Dot Hack Challenge -- .HackGU: Rebirth Completed - Updated - 6/23/07

[T234]

Gamecube picture beats the rest of the thread. I had 35 posts in the thread asking for a wii advert lol

[MrAngryFace]

haha, oh well, playing through .hack would put us even I spose. Its a fun series anyway. I actually picked up .hack//sign and the first dvd of .hack//roots the other day just cause for some reason I like the story crap even tho most of it is HRM.

[MrAngryFace]

Well I finally finished Mutation. I had actually spent a little extra time grinding some terribly difficult level 49-50 dungeons. I MEAN difficult. I dont think there's many RPGs out there that make you use items and spells and commands and your own skills as much as the .Hack series does in its later dungeons. I mean not only do you have to focus on killing them based on elemental type, with spells or weapons, but you also have to fucking kill them in the right order or prioritize cause the game mixes the enemy types in the most EVIL ways.

I mean I have to keep track of all o this in real time:

*Number of Enemies
*Which Element Type items and magic to use on each particular enemy.
*Which attacks to use.
*Which order to attack the enemy in, some enemies rez at no cost, heal for 400. Some enemies paired up will double team spells endlessly
*Order my people around to heal/kill/buff/debuff
*heal/buff/debuff/rez my own people
*Keep myself alive

I mean the list gets stupid long at some point and this is all in a REAL TIME fight. .Hack games are unpredictably difficult at times and thats probably the only real ding I can level against the gameplay. The combat is honestly complicated enough and DOES work well in forcing the player to use every item at least once and consider all possible skill combos. I think support character itemization could be handled better too, but aside from that its pretty awesome.

I swear tho they always pack some of the meanest fuckin enemies near the end; in fact the last dungeon before the third mega boss is HARDER than the mega boss. Granted I was level 50 as was the rest of my party; all decked out with RARE weapons too 

I fired up Outbreak just to get the data file converted and check my e-mail, should be working through it on Saturday and Sunday, pretty excited actually. The increase in challenge is really making the parts between the story enjoyable. Its not just endless easy walking between cutscenes.

Statz: Kite -- Level 50, Hours Total at Completion -- 30:05

[MrAngryFace]

BUMP

[MrAngryFace]

God damn I forgot how hard this installment always starts out. There's a lot of story-focused things going on, but then there's this level 52 dungeon you have to take kite alone through that actually killed me once. There's these earth monsters that spam earth spells and well even at leve 50 I had less than 1000 hp. Then when you get to the end of the dungeon there's a boss fight. Im just glad I had a lot of potions left over from the easy Mutation End Boss fight.

Kinda sucks a lot of the characters are coming and going at this point in terms of availability so im having to try and make things work with new characters. Granted I give away so many items to these fruits I think only one of them is REALLY behind in levels. I keep everyone else rich fat n high powered. Most of the enemies in the 50-53 dungeons are the same as the final dungeons of Mutation (darkness type) but im starting to see a few new ones like the weird rock spell spamming medusa head things. The new server town I get to go to is lame cause no one is ever there.

Anyway, now that story mode has settled down I will be doing the level grind thing for the next six hours or so as I gift and level up all my other characters. Who knows who i'll get stuck with in an important mission. Ill be ready!

[demi]

I used Kite, Wiseman and Balmung for majority of the game, except the end when you are forced to use Blackrose.

[MrAngryFace]

Why does Kite keep saying Balmunk. I wanna slap him. Wiseman is pretty awesome, using him in Outbreak.

[demi]

Kite is played by Izzy from Digimon, lol. It's a chick, btw.

Piros is COSMO from Fairy GodParents.

[Ichirou]

I used Kite, Wiseman and Balmung for majority of the game, except the end when you are forced to use Blackrose.

I used Kite, BlackRose, and the character that's fond of plants...I forget her name.  I also like Natsume (sp? female twin blade) a lot.

