YMMV / Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale

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• Angst? What Angst?: Zigzagged. Although she definitely suffers from it, overall Asuna takes losing her memories a lot better than Kirito does. She's shown trying to hide from other people what her lost memories actually mean to her, but she also seems to comes to terms with it and be content with knowing that, even if she doesn't remember how they got together, she would still be spending her life with Kirito. On the other hand, Kirito goes berserker mode and attempts to solo every boss on his own to prevent anyone else from coming to harm.
• Awesome Art:
  • The death animations of monsters have replaced bursting into shards with techno-firework like displays.
  • Sword Art Online has always been known to go to great lengths for its battle scenes, but the Final Battle between the Floor 100 Boss has to be one of the most impressive visual displays to ever be shown off. It features a very fast-paced battle of characters rapid attacking the boss, flooded with the color of spells and bullets being fired, along with both of Asuna and Kirito using their ultimate attacks to finish the boss off.
• Awesome Music: Yuna adds several more entries to Sword Art Online's already impressive list of songs.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: While Ordinal Scale has a lot of memorable scenes, one of the most talked about ones in the fanbase is a certain scene of Asuna taking a bath and climbing out where there are visible shots of her side nipple and her bottom.
• Catharsis Factor: A small but nagging complaint about Kirito and Asuna's relationship was that, although his actions left no room for doubting otherwise, Kirito had never actually said "I love you" to Asuna on screen, despite that Asuna had done so multiple times. In this movie, Kirito not only finally says it out loud, but in the Japanese dub he uses the phrase "Ai Shiteiru", which is far more intense than the usual "Daisuki", to the point that it's barely used in Real Life. This felt cathartic for KiriSuna shippers.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: See this page.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Professor Shigemura's attempt to bring his daughter Yuna back to life and her resolution to bring kindness and hope to others through her songs even after death becomes all the more heartbreaking since December 18th 2021, when Yuna's voice-actress and singing voice Sayaka Kanda passed away at just 35 years old, four years after the motion picture was released.
• Les Yay:
  • A bit between Asuna and Yuna. When Asuna wins the first Ordinal Scale event, Yuna gives her a kiss on the cheek, making her a little flustered. Then, during the next event, when Yuna approaches Asuna again, Asuna blushes and scurries away from her.
  • As pointed out by Lisbeth, Silica definitely has a girl-crush on Yuna. From memorizing all her songs and dance routines to blushing at the idea of seeing her in concert, it's hard to think otherwise.
• Love to Hate: Eiji. He's a strong player, a pretty boy, and revealed to be a sympathetic Tragic Villain who was Driven to Villainy. Except his repeated Kick the Dog moments towards the heroes make the audience hate him, and want him to get what's coming to him.
• Magnificent Bastard: Tetsuhiro Shigemura is the creator of the AR device Augma and its game, Ordinal Scale, distributing it to all the Sword Art Online (SAO) survivors so he can steal their memories from that game in hopes of resurrecting his deceased daughter, Yuna, who died while playing SAO. Forcing the players to fight bosses of SAO, which makes them relieve their experiences in SAO Tetsuhiro then has Eiji Nochizawa attack them to ensure their defeat before Tetsuhiro collects their memories. Already collecting memories from countless gamers, Tetsushiro gathers all the remaining SAO players to a stadium before unleashing numerous SAO bosses onto them, hoping to gather all their memories in one swoop, risking their deaths in the process. With his plan nearly complete, he is only stopped by his revived daughter turning against him and chooses to take his loss with grace, before being recruited into RATH by Seijirō Kikuoka, due to the latter's respect for Tetsuhiro's genius.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Ordinal Scale is full of these, with people praising the sound effects as one of the most impressive aspects of the film.
  • Sword clashes are noticeably different to the main series, having a reverb effect.
  • Gunshots have a more dramatic echoing sound to them.
  • Explosions sound different to the usual stock sound, having a distinct techno sound and a more delayed output.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Iconic SAO bosses like the Gleam-Eyes, the Fatal Scythe, and the Skull Reaper make returning appearances in the film.
  • Yuuki's spirit appearing to guide Asuna's have when she unleashes the Mother's Rosario upon the Boss.
• Signature Scene:
  • Silica's breaking into song when Lisbeth puts her on the spot and plays "Ubiquitous dB" by Yuna.
  • The Final Boss fight against "An Incarnation of Radius", which is one of the biggest Moment of Awesome ever in the series. It involves every ally from SAO, ALO, and GGO arriving as The Cavalry, before the heroes of Aincrad being given back their SAO avatars (along with Sinon getting her GGO avatar). There's a stunning battle of everyone attacking the boss simultaneously, with melee attacks, spell blasts, gunfire, which climaxes with Asuna and Kirito finishing the boss off with their Signature Finishing Moves including; Asuna using the "Mother's Rosario" (with Yuuki's spirit appearing to guide her hand), followed up by Kirito ending it with a "Starburst Stream".
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While the film was by no means perfect, most agree that it was a huge step up from most of the material that came before it. Unlike the majority of the arcs tailing behind the Aincrad arc that did not do much to tie it back to the arc that started it all, Ordinal Scale heavily focuses on what happened back in SAO and directly connects it to the events of the film, essentially making it the direct Aincrad arc sequel that never happened. Also as noted in Awesome Art and Most Wonderful Sound, the film outdoes itself with the visual and audio spectacles, giving possibly the best animated fight scenes and sound effects ever seen in the series. The villains have also been praised for having genuine motivations rather than being generic antagonists who are merely there for the heroes to beat up. There are also several Author's Saving Throw elements present such as Kirito not being overpowered from the start, Asuna regaining her badass, and side characters getting more time to shine. Essentially the film took the best parts of the franchise and put them together for long time fans of the series to indulge in.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Despite having a fair share of Awesome Music, Yuki Kajiura also dabbles again in her habit of repeating musical cues. In this case, the beginning of "Longing" sound almost identical to "To The Beginning" from Fate/Zero.
• That One Boss: "An Incarnation of the Radius" is by far the hardest boss to ever appear in the series and a borderline Hopeless Boss Fight. Kirito's initial party were utterly demolished by it and would have been killed had it not been for a last minute Big Damn Heroes moment from Asuna. Beating it required the combined efforts of EVERY ally to ever appear in the series from SAO, ALO, and even GGO, along with all the major characters using their SAO avatars at peak power to unleash all their ultimate attacks to bring it down.
• Tough Act to Follow: It had the expectations of following after the beloved Mother's Rosario arc, and it ended up delivering. Ordinal Scale performed very well as a film.
• Win Back the Crowd: Ordinal Scale did this for a lot of fans (especially in the U.S.) by addressing several issues that had been brought up over the years, while also focusing on the elements that made it resonate with fans in the first place, namely, an engaging premise surrounding cutting edge gaming technology, spectacular fight scenes, and Kirito and Asuna's relationship, building up on the story from the Aincrad arc, which is still the most popular arc in the franchise. Plus an original story which had not been explored before by the light novels, and overall better handling of characters than the anime had done. It was overall one of the most acclaimed anime films of 2017.