In the year 2022, gamers rejoice as Sword Art Online-a VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) like no other-opens its virtual doors, allowing players to take full advantage of the ultimate in gaming technology: NerveGear, a system that allows users to completely immerse themselves in the game world by manipulating their brain waves to create a wholly realistic gaming experience. But when the game goes live, the elation of the players quickly turns to horror as ...
Story: Very unique and refreshing entry in the SAO main series. It's a volume of 4 short stories, narrated with different PoV characters characters, 3 of which are heartwarming, and 2 of which are tragic:
If you've seen the anime, the stories are largely identical to their respective episodes, with small changes here and there (cooler in the LNs). Particularly Silica & Liz have some moments that round out their characters more. Kirito's inner monologue in the Sacchi story is even darker than the vibe in the anime, which really lays a nice foundation for his habit of beating himself up over his traumas, later on in the series. Silica & Liz's stories are particularly heartwarming, with Silica briefly getting the older brother figure, she wishes she had, and Liz somehow turning a romantic rejection into a heartwarming ending. Liz's story especially brings out the emphasis on close friendship that I love so much about SAO. Yui's story has a lot of really nice couple moments between Kirito and Asuna as well.
Overall, I felt like the varied PoV characters helped save the stories from dragging. It's also cool getting glimpses into very different areas and aspects of life in Aincrad.
Language: This volume is a bit easier than later volumes, since there's lighter stories, and less mechanics and overall complexity. Not a huge gap, but still easier than starting from the more recent arcs (Unital Ring and Progressive in particular). There's some plant vocab in Silica's story, and blacksmithing vocab in Liz's story - but nothing too hard.