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[Bebpo]

-The Terminal disc, which is a collection of video reports (maybe 3+ hours?) by Jun Bansyoya creator of Project GU, in which he details what he's learned from his investigations on the incident that took place in 2010 [the original .hack series] and how he applied this knowledge and how it drove him to creat Project GU. [Note, this is a fictional person and this is a stylish way at recapping the original games while providing intrigue towards the new plot].

As with GU Vol.1 itself, I haven't had time to do more than just grace the beginning, but the story seems really, really interesting. Despite the original .hack being very repetitive and having bad graphics, the story was awesome (though the pacing was not so much) and GU looks to be just as mysterious, cool, stylish, and should have people cracking theories right from the start. The plot is heavily tied into the first game series but then I guess that's why they give you a disc completely dedicated to recapping that game Game also is the direct sequel to the newest .hack anime and I think the first hour of the game spoils the ending to that series (need to watch it to get more background on the game now ^^.

Only barely touched the gameplay/battle engine but between E3 and the early explaination of the systems...I don't really like it much :\ I strongly prefer the original series's battle engine/dungeons GU seems slower and crappy action-rpgy. Dunno though, hopefully it gets better.

Graphics are ok, cutscenes are great, music is on par or maybe better than the original series (so it's darn good), lots of voices and they rock, anime cutscenes for the news!

Yeah, extremely extremely early thoughts are: I doubt it's a good game in terms of gameplay, but I'll be giving it X amount of hours for all 3 volumes because I gotta see this story play out to the end. Hopefully the actual game part turns out alright, but if not oh well, it's probably better movie than the actual .hack animes and most plot-heavy videogames

 

[davepoobond]

i like the .hack series quite a bit. i'm only at part 3 right now, but i have part 4 waiting for me. i plan on beating them before going to .hack//gu which i can't wait for.

i played it at e3, and the battle system has definitely been improved to my extreme and utter joy

 

[bluemax]

I liked .Hacks' story (what I saw of it) but the gameplay was just too dull for me to proceed.

 

[Lindsay]

Waahhh...... I want it now.... A few months wait CAN hurt ya here me Bandai?!

Can I steal that image for my page Bebpo? Also how about a peek at the game disc?

And that'd be pretty bad if it spoiled Roots' ending. The anime is only up to like episode 7/8 now sheesh....

 

[john tv]

Can't wait to play this in English. I want to run out and buy it here today but I know I won't have time to play it for weeks. Sigh...

 

[Bebpo]

Waahhh...... I want it now.... A few months wait CAN hurt ya here me Bandai?!

Can I steal that image for my page Bebpo? Also how about a peek at the game disc?

And that'd be pretty bad if it spoiled Roots' ending. The anime is only up to like episode 7/8 now sheesh....

Sure you can take the image. Here's the main game disc one but it's not as exciting

As for if GU spoils the anime (which I do think would be really stupid yet hilarious at the same time since, like you said, the anime is still pretty early). Well the spoiler regards Shino and for those curious MAJOR SPOILER I THINK...MAYBE...I DUNNO

Spoiler

In intro of GU you learn that mysterious Kite look-a-like Tri-Edge Pkilled Shino while Haseo was with her and Shino's realworld person went into a coma because of it. So Haseo became Vengeful Player Killer Killer and basically became the badass merciless Gattsu of the .Hack universe and that's where the game starts

 

[Bebpo]

Can't wait to play this in English. I want to run out and buy it here today but I know I won't have time to play it for weeks. Sigh...

I actually preferred the first one in English w/Japanese voicetrack and I'd rather be playing that way for GU as well. Pages on pages of BBS boards/newspaper clippings/e-mails in Japanese is headache-inducing >_<

 

[davepoobond]

how are the towns in comparison to the first four games?

 

[Spencerr]

I always really wanted to get into this anime, is the anime good?

Didn't think that deserved it's own thread, because I'm sure it's been asked a million times.

PS that label is awesome.

