.hack, Part 4: Quarantine

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $88.99

Features:

• Conclusion of .hack saga find out the truth about your favorite characters and get answers to all the questions and mysteries.
• Conclusion of OVA .hack//LIMINALITY in 30 min bonus DVD.
• Characters from the animated TV series .hack//SIGN make an appearance!
• Utilize the highest level skills and the most powerful equipment for the toughest and most exciting battles yet! Improved AI programming allows advanced Chat Commands and battle tactics.

Accessories:
PlayStation: The Official Magazine (1-year)	Electronic Gaming Monthly	Play	Tips & Tricks Magazine

Customer Reviews:

.hack ... or .crap?  [Posted on 2007-01-14]
As a longtime enthusiast of the .hack multimedia franchise, I feel bad doing this, but as a gamer I cannot allow the fact I happened to like .hack//SIGN interfere with my judgement.

I basically started playing this long and, looking back on it, overpriced series because I was driven by most desire to find a conclusion to the anime drama, .hack//SIGN (which, despite some flaws, is one of the best stories I've ever had the pleasure of immersing my consciosness in and has some of the best music I've ever heard in an animated series). The anime ended on an uncertain note and, having learned that the story would only be concluded if I got to the fourth game, I undertook the lengthy (and as I would soon find out, tedious) task of beating the game series.

Because all of the games are basically the same in terms of concept, all I have to say for them all at once is:

PLOT: Wow. Boring and predictable. Just the opposite of .hack//SIGN. I have a hard time linking the two together. The worse thing about this plot is that it is so simple that a twelve-year old won't have much trouble deciphering what happens next. There are a few cases of borderline deus ex machina where you won't see something coming but these are few, far between and, in any case, deus ex machina is one of the first signs of a weak plot.

DIALOG: Owch. Aside from the voice actors sounding (as the Game Informer people pointed out) like none of them have hit puberty, the lines themselves are pretty hokey (even in the most dramatic moments - no wait! Especially in the most dramatic moments). There is no tension or intrigue to be gained through character interaction.

CHARACTERS: By far the most tragic thing about this series in my opinion. None of my favorites from .hack//SIGN (with the exception of some lame side-quest cameo appearances) made it into the game. After getting over that, I managed to actually like what little character the agents of the story had. In truth, I actually like Kite, BlackRose, Balmung, Gardenia, etc but I have to say they are incredibly shallow and more or less one - maybe two, in some cases - dimensional. They have none of the complexity and moral difficulties of the original heroes from .hack//SIGN and this makes them rather boring to watch. The mark of a bad character is one that will do at the end exactly what they would have done at the beginning of the series (as it signifies they didn't develop or change toward the better at all) and that unfortunate effect proliferates among the cast of the .hack video games. Having as I already said ended up liking many of these characters, I feel bad that the scriptwriters couldn't have drew them out more. They, like the story, had a lot of unused potential.

MUSIC: Perhaps the one redeeming quality of the series. Not as good as the original .hack//SIGN but it can be okay most of the time and sometimes excellent.

GAMEPLAY: By far the most damning attribute the series posseses. I can finally understand why so many people who play 'The World' fall into comas. No, its not because of Morganna Mode Gone or anything like that. It's because the gameplay is so horribly repetitive their brains shut down in order to escape it. Really, I thought that was going to be my fate. I think found myself praying the game would be over soon sometime during .hack//MUTATION (that's the second game of four). It's basically a unexciting hack-and-slash masquerading as a sort of role-playing game. The gameplay of this series can be summed up as 'slash, slash, slash, heal, ressurect, slash, slash, slash, heal, ressurect, etc etc etc ...' the bosses are boring. Everything is dull. Nothing gets exciting.

I've heard that there is a manga adaption of this video game series called .hack//XXXX. On the off chance it ever gets translated into English, I would love to buy it. It would most likely hone in on the problems of plot and character and fix them right up in addition to delivering some decent manga-style artwork of some of some greatly improved characters (like Kite, BlackRose, Balmung, etc) from the game.

But as for this game - if you've come this far, well, I wouldn't expect you to stop now. If not, don't start. Just wander off and dream about how the story started in .hack//SIGN might end and pray that .hack//XXXX is (1) good and (2) translated into English.

dot.hack part 4 quartine [Posted on 2007-02-15]
it is better then the other dot hack that i have.

listen up [Posted on 2007-04-14]
here it is for all the .hack series ...........its a classic and the repitive ness comes from the fact that its the same game .....just with more story and then another thing the dialoug ............didn't you know practically everyone whose a kid meaning black rose and kite sound like kids?.......is so obivious also this game only spands from the begining to about a couple of weeks like 2-6 thats about it .....seriously and people actually expected to get better?......whats wrong with you people this is the same game need i repeat same game.....thats why the system is the same.......just like with kingdom hearts and the final fantasy series really some of you people out there call yourselves gamers but truely i wonder if you people know anything think outside the box for once........really and if anyone knows anything about anime its me....seriously watch neon gensis evagalion.......thats a weird one.....

Good series of games [Posted on 2007-07-05]
I really like the fact that you can use your save data from the previous game and that the story is flowing along a similar path as the Anime Series. The DVD disk that comes with these show the real world events which is another good perspective and a lot better than the Anime's shaded few second shots of the real world.
Still need to finish the game. I seem to have a problem finding a place that doesn't have one really hard monster to kill that takes 20 min to fight, and I have to kill 20 of them to level up.

I got this to complete a collection of VGs... [Posted on 2007-08-28]
I am an hour into the first game. so to give any ratings for the last one is ridiculous. I'm giving it a generic 3 because the dang listings demand input. good luck in finding another copy to buy since amazingly enough, this last one was a B!tch to locate.

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