With its .hack series, Bandai Namco took a number of risks – including splitting an epic roleplaying game into four parts on discs sold separately for each other, and having a simultaneous anime release with intertwined plot. On the whole, this gamble turned out well for them, as the series was successful enough to spawn sequels in both the anime and video game realms (as well as spin-offs like a collectible card game). The first episode of the latest trilogy in the series, .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth, improves upon some of the formula while taking steps back in others. It’s a fairly good game on its own merits, but does little to attract people other than existing fans of the franchise into the series.
The game takes place in "The World R:2", a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game run by CC Corp., nine years after the events of .hack//QUARANTINE. Revision 2 of “The World” came to be after a fire at CC Corp. headquarters wiped out the servers. Though the new, steampunk-style game has not reached the popularity of the original, over 12 million players now participate. One of the new features of this revision is the ability to player-kill, and PKs are rampant. A subculture of PKs who only go after other PKs, called player-killer-killers or PKKs, has arisen to punish PKs and protect innocent players from them.
The main character, Haseo, originated in the anime .hack//Roots. He was PKed in his first adventure, and spent all his time seeking revenge on all PKs. After eight months, he had an impressive collection of weapons and was level 133, and was known in "The World R:2" as "The Terror of Death" (the title borne by Skeith, the final boss of .hack//INFECTION). One of his friends, Shino, was PKed by a player known as Tri-Edge and has been in a coma since, and Haseo is devoted to tracking this PK down. However, when they finally meet, Haseo is powerless, and Tri-Edge uses the ability known as "data drain" to knock him out in the real world and wipe out nearly everything on his computer – item collection, emails and even his character level. He returns immediately to "The World R:2" to seek revenge on Tri-Edge.
Haseo himself is your standard "grumpy loner with a heart of gold," the character type exemplified by Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart. Despite the former personality trait, he quickly allies himself with a number of other players. The first are Silabus and Gaspard of the newbie help guild Canard. The former is a fairly low-key swordsman, while the latter is a loud and obnoxious mage. Haseo also has run-ins with the anti-PK guild Moon Tree, mostly with Atoli, a healer who is identical to Shino except for coloring and the fact that she is sickeningly naïve and upbeat. He also meets Piros the 3rd, a golden-armored spearman who is a graphics designer for "The World R:2" in real life, who is looking for Tri-Edge for a different reason – to stop him from overwriting the graphics of "The World R:2" with his symbol.
The most interesting meeting, however, is with the mysterious guild G.U. One member, Pi, a barehanded fighter who can best be described as a bubblegum-haired S&M librarian, saves Haseo, Silabus and Gaspard from PKs early in the game. She and Haseo are immediately antagonistic, though she remains helpful. Haseo is saved by Kuhn, the womanizing gunner, later when he and Atoli are teleported to a lost area and Atoli is attacked by a blue-haired man with a cat on his shoulder who can manipulate some kind of darkness. Kuhn summons Magus, formerly a boss from .hack//MUTATION, to protect Atoli. The fact that Haseo can see Magus leads Kuhn to offer him membership in G.U.
From there, Haseo’s quest for revenge kicks into gear. Unfortunately, the story is much weaker than through most of the original series; at best, it measures up to the weaker brother, .hack//OUTBREAK. Possibly the worst of it is that you must enter a fighting tournament to confront the blue-haired player; it’s hard to figure out what the skeleton from a random one-on-one fighting game is doing in an epic RPG. Character development is lacking, and it seems like the likeability of characters is inversely proportional to the amount you learn about them. The plot can get a stay for being just the first chapter of the game, and it does provide plenty of compelling questions and a decent cliffhanger at the end, but G.U. starts out on the wrong foot story-wise.