 

[Lindsay]

Sure you can take the image. Here's the main game disc one but it's not as exciting

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/bebpo/gu/gudisc2.jpg

As for if GU spoils the anime (which I do think would be really stupid yet hilarious at the same time since, like you said, the anime is still pretty early). Well the spoiler regards Shino and for those curious MAJOR SPOILER I THINK...MAYBE...I DUNNO

Spoiler

In intro of GU you learn that mysterious Kite look-a-like Tri-Edge Pkilled Shino while Haseo was with her and Shino's realworld person went into a coma because of it. So Haseo became Vengeful Player Killer Killer and basically became the badass merciless Gattsu of the .Hack universe and that's where the game starts

Ah! You're to kind!

As for the spoiler~we've actually kinda known that all along so I don't think it spoils the anime all that much. So I'm sure the anime will still be able to throw some twists and back info.

 

[Bebpo]

IMHO I thought it went like this:

1st .Hack anime = meh, nice music and art but pacing was terrible and story wasn't all that interesting.

.Hack OAVs that came with the game = not the most exciting, but when taken into context with the games they're actually pretty neat.

.Hack game series #1 = great story that tied everything together into very creative plot. Unfortunately the majority of the plot was spread between lots of nothingness and grinding.

.Hack bonus OAV thing = wtf, but awesome.

.Hack anime that was based on the goofy manga = pretty fun and enjoyable fluff. The plot stuff was weak though.

Only watched ep1 of the new series but found it pretty boring like the original anime so bailed out. Will probably watch it to fill in the GU gaps at this point.

 

[Lindsay]

I wonder~did you get the pre-order bonus disc? And how about this for your game saving goodness?

Then again you may not be as obsessed as me. ^_^;

IMHO I thought it went like this:

1st .Hack anime = meh, nice music and art but pacing was terrible and story wasn't all that interesting.

.Hack OAVs that came with the game = not the most exciting, but when taken into context with the games they're actually pretty neat.

.Hack game series #1 = great story that tied everything together into very creative plot. Unfortunately the majority of the plot was spread between lots of nothingness and grinding.

.Hack bonus OAV thing = wtf, but awesome.

.Hack anime that was based on the goofy manga = pretty fun and enjoyable fluff. The plot stuff was weak though.

1.) ;_; I loved SIGN. It's just so different and was a good intro to the problems facing "The World."
2.) Yep!
3.) What grinding? (unless you mean hunting virus cores in part.4 lol)
4.) For reals!
5.) Ya the LotT anime isn't bad and its short at least so its rewatchable but the manga is farrr better and canon ta boot!

 

[HyperZone<3]

Good to have you back man, thanks for the as always interesting impressions.

 

[viewtifulsub]

I currently only the 4 original .hack game volumes (with the included OVA), and currently on the way to pick up the Sign and Legend of the Twilight boxsets.

But for a person who has no idea where to begin with this saga, can anyone suggest what would be the order to progress through this series (ie both games and anime)?

 

[.hacked]

wow that is pretty neat. I am fighting the urge to import this one, been keeping up with .hack//ROOTS and I don't want to spoil the game by playing an import I really won't understand.


Little off topic but what are the chances of a real .hack MMO? Didn't the World (the game that .hack takes place in for those who don't know) come out in early 2007 according to the .hack novels? Man that would be so cool if they could pull it off.

Xmas 2007 The World for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 :lol

 

[Robobandit]

I currently only the 4 original .hack game volumes (with the included OVA), and currently on the way to pick up the Sign and Legend of the Twilight boxsets.

But for a person who has no idea where to begin with this saga, can anyone suggest what would be the order to progress through this series (ie both games and anime)?

Watch .hack//Sign first, as the game's storyline picks up (a few years, I think) after the anime

I honestly don't think it matters if you watch the OVA that comes with a game first or play the game, I watched them first because they give some clues about world key words.


As for Twilight.. i think that comes after the game series, but I'm not entirely sure. This whole thing is tied into the .hack Manga as well, but I forget exactly where it falls into the puzzle.

 

[Bebpo]

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=828A750362418F4D

The music is really nice. Reminds me of XSep1 when it's at its best.

 

[demi]

.hack is the only titles I could easily complete in a weekend rental, but they never carried QUARANTINE, so I'll never finish the series.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I loved the first anime, really enjoyed the games but need to finish them. But they were just BEGGING for a goddamned skill shortcut menu. Did they add this?

 

[M3wThr33]

I have all 4 games + animes
I also have the complete original series.
In what order should I dive in? I've put a couple hours into the first game, but that's it so far.

