Story:
The story for SAO started out very strong. The concept of SAO was similar to the .Hack series, except SAO would hopefully have less talking. Being trapped in a virtual reality MMO where if you die in the game you die in real life is basically ever nerds dream. Imagine a virtual reality Skyrim, except the game is extremely difficult and 200 out of the 10,000 players die on the first boss dungeon. However, the story has massive time skips which prevents from establishing a true sense of fear. Everyone adjusts to Sword Art Online almost instantaneously because of the time skips. It also leads to bad character development, but I'll get into that later. The story gets kicked in the teeth in the second half as if the first half was just a prologue, not to mention it wasn't nearly as good as the first half's story. 6/10
Animation:
The animation in SAO is actually very good. Animated by A1-Pictures, who previously have done such anime as Ao No Exorcist and Fairy Tail, have done a very good job with this anime. Every frame is detailed with great lighting, and the action is fast paced and runs at a consistent frame-rate. I think my favorite fight scene was in episode 9, when Kirito, the main character, was fighting the 74th boss, Gleam Eyes, and he pulled a trick out of his ass. That was a very well animated fight. However, the animation in the 2nd half is not as good. It's still good, but not as good as the first half. If the animation were consistently good, it would get a 9. But no. It got an 8. 8/10
Sound:
The OST of this anime was composed by Yuki Kajiura. Yuki Kajiura has fame from such anime as Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica. The music in SAO was very well constructed, with the battle theme being one of my favorites. I also liked the song "Fight!", as it reminded me of the beautiful M12 + 13 from Kara no Kyoukai, another one of Kajiura's works. There's really nothing else to say other than it's great.
Character:
And here's where SAO took a giant dump on itself. Because of the aforementioned time skips, the characters have no time to develop, especially the main character Kirito. The most I got out of him was that he's a badass dude who wears black clothes and plays solo and can win any match. Notice that he plays solo, which any MMO player can tell you is never a good idea. I play Monster Hunter, which isn't exactly an MMO, but it's still fairly similar. I can't even beat any of the bosses without help from a friend online, and that's what made the 2nd episode of SAO so great. He had help from the female lead, Asuna, to kill the first boss. After that he gets black clothes and suddenly he can beat even a dragon by himself. Speaking of Asuna, she's not much better than Kirito. She's introduced as an awesome character in Episode 2, but then she just turns into a tsundere (person, mainly female, who shuns a protagonist before getting to know the person and she lightens up and becomes a love interest) who got no character development because of the time skips. Same with Kirito and Asuna's love for each other. In episode 10, they get married, which is great. The only problem is that in episode 2, it was 2022. In episode 10, it was 2024. Asuna was also shoved out of the spotlight so the side characters can come in and be there for ONE EPISODE. You can imagine why this kind of love interest is bad. It gets even worse in Season 2, when Asuna goes and a new girl protagonist is introduced. She's even worse than Asuna. 4/10
Final Verdict:
I think SAO had SO MUCH WASTED POTENTIAL. It could have been a fantasy epic set in an inescapable virtual world, like Fate/Zero in World of Warcraft. But the story and characters marred it so much that it's almost unbearable to watch. SAO gets a 4/10.