[MrAngryFace]

Gardenia likes flowers. Natsume is a lot of fun cause of the hero worship. Makes ya feel AWESOME.

Tho Marlo is pretty funny as is Piros.

[Ichirou]

Gardenia likes flowers. Natsume is a lot of fun cause of the hero worship. Makes ya feel AWESOME.

Yeah, Gardenia and Natsume were my favorites.  Natsume is voiced by Maaya Sakamoto who's one of my favorite singers.  Maaya also voices Aura.

Piros is funny but so, so dumb and ugly-looking.

[MrAngryFace]

he's a dumb role playing bastard but watching mia fuck with him was always funny.

[Ichirou]

I also liked the American girl who was always doing the get-rich schemes and Sanjuro, the American dude who learned Japanese from watching samurai movies.  Fun characters, and sort of an interesting view as to how Japanese view Americans. 

[MrAngryFace]

Yeah, the characters in the first series are a lot of fun

[Ichirou]

I liked building up the "friends list" with all the optional characters.  It added quite a bit to the game.  If I recall correctly, when you finish the game you have access to most of the characters from the anime as well, which is pretty sweet.

[MrAngryFace]

Wow, I am REALLY liking the new enemy designs in .Hack Outbreak. Almost all the enemies I fight are huge. My new main spellcaster (kinda forced into the situation) casts these huge spells that just fill the screen. During fights I run through fire and darkness raining from the sky its awesome. Im doing the grind thing for now. Tacked on a few more hours. I also think Outbreak does an even BETTER job with loot and trades than Mutation which was already an improvement. This is good since Outbreak is largely considered the hardest of the three. Tonight I will continue to grind. I need to get Marlo and Gardenia up a bit, ditto for Natsume. Screw new yorker money grubber and the pink hairdo long arm.

[Junpei the Tracer!]

I like .Hack GU Vol.2.

Divine Awaking is pretty cool.

[MrAngryFace]

Aside from Wild Arms 3 I can't really think of an RPG that was so dependant on item usage. Im constantly digging in my bag of tricks to pull out wins or exploit weaknesses. Dungeon 50-56 were pretty easy overall after i got past the Kite-Only dungeon. I leveled almost everyone up and got them gear from trades, but the level 57 dungeon is just devious, the fire ones in particular. There's this gigantic floating eyeball monster that casts so many spells, the worst, and most common, being charm. My main wavemaster has the best gear but god damn he runs outta mana fast. Most of the late series spells are REALLY impressive but they come at a pretty high cost.

I've also noticed there's a lot more random adds outside of the typical monster spawn point. I often have 1-2 extra enemies show up on the scene and really complicate the situation. To the games credit this kinda shit keeps me on my toes and forces me to change my teams overall strategy as well as my own. I have noticed that the water dungeons 57-59 have been really easy. Most of the monsters dont cast the annoying charm spells. The biggest monster just has area fire spells but those dont hurt too much.

Speaking of biggest monsters; the monsters in .Hack are getting so big im not sure they'll fit in the dungeons eventually. Most of the dragon monsters reach the ceiling in some dungeons and whats even more hilarious is when they spawn an inch away from me in one of the smaller rooms. Thankfully the dragons are pretty stupid monsters so they wont put me in a major pinch if the wavemaster is set to First Aid, but if I get hit by one of the big Status Effect monsters in that kinda situation oh man im fucked.

I am almost done grinding for the next story dungeon, I have allllmost everyone caught up to the level of the story dungeon, but ill probably grind two more levels beyond that and do some more trades before proceeding. iirc this game gets pretty hard in some spots.

[demi]

You're still on Outbreak? You are gonna hate Quarantine. I hope you've been saving and farming for Virus Cores.

Why are you grinding everyone? It is unneccessary, everyone levels up when they aren't in your party, and you only need to use 3 characters throughout the entire game.

