@Aeolus Wait, am I reading you right, you're saying you think G.U.'s plot is actually worse? There's some really stupid parts and lots of melodrama (In particular I really dislike Sakaki's story) but I remember barely anything happening in IMOQ. The most compelling part of the plot was always Harold Hoerwick's story and I always thought that plot was a lot more interesting when it was done in SIGN (fit with Tsukasa's character arc a lot better too IMO). The best part of the games for me was always the characters and I thought G.U. was a lot better at it.
I don't really know the specifics about GU's plot, but I do recall it being the point where I said "Fuck it." since the dotHack brand by that point already had the IMOQ Quadlogy, the Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga,, the LotT anime (which were similar but also different), the Signs anime, the packed-in IMOQ anime, and the newly released Roots anime to act as a prequel to GU; and that's just the stuff that left Japan.
And yeah, a good portion of my disinterest comes from not really caring about Haseo that much given how much of a proto-Kirito he is (he's still not nearly as bad as Mr. "Hey, I beat up that rapist for you, now how about some reward sex?" of SAO infamy, but that feat's not exactly worthy of a medal). There's just too much powerfantasy going on to make me like him that much, especially since again, you kinda need to get into the above lore just to get the whole picture on him.
Plus, I'm not saying that the plot's pacing is better than IMOQ's (you'd be hard pressed to find a plot with worse pacing, JFC that game was stuffed to the ceiling with padding), but that the few plot beats it had were more interesting.
