in is lacking in emotional punch and it's absurd an animation wouldn't expand visually on scenarios from a visual novel type story. I am still in awe that they somehow ended up with even less of Ace's fight.
The more vibrant colors were a downgrade. More than likely this is biased, but pastel really doesn't work with Arknights setting and tone.
Finally, for all things an Arknights anime to be lacking in, it certainly shouldn't be the music. It's a long running community meme that Hypergryph is a music company, there is barely any noticeable music. Not barely any noteworthy tracks mind you, the music is nigh nonexistent.
The only thing positive so far is they showed the scale of Rhode's Island really well. Considering everything up until that, I was pleasantly surprised they bothered using the medium of animation to visually display something that might be more difficult to show in a different medium.
This should be an utter disappointment to any Arknights fan. Especially considering the 3d animations they attached to some previews blow anything done in this anime out of the water.