[MrAngryFace]

Im kinda still on Outbreak because of JOB and MLB 07 THE SHOW; I grind about 5 different people. I grind virus cores quite a bit, I already know about the core requirements.

[MrAngryFace]

Wow this story is really starting to come along. Outbreak seems to stick a lot of the extra characters into the background near the end to start giving face time to key players in the main plot itself. Its funny tho, Outbreak...aside from the Core Requirements, is easier than a lot of mutation. Cubia v.2 and the 4th..or was it 5th phase was honestly a cake-walk. The game also introduces an area that kinda gives you the impression you need to grind when you dont, resulting in being completely overleveled for the entire mid-portion of the game.

The enemy combinations have also become a lot less devious. They've sorta tossed out the status spells for giving the enemy more HP. Fine with me honestly since you can just put most enemies to sleep while you destroy them. There are a few situations where you fight a giant enemy with status spells but they're usually alone so its no big deal.

I suspect im nearing the end of outbreak, but at the rate im going ill probably crest 15 hours, unlike the first two games you need a lot of cores to get through gates, and the time required to gather cores without a direct connection to gamefaqs is considerable.

[T234]

Getting close to the end of infection.

[MrAngryFace]

Im at the last dungeon of Outbreak I think, should be in Quarantine by this weekend I hope. I have the two level 50+ rares for kite and blackrose omg glowy!

[Van Cruncheon]

I finally the beat the second optional uberboss of G.U. 2 a couple nights ago -- The One Sin redux -- and have everyone sittin' pretty at level 100, awaiting G.U. 3 (and Haseo's Xth form! OMG! OMG!) with all their Lost Weapons and 5* kit. 67 hours across both games -- I rock? Eh? Bueller?

[MrAngryFace]

Just you wait ill have all of both series done and ill be number 1

[MrAngryFace]

This will be a big summary post. After beating Outbreak on Saturday night and watching the first .Hack//Roots DVD Sunday morning, I was in the MOOD to HACK. Thus begain a pretty considerable marathon. It's really been a while since I sat down with a single game for this long of a stretch, but Quarantine does an amazing job keeping you hooked in. The plot at this point is very task oriented and fast. A lot is revealed too, and a good amount of nods to .Hack//Sign specifically.

I think my favorite nod to .Hack//SIGN is the fact that in a level 70 area Skeith's Wand has appeared. If you go to the bottom level of the dungeon there:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sora appears in place of the wand and thanks you for freeing him the torment imposed at the end of .Hack//SIGN.

[close]

Sappy, yeah, but after this event you get THE blades which aren't incredibly stat heavy compared to some of the higher level twin blade stuff, but true to the show, they have an INSANE Death effect that procs OFTEN. Im talking 4000-5000 damage max at some points. I assume it works on a percentage base. Plus it doesn't work on any of the phases but jesus christ normal data bugs...hell, anything just falls to these blades. In addition to that event you will find Mimiru and A-20 running around the third server, with Mimiru typically bitching about A-20's insane plans to hit high level areas neither of them can handle. Also Crim shows up for a moment.

Quarantine IS easier. Combine the mentioned blades with the Wavemaster head equipment that casts Phal Repth (Heal EVERYONE to MAX) with almost no cost to mana, and the fact that most of the enemies in Quarantine are variations of the harder monsters from Outbreak. Like, for example, Lich LORDS..blah blah. At this point you've developed strategies to deal with all of them so they just dont seem that hard anymore.

So I did the required grinding for a while and took part in some VERY friendly trades. Then all of a sudden the game kicked into overdrive as all the characters got together and developed fancy plans to stop the bad guys. I probably wasn't ready for it as the 2 phase fights + 1 cubia fight took almost an hour and a half. Each fight took HUGE amounts of recovery items. These phases are tougher than any I had previously fought too. They frequently spam status effects or one hit kill someone then bind the next closest person which may if youre unlucky, be your wavemaster. One of the phases even charmed EVERYONE for a short period of time which resulted in a last man standing situation where the last person alive had to rez everyone and dump them with mana once charm wore off before the phase attacked again.