Like its predecessors, .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth takes place entirely on Haseo’s computer screen. You start on his desktop, where you can exchange email and greeting cards with party members, read news or bulletin boards and marvel at the icon for the Crimson VS feature which doesn’t exist in this edition. The former is important because you can raise your party member’s affection, which unlocks features later in the series. Most of the other things that happen on the desktop provide alternate means of getting backstory to the player, and though at times it can be entertaining (especially the hilarious yet relevant "Online Jack" videos), in most cases it is no better than reading dialogue in other games.
You also enter "The World R:2" through an icon here. This is where the majority of the game takes place. The game-within-a-game is divided into two parts: towns and areas. Towns are the major meeting places, where you can buy and sell equipment, interact with both PCs and NPCs and obtain quests. There are only two towns accessible in this title: Eternal City Mac Anu, the same first town (redesigned) as in the prior series, and the Vegas-style home of the battle arena Warring City Lumina Cloth, though more will be introduced in later games. Most of the plot not relating to battle happens in towns, and they are the only place you can trade items with characters not in your party.
Areas are the place where battles take place and treasure is gathered. You reach an area through a gate in town by selecting three words from a list. The combination determines what level of enemy and equipment is located in the area as well as cosmetic features such as the time of day and weather. You obtain new words through reading email and message boards and by completing other areas. Each area has a number of portals back to town, the only way to leave once you’ve entered one. At the end of each area, you are graded on the percentage of monsters you killed, items you found and other tasks, and are given an item or new keyword as a reward. You can bring up to two party members to an area.
Areas in .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth are much smaller than the ones in earlier .hack games. Except for some story-relevant ones, each takes up a single floor, with no artificial separation between sections like doors to add loading time. There are no wide-open areas; even outdoor areas consist of islands with bridges. Each area has a mission which is stated on the summary that appears when you enter the keywords. The vast majority of these goals are to reach the beast statue (where a special treasure waits) by finding three symbol fragments and using them to enter a temple or to defeat a boss. Smaller levels, plus greater experience rewards from enemies, means that you spend much less time grinding out new levels than in the first incarnation of the series.
All enemies are visible as you walk around, and they search for you. Battle starts either when you make an attack or if you are spotted. A question mark will appear over an enemy’s head if it suspects you are nearby, and an exclamation mark if it sees you. If you manage to attack an enemy with neither, you make a surprise attack, and deal fair damage before they get a turn. Once battles begin, the area is encircled by energy, similar to the way it worked in Okami. The only ways to leave are to defeat the opponent or use an item called Smoke Screen to escape.
In battle, you move around the field and attack with the X button. There is also a special attack gauge, which starts full and slowly refills after you have used a skill. Skills can be accessed through the menu when the gauge is full (when it changes to an R1 icon), and four attack skills can be preset for use with the R1 button (similar to spells in the Kingdom Hearts games); .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth is much less menu-intensive than prior titles in the series. An enemy who has been hit by a long combo attacks will be marked with green and purple circles, and using a preset skill one such an enemy performs a rengeki, a special attack which does great damage and nets you a bonus to experience points if you win. (Rengekis can also be used in the arena to counter an opponent’s special skill.) Your allies cannot be controlled directly, though they can be given general commands, such as to focus on healing or conserve their skill points.
There are ten primary of character classes in the game, and each character has one which cannot be changed. The only one to survive from the first .hack series is the twin blade, a speedy character using two daggers that is decent with both attacks and magic. Heavy fighters include the edge punisher (who uses swords), lord partisan (spears) and flick reaper (axes and scythes). Blade brandiers are quick and use small swords, while tribal grapplers fight barehanded and make combos easier. Magic duties are handled by harvest clerics, who use staves and focus on healing, and shadow warlocks, who specialize in damaging magic and equip grimoires. The most interesting classes are steam gunners, who act as ranged attack specialists using sword/gun hybrids, and macabre dancers, who fight with fans and are unpredictable. Characters learn attack skills by leveling up and magics through items.
