oh yeah, there was something i wanted to ask is the fact that the other heroes come from alternate versions of japan ever become relevant?
well, do the other heroes ever become relevant other than chad-lancer (i say relevant but he is more like an annoying jester)?
Yes, very.
Kirito/sword comes from the SAO universe by that I mean that he is more like a light novel main character; is not only the way the plot treats him later he is shown to Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
have access to superior technology.
Bow comes from a manga universe, in his japan Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
people have super powers, besides the super weapon they all got from being summoned he has got the super power of perfect accuracy
Spear comes from a VN universe, he is in some ways the strongest because coming from a VN means that he can Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Loop from the start if he or one of the other 4 heroes dies
Well, their origins (light novel, manga, VN) are my theory based on the plot they have and the power they show. brotoyasu even got his own spinoff because he would steal the show other wise. IIRC, the webnovel originally had a bad ending and motoyasu got the sequel so they coudl fix that; but the people reading the original WN were not happy with the bad end, so the author shohorned a good/harem end before brotoyasu's story ended to placate the public. I still hope we will get a true end that does not suck so much as both the good and the bad end of the original WN are pretty bad.
It's fun that kirito is the weakest one ; canonically bow is the strongest, but you can argue that motoyasu is because of his super power and even naofumi's defense can be pretty op, but it's disadvantage is that nmaofumi must have a party, unlike motoyasu or itsuki... there's no way to argue that kirito is the strongest, unlike the other three.