 

[Bebpo]

I loved the first anime, really enjoyed the games but need to finish them. But they were just BEGGING for a goddamned skill shortcut menu. Did they add this?

Yeah, you hit R1 and a little box pops up with 4 skills assigned to the four face buttons (you assign them in the menus), then you just hit the one you want.

 

[demi]

I don't even watch anime, I thought the bonus DVDs were shit. Just play the first game and go from there, I think the story is good enough as-is.

 

[..pakbeka..]

is there I can read a summary of the story of the original games?

I never bothered finishing the first one, but I'm very curious about the story, since GU looks so much more improved

 

[RevenantKioku]

Yeah, you hit R1 and a little box pops up with 4 skills assigned to the four face buttons (you assign them in the menus), then you just hit the one you want.

PRAISE ALL THAT BE!

 

[Bebpo]

is there I can read a summary of the story of the original games?

I never bothered finishing the first one, but I'm very curious about the story, since GU looks so much more improved

If there's no FAQ I'd actually kinda recommend renting/buying GU and just watching the recap movies. I only watched the vol.1 recap but it was really well put-together and I'm guessing just watching those will give a pretty good version of what the story was.

Also on the terminal disc there's like 12 movie files total but only 1-4 are unlocked at the start. Seems like GU vol.2 & GU vol.3 will unlock the rest (maybe importing .hack saves opens more [yes you can import your original .hack saves into GU]). The first four I think cover the first 4 games...so that would mean 5-12 = story of GU or possibly story of what happened from the end of the first series until the "End of THE WORLD" and the start of the World R:2. Not really sure yet.

Btw, I wonder if the game set (total) is going to be pretty long. It seems like the level cap overall is much higher than 100 and at like 6 hours in I'm level 11 already and I still only have my starting equipment & 1 attack skill. So...yeah, it doesn't seem like 15-20 hours like the last games. Yet at the same time, at the current pace by ~10 hours in there will have been a lot more plot than all of vol.1 of the original set.

 

[Systems_id]

I've been keeping this on my radar, as I enjoyed the premise of the original .Hack (although I only made it halfway past the second game). The combat looked much improved judging by the videos but I'll know for certain when I get my hands on it.

 

[Lindsay]

Watch .hack//Sign first, as the game's storyline picks up (a few years, I think) after the anime

6 months.

As for Twilight.. i think that comes after the game series, but I'm not entirely sure. This whole thing is tied into the .hack Manga as well, but I forget exactly where it falls into the puzzle.

The Twilight anime isn't canon so it does not fit into the story anywhere. Manga ftw!

I don't even watch anime, I thought the bonus DVDs were shit. Just play the first game and go from there, I think the story is good enough as-is.

I thought they were a great way to show the effects on the outside world. The series isn't about a game on the line it's about peoples lives at stake.

Yeah, you hit R1 and a little box pops up with 4 skills assigned to the four face buttons (you assign them in the menus), then you just hit the one you want.

Neat! How is the actual combat I mean like how do you do combos and all that?

Also do you know what this has to do with the games/terminal disc?

So...yeah, it doesn't seem like 15-20 hours like the last games.

On my third playthrough of the series a few months back it only took me about 22 hours to complete all four games total with most of the extra stuff~ But ya CC2's been going on about how each volume of G.U. will be longer then the first series put together.

 

[Bebpo]

Finished it at around 20 hours.

Kinda disappointment am total in that the first 8 hours are crazy story-heavy and make it seem like they'll really pull off that "4 times the content of the original set"! But then once that drops away and they say "THIS IS WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING FOR THE REST OF THE GAME (aka the next 13 hours)" you go "oh crap, ugh" and it's just doing the same 3 dungeons with the same 5 enemies over and over until you level up to pass the next forced fight in the filler stuff.

.Hack//GU's pacing and stuff basically === .Hack//Infection (and at heart GU vol.1 is really the same game length as Infection + 5 hours of extra forced leveling in dungeons), so if you were sold on that then you'll probably be cool with this (though when the original set came out there wasn't all that high of competition and now there's like a dozen AAA rpgs on the PS2), but those who didn't like it or played a volume and dropped it are gonna hate this game to high hell.

