SWORD ART ONLINE: FATAL BULLET

You spend hours customizing your own character and picking your guns just for the game to remind you, every five minutes, that Kirito is still handsomer, stronger, has a bigger harem, and is the actual protagonist of your life. Recommend.

This is the best Sword Art Online game made to date.
And after the release of Echoes of Aincrad, I'm starting to realize it's likely going to be the best SAO game ever made. I don't think we're going to get anything better.
And it's not even set in Aincrad. It's set in GGO. It's still the best SAO game.

Its a bit of a mess when it comes to the story, some mechanics, maps, but its still a pretty good time on sale. Feels like an anime-esk Division.

Must note that this is currently one of the only games that allow you to make your own character and not play as *hurk* Kirito,

Honestly, him and his gang are the biggest detractor from this game. They didn't need to be in it. I'll take just Lin and her gang any day. Don't need harem-kun mixing up with my group, Keep your nasty ass away!

After beating this on ps4 and reaching max level, i waited a good while to play on pc again and this still remains the best sao game released to date.
The good:
-Actual viable builds and slightly varying playstyles based on how you want to play
-The AI isn't entirely dumb and will help you
-Gun upgrades feel actually strong instead of always hitting with a toothpick
-It doesn't need 90 billion different buffs for you to deal good damage
-The main character isn't kirito
The bad:
-Towards end game the enemy level scaling gets really bad and they become literal damage sponges
-The AI will struggle in higher levels and be confused as to what to do
-60fps feels like it messes with alot of things in game, hit registry especially in some cases(?) for me
-Some objectives you need to do for story aren't entirely clear but no where near as bad as Lost Song or Hollow Realization
This game is unironically the gem of sao games, they struck lightning and nearly ruined it with dlc that is horribly scaled but at least we got something to do at high level unlike most games lately, the main story is merely 20-ish hours, on ps4 i beat it at launch in 16-18 hours, on pc it took me 19-20 hours but i did alot more grinding here to prepare for dlc.

This is by far the best SAO game ever made and unfortunately the last of the good ones before they changed the formula into a chapter based hack'n slash and got greedy putting microtransactions.

It would have been so much better if they turned this game into live service and kept releasing new DLCs instead of releasing Alicization because since then SAO games were only going downhill.

If you are a fan of the Sword Art Online series, specifically the Gun Gale Online arc, this is easily the most fleshed out game in the franchise. From what I've read about the other SAO titles, they tend to be incredibly buggy and barebones. Fatal Bullet actually has a highly competent mechanical foundation. The gunplay is solid, and the build variety is surprisingly deep. I've been running a high evasion glass cannon build, it feels genuinely rewarding and really smooth. Playing this with a Wooting keyboard where you can actually abuse sub-millisecond actuation for dodging laser sweeps just highlights how tight the movement mechanics can be. The audio design also holds up exceptionally well if you are running it through any dedicated setup, like any budget DAC and some cheap IEMs are great.
That being said, you have to be prepared for some annoyances. The biggest of which is the absolute lack of online documentation. There's hardly any high-quality wikis or definitive guides, meaning you have to figure out memory chips, weapon scaling, and the Extreme mode EXP curves and other details entirely on your own. It forces you to rely on scattered forum posts from years ago just to understand basic endgame mechanics and drop tables.
Then there is the writing, specifically regarding Itsuki. He is an incredibly frustrating, poorly written narcissist. The narrative completely fails to justify his shift into an antagonist, yet the engine mathematically forces you to grind his affinity and sit through his date events just to unlock the true ending. It is a massive oversight in an otherwise decent campaign. It's a shame they didn't spend more time on this part.
I highly recommend using mods to smooth out the experience. There are several community fixes and quality-of-life tweaks that eliminate the unnecessary mechanical tedium and fix the pacing issues, especially when you hit the exponential level requirements in the late game. There are also several mods and tweaks that can drastically improve graphics and performance, making it play like a modern game. I would especially recommend disabling mouse smoothing in the .ini files. Even with its flaws and lack of documentation, if you want a solid anime-style third-person shooter with heavy RPG mechanics set in the SAO/GGO universe, this is absolutely worth your time.

Easily the best Sword Art Online game. Super fun, fast, and faced paced just like GGO is in SAO II. It feels little grindy at times, but I just put on some music and go at it. If you are concerned with the price, simply pick it up off of CDKeys, you can get it for like 8 dollars with all the DLC.
If you are a fan of the show, This is the SAO game you want to play.