.hack//G.U. Last Recode

Better Than Cringe SAO

Decent story but very repetitive gameplay. Thankfully, the added cheat mode helps make the game less grindy and tedious. The combat is really simple and boring. It's cool at first but gets stale pretty fast. The combat improves and looks cooler in the further games (especially volume 3 and 4) but it's still pretty stale. The dungeons are forgettable and often times reused. The story is kind of boring in the beginning but it gets better as you go on. Character designs are pretty good and the music is phenomenal. I played all of the volumes in cheat mode just to enjoy the story and it took me about 65 hours to finish all of the main story along with some side stuff (not all) and the secret bosses. Might as well treat this game more like a visual novel or watching an anime by using cheat mode because it's not a great JRPG. If this game didn't have cheat mode, I can't imagine having the patience to play through all of this because fights on the lackluster combat would take longer and there would be more tedious grinding for item drops that progress the story (cheat mode instantly gives you them sometimes). If i rated the each volume separately in terms of how much I enjoyed them: 1 - 5/10 2 - 7/10 3 - 8.5/10 (could've been 10/10 but [spoiler]it felt rushed towards the end[/spoiler]) 4 - 7/10 (it's pretty short) The writing definitely improves and gets more interesting as you go on but I felt like it kind of fell off at some point too.[spoiler]Some characters felt left out after arcs that involved them the most. It feels like they're just there and it doesn't feel right after going through so much with them.[/spoiler]The gameplay could've also easily been a bit more entertaining if it allowed you to play as other characters but you can only control Haseo. For how cheap this game gets when on sale, it's a decent pickup ONLY if you're interested and want the nostalgia. Also after finishing this game, I don't think the .hack//Roots anime is worth watching. However, I think .hack//G.U. Trilogy movie is okay and the .hack//G.U. Returner OVA is pretty good.

Is the gameplay good? Ish. You can feel that it was 20 years ago. Are the graphics good? Ish. It's..one of the early 3D styles that doesn't look grating, and we can handwave everything else as 'because it is innately rendering a game.' What this DOES have going for it is that it is absolutely a game made by people who REALLY want you to care about the game. Are there multiple backgrounds for your ingame desktop? Yes. Many of them are Cool Good Ones earned by doing ingame things. There is also WIDELY VARYING fanart on the literal fake ingame fanart forum. With the forum posts. There's like, four forums. They update throughout the game. People post. The vast majority of the time, it's useless nonsense, which I love. It's worldbuilding. This is really a forum where some dude really trips out over some minor thing. There are 135 fake 'player PCs' who run around the world, all of whom have very small snippets of personality but absolutely feel like That Guy You RAn Into In an MMO, including the absolute most concerning furry character. This is exactly what 2004 internet felt like. Do not play the game for its gameplay. It's an afterthought. Play this because you miss when video game drama felt like it was the biggest thing going on in your life, and you'd rush home from school to try to log in in time to deal with things. I've only gotten through Volume 1 thus far, so maybe last three parts somehow ruin it. But the first volume alone, without grinding, has lasted me 18 hours. I haven't even watched the...full ass news broadcasts they put in here? Not the plot relevant ones, like, Some Dude's Youtube Channel. This one is ART, guys. Buy it for the feeling.

i want ovan to PK me

UPDATE: Revising thumb-down to thumb-up. The game gets a lot more interesting towards the end of the Vol.1 Rebirth, and the combat gets better once you have more interesting weapons and start figuring out the combo timings. I still prefer IMOQ, and Haseo is kinda insufferable, but it's a good bunch o' games. Also, the character models and art style in general look way better than they have any right to, a well done Remaster. ORIGINAL REVIEW: Wanted to like this because I have nostalgia for the first series and never played G.U. back in the day. But the first few HOURS are just "logging in and out to check your email" Simulator. There's hardly any gameplay in that period, and what little there is, is somehow more monotonous than even the OG series. It plays well on Steamdeck tho, so that's nice.