Story could be the savior, but besides the basic plot setup, there's none of that in vol.1 so vol.2 will show whether there is actually a tale to tell or if it's just shallow teasings and rehashes of the original game.

 

[FateBreaker]

So, good-so-far story and good music, but gameplay for the lose? And short, again.

Hmmm ... well, alright. I look forward to your GameBrink review.

 

[Beowvlf]

Sorry to bump this thread, but I've been thinking of picking up the first four games and I wanted some opinions. I know the gameplay isn't exactly stellar, but when I played a bit of Vol. 1 when it came out I really enjoyed the story and atmosphere, but I just didn't want to take the plunge for 4 games at $60 each.

I can get each game for like $20-30 CDN now off eBay, so I'm wondering is the story worth it? Is the gameplay redeemable in any way? A pros and cons breakdown would be great. Thanks guys.

 

[Bebpo]

So while Vol.2 will be most likely another terribly bland/boring/horrible game, at least it came with a nice box this time around.

Interesting to note that the box holds 5 dvds cases and the checklist has two "Etc". Hmmm...it can't be the TV anime dvds because they'd be more than 2 and I doubt they will be giving away 2 free discs in nice dvd cases for collecting all 3 so hmmm...I wonder what it is. Just when you thought you'd only be paying $150 this time around, now maybe it'll be $250 for the "complete" experience ^^;

Holder for the games.

Box outside.

Complete package.

 

[Lindsay]

According to the official website the etc are OVA / CD.

http://www.cyberconnect2.jp/gu/news/news.html (Scroll down a couple articles.)

Looks very nice and it seems to be totally in english? Naturally that means Banco will either charge us $10 for it or not bring the box over at all. -_-

 

[Bebpo]

So yeah, a few hours in an Vol.2 is even worse than Vol.1

Let's see the problems:

1. Game has about an hour of story before you actually 'play' the game. Unforunately unlike the begin of vol.1, none of this is interesting and the presentation is awful. So it's actually really boring and makes you want to get started on the real game.

2. Game does not present new locations/dungeons (well there's like a 1 screen dungeon that's a different version of the empty fields from GU #1); instead you a forced to run through dungeons much lower level than the boss dungeon of the last game (so in other words you kill everything in 1 hit) but since you can't skip most battles you still have to go through boring fight after fight. Not only low level dungeons, but the same lame looking boring dungeons from the first game and in between you get boring story scenes.

3. Then the game does the worst possible thing ever. It brings back the VIRUS CORE HUNTS from the old series. For those who didn't play the old ones it's a BS method of game-lengthening that forces you to do bland non-story dungeons for hours to collect CORES (or in this case SEEDS) that unlock the door to the next story dungeon. I really hate the game design staff right now. I mean they knew the original series had a lot of filler stuff and the goal was to have less volumes and more real content. Yet 80% of GU #1 was filler and now straight from the bat GU #2 is filler.

4. It's amazing what another 4-5 months of HD gaming does to your perception of graphics, because the game looks really bad right now IMO and the sound quality (not the actual music, which is good) seems kinda muffled and badly mixed (the voices are really low when the music is playing) and it just sounds kinda ****ed.

Gonna try the new card game and stuff tomorrow or this weekend as I sludge through this painfully. But it's really disappointing how even from the start the game is incredibly dull and not fun at all. At least Vol.1 had a good intro for 6-8 hours before it got crappy. This is like 3/10 material atm.

 

[DarknessTear]

Yep, what I expected of Bandai.

 

[davepoobond]

ah man, that's pretty disappointing. that series has potential if they could only make the games good.

 

[castle007]

how many .Hack games are there???

 

[Bebpo]

how many .Hack games are there???

Old series = 4
Online game = 1 (dunno much about this other than it ran on set one's engine)
New series = 3

ah man, that's pretty disappointing. that series has potential if they could only make the games good.

Yes. I agree completely. If they kept the writers/artists/musicians but someone other than Bandai did the game-design/programming...it could be an excellent series. But unforutunately it's gonna be bad Bandai .hack games for the next few decades. :\

 

[davepoobond]

how many .Hack games are there???

like...8?

 

[DarknessTear]

4 of the first series, 1 online game, 3 more for GU

Then it ends.

 

[Bebpo]

Then it ends.

