I made a post a while back about why .hack is a very special game to me, for those who have not read it, I shall quote it here.
I still consider the .hack franchise to be the series that got me into anime. I remember seeing this in my local video rental store, known as Video Ezy however I continued to pass over the series for various reasons (Boring cover, looked like some cheapo game). However, I was in another store a few months later and saw the .hack//Sign anime on the shelf. I still wasnt into anime back then so I decided to try out the game version. Two days later I had finished .hack//Infection but unfortunately I hit a little problem…. the other three games were either hard to find or impossible to get in Australia at the time. Thanks to the good people at EB Games and Gametraders, I managed to locate parts 3 and 4 the next year, however was still missing 2, which I once again managed to track down out of sheer luck. I have currently completed the entire game and a few items short of 100% item completion.
The .hack series was indeed the thing that got me into anime and without it, I would most probably not be sitting here right now blogging about gaming instead of anime. This game is a part of four in a series (Followed by Mutation, Outbreak and Quarantine) which attempt to simulate an online game on your PS2 whilst placing you as a Japanese teenager who starts to notice several real life implications that seem to be linked to this game, especially after a certain event early on. You never actually view the outside world and the desktop screen is as far as you will be allowed to go, however no matter….
Ignoring that, is the “Online Game SIMULATION” which I have spent hundreds of dollars on been worth it, or have I been collecting them for a collection? Read on to find out…..
Aaahhhh…. you have got to love dramatic beginnings
What sort of storyline can you expect from a game about people playing a game? Well if you are not familiar with the basic storylines of the other hack games, here is a quick synopsis of the game:
Who is Aura? What is the Book of Twilight? Why did your friend Orca (Pictured above), fall into a mysterious coma? As the outlaw player, Kite, you are on a mission of truth. Take a journey into a virtual world where anything is possible and nothing is as it appears. Fight your way through contaminated levels of cyberspace as you take on and eliminate enemies and unlock codes that will allow you to gate travel to even more environments – all in a deperate attempt to discover who or what’s behind the world.
As is made evident by the fact that there is four games in the series, none of the above mentioned goals will be achieved, and this is essentially a “get acquainted with the game you will be playing for another three titles” game. The storyline is okay, and it generally keeps to the overall storyline however for a single game, I felt rather disappointed by the fact that nothing was accomplished by the end of this volume, infact, you don’t even really find out who the antagonist is at all, not even a clue. That being said, there are side quests to take in order to unlock new equipment and in terms of character recruitment, some of them do have a small storyline which allows you to unlock a character. These are generally posted by the BBS system which is also simulated and carries on a few storylines on it, some funny, some just responding to news you get posted on the desktop.
Your Twinblade in shining armor
In terms of characters, you get a few main characters such as Kite (Your character), Blackrose (Your sidekick) and Mia (A Cat Player) however besides Blackrose, none of the other characters are important to your party, and infact, in most of the scenes that progress the storyline, they do not appear in them, or in the event they do, have very little to say, if at all. I can understand the storywriting complications associated with it, however other games have done this, such as Star Ocean 3 with the optional recruitable characters, so why not this game? Instead, you get emails from the characters as your relationship increases which does offer some back-story or some quirky detail about the character which is a nice touch. However, I would still say character development is lacking.
The root town you are shoved in at the start – newbie filled.
In terms of graphics, taking into account this game is on a previous generation console, has a fair bit of content such as randomly designing dungeons and was made in 2004, I would call it average at best. For a top of the line game in the future, I would be asking for my money back, however this has been expanded in the manga and anime, so I suppose Kite (Default name of the protagonist), just bought a newbie set of “The World” or there was just too much darn’ed stuff on the game disk. Cutscene quality is pretty well done through, and character designs are terrible, however the environment designs of both root town and field/dungeon areas is below par.
The opening cinematic of this game really feels like it is something that belongs in a game titled “.hack” and has the distorted music and varying tunes taken from the game, so I enjoyed it. In terms of the music ingame, there were some good tracks, however a lot of the tracks just seem to be plain average or just there to be “Dungeon themes”. Voice acting was good enough that I could play the whole game through with the English VA’s on, and it is fun later on pointing out at other games which have Kite’s VA on it, since it is one that always sticks in my head and is fairly unique and identifiable.
Starting a game with simulated mail…. just as fun as real e-mail~
So you start up your game save and are instantly plunged into your false desktop, which allows you to check your mail and news, whilst maybe fiddling with the wallpaper and background music. Of course, this is of little interest so you can click on THE WORLD at the top and go to the login screen. You have two options, play or the BBS (A simulated forum system). Once logging into the game you are welcomed to your last accessed root town which will be the hub of your gaming experience. Each hub world has level limits on the environments you can visit (Eg. The first town is levels 1-15, second is 15-30 etc).
In the town, you can buy your basic healing items and equipment, call party members out or trade other members for items, which is extremely important later on when they seem to have the best items. You must barter for them and whilst it usually means you end up on the worse side of the deal, the trade-off is worth it. Once equipped up, you can go to a level by going to the Warp Gate and choosing three random letters, or in the case of quests, just going to what area the game tells you.
Uninspired landscape but some pretty decent looking monsters.
You start out in a field map where you begin your most torturous task, finding the location of the dungeon, which can be tedious after a while as you may find yourself missing it on the mini-map several times. In the field map are basic monsters that you can run away from or fight for EXP. EXP in this game is always 1,000EXP to the next level, however depending on your level, you will get decreased EXP from weaker mobs (Down to 1 EXP). Once finding the enterance to the dungeon, you can enter and begin the quest to reach the bottom most basement.
Data Drain, not always your best option.
In the dungeons, you are locked into rooms until you beat every enemy, which can be a pain if you are almost at the end and cannot complete the level, however you have another tool available, Data Drain. This allows you to “hack” the game to transform the enemy into a harmless one, however it is a game of chance, as the more you use it, the higher your infection level goes, and the higher that is, it can result in a game over, reduction in HP, status effects or on occasion, full HP heal of all your party members. Generally through, it only affects you when you don’t want it to happen. Sometimes you will come across infected enemies which you can Data Drain for virus cores to unlock new regions by gate hacking… these are generally storyline related and besides that, virus cores have no real use after unlocking the levels.
In terms of re-playability, you will most probably play this game once, and then use it to add to .hack//Mutation, as I wouldnt really place any game in this series, besides Quarrantine as replayable, as the quests and storylines will be exactly the same, unless you like pretending you are playing an online game, then go right ahead. Personally, I liked the series, however I do not think it has enough to keep you interested without the other three games, making it an investment game, not an individual game in the series.
Overall Score
Storyline: 6
Characters: 6
Graphics: 5
Music: 5
Gameplay: 7
Replayability: 3
Personal Opinion: 7
Total Score: 6
But wait, there is MORE!
All copies of the game comes with the first part (out of four), of the anime series .hack//Liminality which follows the adventures of a group of people who are investigating the effects of the game on real life events and catastrophes. The first part is about Mai Minase, who wakes up from falling unconscious after playing “The World” with a friend who fell into a coma. She is approached by an ex-CC Corperation employee and they work to get to the bottom of the case. Unlike the game which has no outside world content, this anime has no “The World” content, except for a few scenes with a few abstract level designs flip by for a few seconds each time. The benefit of watching this is that it incorporates special world key words within the anime, which can be used ingame for special weapons. The quality of the anime is generally very high and is a really interesting watch. I leave you with the opening of .hack//Liminality: Part 1 – In the case of Mai Minase.
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