Thankfully the Cubia fight followed the same pattern but god DAMN that was a boss marathon. Im in a quiet period of the game again thankfully so im taking the time to grind for levels and find some rare weapons before proceeding with the story. The boss gauntlet was ALMOST too much for me. The 7th phase is an ASSHOLE. Plain n Simple.

Statz: Kite -- Level 82, Hours Total -- 52 roughly

[MrAngryFace]

took a few days off from .Hack since work got busy, fired it up again today. Im currently tackling a series of four locked dungeons. They require a lot of cores but the only cores that are in short supply are on Omega server. This make sense since you just got access to this server a few levels back. Add to that the fact that enemies on Omega server drop cores from drains far less often.

I unlocked the first dungeon and it was pretty easy. It was surprising to find a few Guardian monsters from .Hack//Sign and they were pretty challenging, but data drains from them offered up level 98 items which rocks. Also good experience for killing them. I had to grab some Js and K cores to unlock the next one and this level 81 dungeon had the worst field spawns ever. Im talking 3-4 lich lords and 2-3 pumpkins. Thats just evil. Especially now that not only do the Lich Lords confuse and cast magic, they cast the POWERFUL magic. There's this lightning cannon spell that takes off 600 hp at a time and they whip em out in succession and my people just drop. Plus they're still magic resist. The pumpkins are physical resist so the best I can do is charm the pumpkins to try and keep the Lichs busy while i use The Moon or The Lovers on them (ran out of The Hanged Man a long time ago, its 100% guaranteed against liches too ) and then switch Wiseman to magic against the pumpkins.

I ended up dying a few minutes ago so im gonna take an hour break and WALK IT OFF. I know im getting close to the end tho, just gotta grind some Omega server cores. I wish the enemy combinations weren't so evil, or at least the cores dropped more often to make it seem worth it

[MrAngryFace]

Grinding wasn't required believe it or not. Managed to randomly generate a dungeon just for J Cores. J Cores are really all I ever ran out of which is wierd. Whats weirder is I beat the game at 60 hours, shy on the dot by 11 minutes. Thats creepy. Truth be told the last boss and cubia are pushovers. With enough items you can beat them easy. I ended up using Sora's blades all the way till the end. Wasn't a bit deal since the big damage dealers in the Cubia and 8th phase fights wasn't me, but rather WiseMan and BlackRose. The ending is typical animu but its really neat how after you beat the game you get access to Helba and Sora and Subaru and Tsukasa....the thing is this, there's this optional dungeon afterwards thats fucking impossible cause all the enemies are BUGS and you have to data drain non-stop. I suspect you have to be level 99 or so to make the data bug drains impact Kite less but I dunno wtf.

Plus you can beat Cubia and the 8th Phase at level 90 lol. Its funny that the 6th and 7th Phases are harder than Cubia and the 8th combined.

But yeah, games beat. BOOM. F U DOT HACK! OWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Final Statz: Kite Level 91, 60:11 on the clock. Wtf weird.

[Van Cruncheon]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

VICTOLY

i'll be interested to hear what you think of g.u.!

[Himu]

rofl congratz maf

[MrAngryFace]

Yeah im pumped, I kinda wanted to keep going tonight but the 5-6 hours straight of Quarantine was kinda embarassing.

[Ichirou]

Is this your first time finishing the games? 

[demi]

Did you get all tearful when you saw your team mates getting destroyed in front of your eyes, and watch as Kite miracuously dodged each of the eye's attacks in typical anime fashion, to deliver the final blow with one final scream? YAHHHH!?

[MrAngryFace]

Kite is fuckin superman. I just dont get

spoiler (click to show/hide)

how everyone came back, I mean they weren't hooked up at the hospital right lol wtf.

[close]

[Junpei the Tracer!]

OMG spoilers

Oh quick question! who's Sora?

