Welcome (back) to The World!

I first picked up .hack//G.U. in mid-2007, where I bought both Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the series. In a nutshell, the series amazed me so much that I couldn't wait to get my hands on Volume 3 which was scheduled for a release 2 months later. It was an agonising wait, but I guess I should be glad I didn't pick up the series when only Volume 1 was released, since it was nearly 1 whole year before Volume 2 was released.

After completing the marvelous G.U. games and watching three of the anime series (SIGN, Twilight and ROOTS), I couldn't help but want more. I remember spending weeks researching everything about the series. Although I found many things that should have been enough to satisfy me, it wasn't enough. Because I never played the original 4.

And today, I took a stroll at Midlands during my lunch break and entered Mario Electronics. Since Midlands (or known as One-Stop or Looking Good) has pretty much been overshadowed by Gurney Plaza and Queensbay Mall, it still has somewhat of an archive of old games. It is there that I search for old games which I never got or only found out recently.

And to my surprise (since it wasn't there last time), I found ALL FOUR of the original .hack games. Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, Quarantine. Boy, was I overjoyed when I saw the titles (though still being unable to find Shadow Hearts 1 and Tales of Symphonia left me a little sour). Since they were old games, I managed to bargain for a 20% discount and quickly left the shop and back to work, but eager to end the day so I can go home and test run the games.

Obviously, there was a catch. A catch I expected and already knew were present the moment I saw the games. Being a series that was rather popular during its time (2003), it would make no sense that the complete series would still be there. But there they were, all 4. So, what's the catch? Language, duh. Besides the first game, the remaining 3 were in full Japanese.

NOT A PROBLEM! However, it means that I can't carry forward my game file from Volume 1 to Volume 2 due to the regional difference. There are no problems transferring data from the 2nd to the 4th game though, so I suppose that's good enough. I won't be able to get a 100% completion, but at least I can get 90% or so.

Anyway, I've already played the first game. And it is SIGNIFICANTLY different from the first game. The battle system, the dungeon system, the enemies, the gameplay, heck, even The World is different from G.U.

It's still real-time action, but it's not as fast-paced as G.U. The maps aren't detailed like G.U. and the fields aren't seperated by bridges like in G.U. Instead, when you first enter an area, you are in the middle of a field where you can gate out anytime. Then, somewhere on the field is an entrance to a dungeon, where the Gott statues and bosses are. And the dungeons are as annoying as in G.U.

The difficulty is higher than G.U. and I find myself using items rather often, something I hardly do in most RPGs. Level 1 monsters are actually powerful enough to kill a level 4 character if you don't watch your health. However, abusing the elemental weakness system helps to kill even bosses quickly. Imagine your normal attacks dealing 60 damage and then throwing a 400+ HP damage by exploiting the boss's weakness.

And as I have mentioned earlier, characters die pretty fast. Kite is a Twin Blade, so he's balanced and with a human player controlling him, he shouldn't die often unless the player becomes laxed. However, I find Black Rose and Mistral dying a lot. Black Rose from magic attacks since she's a physical type character and Mistral from physical attacks since she's a magician. The only solution is to watch their HPs as well and heal them whenever necessary.

The story is rather rushed in the beginning, with characters constantly being introduced without much storyline progress. You first meet Orca as your "mentor", and then right after that, you meet Black Rose. Then, by checking a random dungeon mentioned on BBS, you're introduced to Mistral and when you return from the dungeon, you're introduced to Piros. They haven't done much at all for storyline, actually. Well, hopefully it starts getting interesting soon.

Well, that's it for now. Oh, and the music isn't epic like the anime or G.U. but I haven't heard much yet. Animation is still pretty good for its time, even though FF does better, but hey, who can fight Squaresoft/Square-Enix?