.hack//G.U. Trilogy Review

The dot hack GU trilogy has been good to me. I have been a fan of the dot hack series from when it originally came out for the PS2, what seems like a long time ago, but the latest version of the game has some fixes and some of the same things that drove some players away.

This game places you in a world where you are playing a faux MMO, sadly you don't get to design your character, or your name, you're stuck with Haseo. Now Haseo eventually becomes one hell of a badass, but in the beginning its a bit draining. I really like this faux MMO feel that the game gives you. You have warp gates to go to different areas, and you have bookmarks of the locations that are recommended for you to go. The best part though is the fact that you can combine other keywords together and go adventuring in areas not mentioned in the game. When you do this though, just make sure you pay attention to the level of the area so you don't find yourself having to restart your game often.

The game takes place over three games, they're basically all 15+ hours and they all get you to a point where you can transfer what you've done in one game to the next. The first volume of the game basically tells you of almost all the characters that you'll be dealing with in the game and has your characters max out at level 50. The second brings the hidden danger in the World more into the foreground and has a maximum level of 100. The final one gives you some closure, and a bit of corniness in the end and the max is 150.

The graphics in my opinion look good, I wish the had push a little harder on the pre-rendered stuff in the cutscenes, but I'm not too too upset about that. The different levels looked unique, and gave the player the feeling that they were exploring many slightly different dungeon or field layouts. The weapons I have to say are probably the best thing in this game. You can actually see a difference when you are attacking monsters. Sadly the armor and the accessory doesn't really change the character's appearance.

The battle system is the biggest improvement from the first take of the series to the GU series. No longer do you run up to monster gates releasing the monsters into the wild and then have to chase them all over the place. You are now basically sealed into a circular battle ground and have to defeat the monsters, or use a smoke screen to get out of the battle. The other thing is that you'll see battles already in progress appear from time to time in different places and you can enter those to save the character from either a PKer (Player Killer) or monsters.

Another thing that I was glad to see gone was the trapped chests. This go around you didn't have to have the wire to un-booby trap a chest, you had to be quick with a sequence of button presses. Also if you failed to un-booby trap the chest you just took damage, you didn't mysteriously take damage and gain a wire.

I think that this game succeeds in giving the player a taste of what an MMO feels like, sadly you can't have original conversations with NPCs in the game, but you can talk to them and have them say scripted responses, or you can trade with them to get items that you are hard to come by.

That is my one qualm with the game, the items. When you progress through the game you're going to find potions to heal your health and your spell points, but you're not going to find nearly anything close to that at the item shop in town. As a result by the end of the game you will have amassed an insane amount of money that you'll never spend because there's no reason to buy anything in town.

Another thing that I like is that you can "log out" of the game and you are taken to a desktop where you can check the latest news, the latest happenings on the forums, check some e-mail, or play Crimson Vs. Though I'd recommend leaving that last one alone. Crimson Vs. is a card game that basically plays itself as you adventure and there's really no benefit to playing the game or even paying attention to it as it won't change the outcome of the actual game.

That does remind me that in the guild room for Canard you can always check to Books of 1000, they will unlock backgrounds, and music for use when you are on the desktop. I liked that feature because it meant that I could personalize the feel a bit when I "logged out" of the game.

All in all I hated to see this game end, and I really wish that there was a real MMO out there that played like this game. Actually I don't know if I'd want that, I'd probably be sucked into the game hard and wouldn't be able to come out alive. At any rate I give this game an 8.8 out of 10.

*update*

Our friend Zeal brings up a good point something that is never really truly explained is the different weapons effects and the power stats. Also what the requirements are for weapons, which if you don't know is the level of the weapon has to be equal or less than your character's level. Oh and one more thing to get your party members to upgrade their items you have to give them as gifts to them (you can do that by talking to them). To customize a party members weapon is a bit of a bitch as you have to give them the gift of the custom piece and then go into the pause menu to customize and do it that way. I really wish that they would just allow giving your party member the enhancement straight out of your inventory. Although you could put the enhancement on before giving the item over as well. Thankfully you'll be able to know if your party member can use the item or not because their icon and stats at the top of the screen will light up and give you arrow indicators of what the item will do for them.

One last thing about the cinematics... I had them pretty spaced out because I adventured a lot on my own so that I could just breeze through all the main quests. I recommend fields over dungeons if you are trying to level its quicker, but if you are in it for the items I'd go dungeons all the way.

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Comments

[zeal]

Fun game indeed. Partway through vol. 1 and enjoying it...though the pacing, IMHO, could use better pacing. I feel like I'm watching a movie and get to interact occasionally. How to equip new items isn't very intuitive, either. Hell, I still haven't figured out how to equip my new dual-swords.
Speaking of weapons, item stats are incredibly non-descriptive, be it in-game or from the short manual. I have +elements...yipee? If it's all +1, do they stack for a total of +6, or do I somehow designate which element I want to use? I'm sure the system works & makes sense once explained, but I'm still kind of at a loss on some of the statistical aspects of the game.