[MrAngryFace]

From the first anime series //SIGN. Probably the best character from the show.

I like how Balmung is a scrub in the end.

Also .Hack//ROOTS ties directly into .Hack//GU

[demi]

Its an anime, logic kinda gets thrown out the window

Defeating final enemy / solving ultimate goal = World is saved, crisis averted, back to playing cards at the park the next day.

[MrAngryFace]

haha pretty much. .Hack has never had really quality writing I spose. I do like being able to use Helba in a group tho, so cheesy

[Ichirou]

I loved at the end being able to use all the anime characters.  That rocked so hard.  A wonderful bonus for completing the game.

[MrAngryFace]

Yup, I almost kept playing, but that optional dungeon is hard. Anyone have advice on dealing with the data drain threshhold?

But yeah Sora and Helba are the best back-up.

[MrAngryFace]

Bump

[Ichirou]

No clue, I don't think I did the optional dungeon...

[MrAngryFace]

its kinda neat story stuff, plus you can take helba who's invincible muhaha. The data drain aspect of it is lame tho. If .HACK//GU Vol1 and 2 weren't staring me in the face id probably play another 5 hours of the first series to wrap EVERYTHING up.

[MrAngryFace]

Holy crap there's a lot of new neat aspects to .Hack//GU. I mean you have the steam bike, the shop you can sell items through, the guilds, the arena, the alchemy...I mean the list goes on. Why this game doesnt get more cred is beyond my understanding. I will say tho that the first 10 levels have been a lot of cut-scenes. Granted, all very interesting cut-scenes. Its also fun to try and guess who from the first series is who in the second series.

I've spent the first 2 hours just shuffling through cutscenes and scripted events that are intended to familiarize me with the environment, and they all do a pretty good job. I like the characters in GU a lot more too so far. While I dont have stand out favorites, all the characters so far are much more EVEN and there's an even greater level of focus on interacting with your friends and guild-members.

The dungeon designs are weird, I understand the chim and magical animal kicking stuff, but some dungeons have bosses, some have relics, some have the traditional chests at B5 kinda dungeons. I guess im just used to the point n shoot style of the first series' dungeons. Now you can get quests and each area has missions attached to them.

The combat is also WAY different. Lots more focus on your reflexes and a lot less on planning. In fact IMO management of the characters has taken a back-seat as so far I only see 4-5 options for character behaviors and they're all handled in the menu screen. I may have just missed the in-combat command options so ill take another look, but it so far it DOES seem to put a lot of focus on the main player character and his skills that may or may not involve the other players.

Not really a step back, just maybe a step to the side. It will prove interesting to move from party micromanagement to character micromanagement

[MrAngryFace]

This is probably one of the most compelling RPG series in the last few years; G.U. that is. The art, music, story and direction in this game is insane. The way the story and gameplay is woven together presents an almost perfect blend for an epic experience. I busted through the first game pretty easily, the last fight in the game being the most challenging but even then I didnt lose. The first game really puts most of what you need in front of you while introducing all sorts of neat little things to do.

I think if there is any fault in the game it is that the pace of the game is so fluid that its hard to know when youre supposed to take a break from events and level up a bit. Not that you need to grind a lot. I think of the 21 hours I spent maybe 4 total grinding. A HUGE difference from the first series. That being said, while the game IS easier, it is also far more interesting.

People who ignore this series because EGM refuses to play it before reviewing it are really missing out on a fun fucking ride.

[Van Cruncheon]

i really enjoyed both gu games, a lot, and am pretty pumped for the third. the combat really gets amped up in part 2, and the production values are nuts.

[Mr. Gundam]

I gave up on the original .hack quadrology after the second game, but I suffered through all of .hack//sign. Do I need to have played through all four previous games to appreciate GU?

[MrAngryFace]

not at all a few returning from the first series but its not essential. .Hack//ROOTS anime adds some context but aside from that.