LN: Sword Art Online Progressive

What the original SAO story should've been. Kirito and Asuna join up and adventure through the world of Aincrad one floor (per volume) at a time. Tsun-Asuna is much better than her perfect waifu (vomits) persona in the original novels.

I've read all three released volumes, bought from Amazon, and I have to say I really enjoyed them. The books address/fix most of the problems and expand on the better parts of the original story. This won't change your life, but it will certainly entertain you with an interesting VRMMO adventure.

Kizmel ftw.

I also got these off Amazon for Christmas.
I've only finished the first 2 so far, and definitely enjoyed them thoroughly.

Kizmel is great, of course. I also enjoy the added depth to the other clearers: Kibaou, Lind, etc. And more Argo!

Definitely would recommend these to anybody.

Sounds cool, will this be SAO only and is it like an alternative story where they actually beat the game or something like that?

No one knows except Reki. They tackle about 1 floor per volume starting at the 1st floor, and it is only at volume 3. That said, it is already a different story, with a lot of changes made to both the characters and the world.

Finished volume 3 yesterday. Really enjoyed it.

I still don't think this will be too hard to link up to the main story.
There were actually a lot of little throwbacks to the main series in volume 3. One in particular that stood out to me was the mention of "next Christmas", considering that by the time next Christmas rolls around, Kirito will need to have split up with Asuna over something, gotten involved with the Black Cats, and gotten them all killed.

I expect sometime in the year leading up to that, Heathcliff will make his appearance and start the Knights of Blood guild, which will somehow lead to Asuna and Kirito fighting and splitting up. Story-wise, this would probably make sense to happen around the 50th floor, which I think is notable because a ton of people are supposed to have died in that boss fight.
That's probably a long way off, though.

I'm hoping to see more of Morte and the beginning of the PKers and how that all turns out.
The interactions between the Dragon Knights guild and the ALS are pretty interesting, too.

Also, Argo is great, and it looks like she's even on the cover of volume 4, which just came out in Japan last month.

As always, the sub characters are the best. Argo and Kizmel make this series. Frankly, I'm a little tired of bath-obsessed TAsuna and fake-geek Kirito. I would've also liked it better if Reki aged both of them by 2-3 years to make their decisions and actions more believable. That, or he could at least explain why these two are so mature for their age instead of going out of his way to say the opposite about Kirito, the middle-school geek boy.

Some parts don't make sense, like how you move the gondola. IIRC, it was controlled like a joystick, but then Kirito used STR to paddle later on. I may have missed something because I got distracted by Kizmel's hotness though.

I honestly don't think this series will ever reach a point where it connects to the main story ending. It comes out once a year and Aincrad has 100 floors. TBH, I think 100 floors is pushing it. That's just plain too massive for any MMO. I would've been fine with Reki cutting it down to half. 50 floors make more sense. He's done a ton of changes already anyway. I don't mind him abandoning the original story, which was vastly inferior to this one anyway, completely.

I guess the weakest aspect of this story is the same as the original: convenience. Everything is just so convenient for the heroes. They need a specific item to get ahead? Lo and behold, there it is at their feet. They need a critical piece of info? Of course Kirito knows it from the beta, or Argo does for some deus-ex-machina reason. Sometimes, it breaks suspension of disbelief. There are times I honestly wish something bad happens to them just to balance it out and make it more realistic. If you can get past that, it's a really fun adventure with hot side characters that you can't miss.

The most improved aspect from the original is definitely the dialog. The wit and jokes are much better than before. Those things hardly existed in his earlier works and only began showing up in Phantom Bullet. I have to say that Progressive is like the culmination of all his experience before and shows his growth as an author.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shinta|hikari

Tsun-Asuna is much better than her perfect waifu (vomits) persona in the original novels.

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Is there a personality change in Asuna, or is it simply that we get more of the "Tsun-Asuna" pre "perfect waifu" mode?

Personality change.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shinta|hikari

Personality change.

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Interesting, as I understand it, these novels are treated as canon, and I'm assuming that this arc aside in the original continuation don't feature Asuna as represented here, correct?

She is still Asuna but with a lot more depth and personality. The original SAOs Asuna barely had any character development despite her abundant screen time, so she was more of a perfect girl cutout. Here, she has flaws and quirks, banters with Kirito, and is nowhere near perfect (aside from the cringey moments Kirito praises the shit out of her in his head).

I will never understand why Kirito keeps praising all his allies, saying they might surpass him one day, when they clearly never will... Alicization is full of that crap.