User blog comment:Ishimura Elite/Clashing Blades Feedback and Polls/@comment-26170711-20150417004615

Alright, I know that I'm so lazy that there's no chance of my ever doing it if I don't do it now. So I'll review this for...reasons. Not that people tend to value my opinions much, but maybe the feedback can help you with the rewrite. Either way, I digress.

Story: 7/10

I liked the story. Don't get me wrong. It kept me engrossed the entire time, and there were enough plot twists to keep me guessing, without it being overwhelming. Still, I've gotta deduct some points for the fact that at times it seemed less like a Sword Art Online fanfiction, and more like a story set in some other world. Between the pain and blood being integrated through Skeith and the characters barely interacting with any bosses or quests past the first few arcs, the Sword Art Online elements became less and less visible. The actual story, however, was very good, and kept me glued to my couch, especially in the last two arcs.

Characters: 8/10

I loved Ishi's character development. It was really in-depth and it was great seeing him grow and mature from the start to the finish. He was introverted and didn't talk as much as many protagonists do, but I still loved his interactions with other people. I also found him strangely relatable. The only problem was that he was kinda OP. Like...very OP. However, he always had antagonists who could somewhat match him in power, which kept that from being too major of a problem.

Asuka wasn't a bad character, either, despite being rather less developed than Ishi. I really loved her interactions with Ishi-the clash between their personalities was great. Her growth was pretty tremendous, and with the way she was set up I was rooting for her the entire time.

Yamato was the main 'antagonist' who later turned out to be an anti-hero who just happened to come off as an antagonist. He was really cool more than anything, but him not actually being evil was one of the easiest plot twists to guess. Overall, he was one of my least favorite characters.

I really loved Misaki, despite her being much less developed than the main three. I have to say, I liked Ishi and Misaki as a couple more than I liked Ishi and Asuka. Her death was easily the most emotional part of the series for me.

While I don't want to dedicate an entire paragraph to them, I really like Knight and Hao as well. But beyond there, the characters were almost barely developed at all, and seemed to be just thrown in to serve no real purpose except dying. According to Bedivere's page, she's dating Vimana. I never realized that reading through the story.

Writing: 9/10

Generally, the writing was great. The imagery was great, dialogue was solid, and the fight scenes were pretty incredible. My only problem is the occasional grammar issue, but they didn't impede my enjoyment too too much.

OVERALL: 8/10

Ron Swanson would grunt approvingly at this. And in my opinion, that's some pretty high praise right there. I reccomend this story to anyone who like Sword Art Online, swords in general, and/or really good fight scenes.