Sporting thousands of
players, “The World” is a new MMORPG taking the gaming community by
storm. It sports a level of realism never before seen before in an
online game, allowing you to form parties and lay the beat-down on
many a monster. Sounds great, but you’re probably wondering what is
so different about this game compared to the rest of the market?
Well, the fact that you will never connect to the internet to play
it.
.hack is an episodic
(Read as: “Buy a lot more games as they come out.”) title that takes
an interesting twist. It simulates playing in a MMORPG world without
actually playing online, or with other people. So, how does it fare
as a whole? Keep reading to find out.
Graphics – Nothing
Special
Visually, .hack doesn’t
impress. Character models are basic, monsters aren’t impressive, and
spell effects are simple. Textures are decent, though, but put into
the cookie cutter dungeons, they are downplayed a bit. Still, the
visuals get the job done. Nowhere are they actually ugly or painful
to look at, they just aren’t all that special. Maybe, just maybe,
this was intentional, as MMORPG visuals are usually a generation
behind standard games. Visuals look a bit better up-close, but in
the vast majority of the game, you won’t be getting up close.
Sound – Thank You
Bandai for Giving Me Japanese!
First, MAJOR kudos
go out to the Bandai team for including the option to listen to the
voices in Japanese. Now I won’t have to cry though the game and its
HORRIBLE (oh, yes it is, I gave it a shot for a couple of lines)
English voice over “work”. That one little option alone saved the
sound score. Other sounds aren’t exactly common. The background
music does a good job of setting the scene, but is never the
centerpiece of the audio experience. There are a variety of
atmospheric effects, for example, the large number of different
footstep effects on different surfaces ranging from the hollow echo
of stone to the soft squish of treading on a living floor. Attack
effects are well done as they don’t go overboard in the sound
department.
Gameplay – Next
Generation Diablo
.hack plays just like
Diablo, in a way. You have your central town where you buy and sell
items, form parties, and speak with NPCs. From there, you hit a
gate, enter a word combination, and you are then thrown into a
battle field. The vast majority of the fields have an over world and
a dungeon. All you have to do is run up to the spinning yellow
symbol and a few monsters pop out.
To fight, run up to a
monster and hit the X button. This initiates your basic attack. You
can also open up your menu and use a variety of skills, like magic
or special moves, to attack the monster(s). If you are in a party,
you set up a strategy. You can tell your party members to attack
indiscriminately, attack what you attack, or to hold back and heal.
You can also tell your party members to use skills, in which case
special moves or magic will be unleashed until everything in sight
is dead, and you can also target specific party members to perform
certain tasks.
Using your own skills and
items requires that you see what you are trying to attack, so simply
flipping a spell on something behind you just won’t happen.
Dungeons work much the
same way as the over world, but in this case, you are required to
kill all the monsters in the room, as you are trapped in there
otherwise. At the end of each dungeon is a special treasure which
usually includes a nice item and two sellables.
There are a number of
useful items in the game to help out in combat. First, you have your
equipable items, like weapons and armor. Not only do these improve
your defenses, they are also the source of your magical and skill
abilities. Sometimes you have to make a trade-off. Are you willing
to lose that heal spell to gain a few more defense points? Is that
weaker weapon really worse than a stronger one with an unfavorable
elemental attack? Do I want a fire or ice attack spell if it means I
have to lose a few defense points? There is a good deal of strategy
tagged onto this game in that sense. Other items include scrolls,
which allow you to cast a wide variety of spells, negating the total
dependence on determining what to equip. The Faerie Orb, which
literally scouts the area out for you so you don’t wander around,
especially in the over world, looking for monster portals. The
Fortune Wire is a universal trap disarming device used to disarm the
blue treasure chests. You also have your gamut of health and mana
regeneration potions.
I would suggest you take
the time to “open” all the portals in each area, meaning kill
everything in the level, before leaving. Trust me, you will like the
results later on.
Replayability
.hack is, again, much
like Diablo in this sense. The game has literally thousands of
different areas to fight in. While they usually have the same types
of creatures in them, for some reason, it never gets dull running
around and hacking up enemies. You can hack them in a number of
different environments ranging around different difficulty levels.
AI – Atrocious
The only real glaring
flaw in .hack is the AI. Party AI, to be more specific. First, if
you are running around the world, and get backed into a rare corner,
you literally have to spend 5 minutes trying to shove your party
members away so you can get out. Also, party members have this
uncanny ability to get stuck on a candle or some other small object.
When in combat, and you
designate the skill ability, your party members will literally
exhaust themselves of mana on a creature. They don’t know that it is
nearly dead, and your Wavemaster, the resident magic specialist,
will unleash a spell that dishes out 5,000 hp, but uses up half
their mana reserves. Melee fighters are suicidal and will continue
on until dead, never bothering to use their own healing items to
help themselves. Wavemasters will never run away when confronted
head on by a monster, but instead will attempt to beat it back with
their combat-useless wand.
Oddly enough, monsters
have a superior AI, and know when to run and when to fight.
Story – Yes, it is
there and it makes sense
Above is all that is
needed. I won’t give anything away, but there is a story, it makes
sense, and it is compelling.
Misc. Gripe Section
.hack does curiously
include one the negative aspects of the MMORPG, namely, lag. In
towns, you get a bit of lag when you have more than 5 characters on
the screen. I am not sure if this was done intentionally or if it is
a limitation of the engine/hardware, but this is an unexpected part
of the MMORPG to replicate in light of the fact that you’re not
actually playing online.
Bottom Line
.hack is really quite a
remarkable title. Weighing in at around 15 hours, it did a good job
of keeping the game a decent length, and yet made sure it was
enjoyable the whole way through. While .hack is not going to thrill
anyone with its visuals or sound, the sheer replayability and depth
of gameplay is incredible, and that’s what games are SUPPOSED to be
all about. Bandai, you have guaranteed yourself a customer for your
future .hack episodes. If they are all this long and have the same
compelling story, solid gameplay, and the option to choose the
Japanese voice overs, I will be a most happy repeat customer.