One of the complaints about the first .hack series – that you could not choose the main character’s class – is addressed to some degree with an eleventh class. Haseo is an adept rogue, a rarely-used class which can eventually do anything that any other class can do. He begins with the abilities of a twin blade, and occasionally is given a job extension quest – an area word that, if the goal is completed, the character is upgraded. Each job extension lets Haseo use the abilities of another class as well as an upgrade to the character’s appearance. The drawback to the adept rogue is that its stats are worse than other classes; being a jack of all trades means you are a master of none. However, Haseo can compensate for this by using items which can be found or traded for which permanently increase his stats.
Equipment is less important, but hardly insignificant, in .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth. Each item has a level, which is the minimum level needed by a character to wield it. Weapons are exclusive to each class; there are three types of armor: robes, light and heavy; and accessories can be used by anyone. Each item has a basic version plus one to three customization slots. Certain items found our bought in the game can be added to items to change their abilities – for example, giving a weapon the chance of poisoning a target, or reducing magical damage taken by someone wearing a piece of armor. Customizing items can be moved or removed at will, so you can tailor your equipment to the situation without needing to completely reequip your characters.
As mentioned earlier, guilds, a staple of MMORPGs for years, have been added to this game. Each guild has a base called @HOME run by a grunty. There, meetings can be held and two key items are obtained and maintained: the steam bike simply lets you travel more quickly through towns and areas (and avoid battles in the latter); the Book of 1000 tracks your achievements, and unlocks music, images and movies for use from the desktop at certain plateaus. Equipment can be upgraded at the @HOME through alchemy; two identical items can be combined to make a version with a bonus of +1 to +5, and items with +5 can then be added to more powerful equipment to give it a bonus. Guilds also have shops, where you can sell items for more money than you would get from an NPC merchant, though only five items at a time can be sold this way.
The main story in .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth is significantly longer than that of the first series, which was critiqued for not needing to be split into four volumes for the amount of gameplay involved. With closer to fifty hours of gameplay and the lower initial MSRP of US$39.99, this title will suffer no such criticism. If a player completes the plot and still hasn’t had enough, the game provides a number of optional quests – most being either to complete collections or to perform a task a certain number of times. The rewards are nice but not unbalancing, and the entertainment value makes it a toss-up whether it’s worthwhile from an out of game standpoint. It’s not likely for a player to run out of things to do before the second volume is released this summer.
This title is one of the best-looking releases to date for any system. Cel-shaded and traditional polygonal graphics are blended seamlessly to create a gorgeous hybrid art style never before seen in video games. The characters are detailed and well-proportioned, and look just like you would expect MMO players to design. There is great variety to the well-designed weapons and characters. The various settings are majestic and have a surprising level of detail, and the animation is clean throughout. The FMVs are fantastic, and completing certain tasks grants you the opportunity to re-watch them at any time. The only complaint here is that the font for some numbers is hard to read. The visuals in Rebirth are as good as you will find on a sixth-generation console.
The audio, on the other hand, is a step down from prior entries in the series. The music is consistently appropriate to the setting, and the ability to unlock tracks for use on the desktop via in-game achievements is a nice touch. The sound effects are fairly generic; they neither add to nor subtract from the overall experience. Vocals, on the other hand, can be painful. Unlike the original series, you do not have the option of listening to the original Japanese. Most of the voices themselves are decent, but not good enough to make up for the truly grating ones like Gaspard and the arena announcer. Fortunately, most of the dialogue can be skipped. In-battle vocals are clear and understandable, unlike earlier .hack games, and sound as one would expect in the situation; before too long, most players will tire of, if nothing else, "Rengeki – Gale Blade!," Haseo’s first attack skill.
.hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth is a relatively good game, but the bar was set so high with the first series that it comes to no surprise that this entry into the series doesn’t quite measure up. Unparalleled graphics, improvements to the combat system and a longer gameplay experience don’t completely make up for a weak storyline and other annoyances, but the result is still solid. Fans of the franchise will get a large amount of enjoyment out of this title, but other action/adventure fans may wish to wait and see how the rest of G.U. turns out before taking the plunge.