This review is clearly biased because I played this game with eyes glazed with nostalgia. I remember how I waited in anticipation for each volume release when I was a kid. Now, 20 years later, I was able to play all the volumes at once. Haseo was still insufferable on vol 1, but he got better at the subsequent volumes (too shounen MC for my taste, though). Gameplay and battles are repetitive, especially for those who like to get overpowered early like me, making the last half of each volume feels like a slog. All complaints aside, I really love the world-building of this series. I did, and still do. I love reading the NPCs' interactions on the forum, especially But*-Rice and Kaki Leader's interactions, then seeing their characters (NPCs) roaming around the town. Reaching Vol. 4 where [spoiler] "The World" ended their service [/spoiler] made my chest felt heavy because I have also [spoiler] experienced my favorite MMORPG shutting down, and the people I love playing with stopped logging in one by one [/spoiler]. Do not play/buy this game if you are looking for an action-packed, non-stop grinding hack-n-slash. Do play this if you want to experience "The World" as it is and... welcome to "The World" P.S.: Pi best [strike]hag[/strike] girl

What a fantastic set of games in an already wonderful series. You can go into this with or without prior knowledge of IMOQ (original games) or Roots (prequel to G.U.) but you will miss some references though they don't ruin the experience. I can't wait to play .hack//Zero!

老游戏了，玩不下去，收藏+1

mmorpg simulator btw

I remember loving the .hack infection/mutation/etc. series as a kid. But there are some issues... Your group members feel like they use their spells randomly; if I could enable/disable their spells I would like that. Also, I wish the spells could tell you it's attack type instead of needing me to figure it out. Sometimes the attack type is built into the name, but it isn't always obvious (There is water/fire earth/wind light/dark neutral). Along that line; I wish it was more obvious what element type the enemy was. Or if my attack is doing bonus damage. The storytelling is great if you just smoke a blunt and get lost in the virtual world. But the whole login/logout/open emails/login/go to bookmarked world you found in the virtual reddit rinse/repeat, to me it just happens a tad too frequently. Sometimes I just want to play the game and have the storytelling be done on the interactive side of things and not in a virtual reddit. I get that you are gathering leads, but there is literally nothing that would have stopped the developers from having a brief npc interaction in the bookmarked story driven location that gives you the next lead. The main protagonist you play is a piece of ♥♥♥♥. On the one hand he wants to stop the sentient part of the world that is putting people in comas but he doesn't have a problem using his "forbidden" avatar power to beat PK players (player killers) and potentially put them into a coma. Supposed admins (CC corp) of the game see you use these abilities and do nothing about it... OK... Doesn't make a lot of sense. It's built into the game... but it's not part of the game... idk. In tournaments you don't get disqualified for using it... idk idk idk. The menu on which you manage your equipment, party, customization, etc... is so bloated. The equipment and customizization and status menus could have been combined into a singular coherent menu but it is separate for some reason... If you want to change equipment but want to use the same customization as your old weapon you... 1. remove the customization 2. change weapon/body armor/trinket 3. apply your customization That doesn't sound so bad, but consider you might do this every time you warp to a new area that has a different primary element. And the fact that you level up frequently and find yourself equipping new items often; it gets annoying. I would like to mark my favorite items so I don't accidentally trade them. There is no easy way to compare raw stats between items. So much scrolling, so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scrolling, so much looking for items. Pausing your battle searching a menu for a scroll or power up to finish the fight ""faster""; when it would have been faster to just use basic attacks without pausing... It never feels good to use an item. They could have easily allowed you to bind items into a radial menu that you toggle into with left bumper or something. So lazy. Or allowed you to see your party members equipment from the invite party menu so that you can see which element type you specialized them into... Obvious low hanging fruit overlooked. I'll keep playing but I find myself getting sick of it within 3 hours and putting it down. I'll try to not min/max as much, maybe I will like it more. I still recommend this game. It's good. I won't finish it quickly but I will. It's better than doomscrolling. It is a nice virtual world to escape into and it feels organic and alive; that is the best part about it.