:lol

Did you see the sales for GU vol.1? And that there are 3 current .Hack manga series running or about to run in Japan?

.Hack is a money maker for Bandai and they're gonna milk it forever. I expect a next-gen .Hack series about 2 years after GU ends in Jan. And I expect it to be terrible once again.

 

[DarknessTear]

:lol

Did you see the sales for GU vol.1? And that there are 3 current .Hack manga series running or about to run in Japan?

.Hack is a money maker for Bandai and they're gonna milk it forever. I expect a next-gen .Hack series about 2 years after GU ends in Jan. And I expect it to be terrible once again.

They claimed GU was the last of the series, then they're moving on to something else. Who knows, it might just be a spinoff.

 

[MrDaravon]

It's sad becaue I LOVE the .hack//sign anime, but I attempted the first games and they sucked hard, and it sounds like these are as bad. What the hell Bandai.

 

[DarknessTear]

It's sad becaue I LOVE the .hack//sign anime, but I attempted the first games and they sucked hard, and it sounds like these are as bad. What the hell Bandai.

Not only that but the new TV series .hack//Roots is unbearably bad.

 

[MrDaravon]

Not only that but the new TV series .hack//Roots is unbearably bad.

I didn't even know there was a new series :lol . I stayed the hell away from Legend of Twilight.

 

[DarknessTear]

I didn't even know there was a new series :lol . I stayed the hell away from Legend of Twilight.

Roots takes place right before GU. The anime leads up to the events in GU so that's why I even bothered with it.

 

[MegaTen]

Is GU really that bad?

 

[Bebpo]

So I figure I'm getting near the 50% point in the game and I should post some impressions.

+At about 3 hours in the game finally goes into REAL vol.2 mode (like the old games) and gives you a new town/dungeons/upgrades the town/battle systems. At that point the game becomes addicting again in your quest to level up and get all the best items/weapons/equip and it goes up to about the 5-6/10 playable level that GU vol.1 was.

-But the story is all filler, terribly written with awful lines and crappy characters and is boring as hell. Plus it doesn't have the intrigue that vol.1 does.

+The games does stuff right like giving you a way to switch weapons during combos.

-But then the game does stuff wrong like having to answer 3 question quizes to open doors and everytime you get a question wrong you lose 20 chams which are the little bugs you use to unlock doors. So then you have to walk over to this thing where they pop out 3 at a time and kick them for a minute or two until you have another 20 and then go back and then get the next question wrong and repeat until you can finally open the door. Repeat for tons of doors in the dungeon and you're just like "did they think this would be FUN!?!?" and you again hate the staff.

+Bike modding is ok. Basically lets you go faster on the two types of dungeons that let you ride your bike.

-Bike missions are stupid. Remember the old goblin chases? Well now do it on your bike except the bike control is terrible and the goblins are always outside of your screen.

+There is a card game where cards with HP and stuff fight after you make decks.

-The card game tutorial is like 40 pages long and I don't even like card games so ummm I'm not gonna try to learn this.

+Enemies now take more damage from certain weapon types. So you want to change around your 3 types based on the enemy.

-They finally brought speed charms into GU which are soooooooo needed since you spend 1/2 your game time just running around empty dungeons between rooms at slow speed. But!!! They are A. Pretty rare and you can't buy them so you can't just use them all the time, B. Not as good as the old ones as they only boost your speed by 25% :\

So yeah, right now it's a pretty bad game but it's also addicting and makes me want to keep playing and finish it.

 

[FateBreaker]

So...it's a bad game that keeps you wanting to play through?

great.

 

[Bebpo]

So...it's a bad game that keeps you wanting to play through?

great.

Yep. That's pretty much all of GU in a nutshell I guess.

GU is much worse than the original 4 games. It doesn't have any of the creative story or gameplay aspects and GU's "Each game will be as long as all 4 of the original (which is a total ****ing lie since GU volumes are like 20-25 hours and the old games were around 15 each)" statement just means they decided to make GU as tedious as possible so they can stretch 15 hours of content into a 25 hour game.

The worst part about GU is that everything the staff had said about improvements in length/gameplay/etc... from what they learned in the original set was a complete and utter lie.

 

[alistairw]

So...it's a bad game that keeps you wanting to play through?

Sounds just like the first four, really.