.hack//G.U Vol. 1: Rebirth
New story, new look, same experience
Tags: .hack//G.U. Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Nov 15th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| .hack//G.U. (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Role-Playing | No | ||
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A few years back, when Bandai was still separate from Namco, they took a stab at an ambitious new idea for an RPG – an offline, single-player MMO called .Hack. The premise was that you and all of the other characters you met were playing a game like Everquest called The World, with everyone speaking and acting in kind, some even using genuine internet vernacular (“d00d, ru a n00b?”), and the story would focus on odd occurrences surrounding this game within the game, where some sort of virus has invaded the system, and elsewhere in the real world, gamers have started falling into a coma. Making things even more interesting, the ambition this project presented transcended mediums, with different perspectives on the story offered via the videogames, a manga series, an anime TV series and an anime OAV.
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In the end, this tremendous ambition ran into problems in execution. The OAV was slow-paced and angsty, the manga and TV series covered much of the same ground and were goofball and immature, and as for the game series, what promise the wildly unique presentation and interesting characters offered was marred by uninventive gameplay that was pretty much the same across all four games, and even more condemning was a story stretched across four games that really should have been told in one. Still, they were on to something good when they came up with the concept, so it seems fitting that they’d give it another go.
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So, it is here that .Hack//G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth enters the scene, acting as the first part of a sequel series to follow the initial games. Whereas the first four .Hack games were all extremely similar to each other (being multiple parts of a whole), this title actually shows some noteworthy advances over its predecessors, although it is still very much the same game underneath. That being said, your enjoyment of this game will to a large extent be a reflection of how much you enjoyed the previous ones.
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Rebirth’s story takes place some years after the end of .Hack//Quarantine, the last of the previous four games. A mysterious fire has since engulfed the offices of the corporation behind The World, destroying their mainframe servers and incinerating every last scrap of user data. In the wake of this event and the problems involving users falling into a coma, the corporation decided the best route to take would be building an entirely new version of The World, The World: R2.
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Players take the role of a character named Haseo who, after a nasty run-in with some player-killers (PKs) on his first trip into the game, has endeavored to become a notorious “Player-killer killer”, or PKK., hunting down all the griefers that prey on unsuspecting “noobs”. His desire to hunt down PKs intensifies when a friend of his is offed by a strange PK in the game, and subsequently falls into a coma in real life. This PK, Tri-Edge, bears a resemblance to the previous games’ protagonist, Orca, fights with weaponry unseen anywhere else in the game, and bears an attack reminiscent of abilities granted to Orca by Aura’s bracelet.
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After a second encounter with Tri-Edge, Haseo finds his hard drive has been wiped, his E-Mails and member addresses gone, and his character brought all the way back to level one, which instantly makes him a prime target for the PKs he’s been hunting all along. However, in the wake of this attack, he also finds his character is now in possession of unusual new powers, which seem to be an important key to discovering the identity of Tri-Edge and waking his friend from her coma.
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The vigilante aspects of Haseo’s character make him seem like he might be more compelling than Orca was, but it doesn’t quite work out that way as Haseo isn’t always very likeable, and the supporting cast isn’t as memorable either. Whereas Black Rose became what is likely the series’ most memorable character (although this is admittedly at least in part because of her revealing outfit), the characters in this game range from unremarkable to just plain annoying.
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The gameplay has changed a bit too, both for better and worse. On the one hand, new combo attacks and special attacks break up the monotony of combat a little more. On the other hand, once you engage in a battle you can’t just walk away if you choose to, as the battle area becomes fenced off and requires you to defeat all enemies before leaving. This breaks the flow of the game and often keeps you from just running by a group of enemies you don’t have an interest in fighting.
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Unfortunately, the game’s dungeons aren’t particularly engaging either. Mostly, they seem to be randomly-created areas with rather dull goals (collect all of Item X, defeat enemy Y, get to point Z, etc.). The way the game’s characters talk about the game, it’s as if it’s the most exhilarating experience ever conceived, but the reality underneath is that the game is monotonous. The World can’t hold a candle to Phantasy Star Online, much less World of Warcraft.
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At the very least the graphics seem to have made a significant leap over the original games, although it’s nothing to compare with the likes of Kingdom Hearts II or Final Fantasy XII. And while the character designs are more complex than the original’s, I personally prefer the personality they had, and too often this game seems to try for “X-treme”. On the bright side, the game’s desktop now lets you access news articles that include anime clips, which is a nice touch.
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All in all, whether or not you like this game will depend largely on what you thought of the first four. For all the changes, the experience is very similar, and those that tired of the series before won’t find much to renew their interest here. However, if you’re a series fan, there should be enough new content here to make a trip back into The World worth your while.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Story is unique and interesting + Improved graphics |
7.3 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Gameplay changes are a mixed bag - Dungeons are still boring - Combat still gets repetitive |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| If you're a fan of the first four games, .Hack//G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth should make for an interesting twist on the formula you know and love. If you're not a series fan, then this game won't change your mind. | |
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Tags: .hack//G.U.
Posted by Jake McNeill on Nov 15th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
