G.U. Vol.4

Lindz
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G.U. Vol.4

Post by Lindz »

Figured this deserved its own thread full of speculation and spin!
Haseo logs into “The World R:2” for the first time in one year and three months following the events of .hack//G.U. Vol. 3: Redemption. In the large hollow of Qua Holme, he finds a frozen Ovan. Haseo tries to break the ice, but with his current power, he does not have the means to do so. Haseo rounds up his former comrades to go on an adventure to rescue Ovan.

Kusabila (voiced by Sumire Morohoshi)

A mysterious girl who suddenly appears before Haseo. She seems to know about the large hollow of Qua Holme, but…

Haseo 5th Form (voiced by Takahiro Sakurai)

The protagonist. His multi-weapon class enables him to handle more weapons the more he develops.

Read more at https://gematsu.com/2017/08/hackg-u-las ... hXRqiOg.99
Included in the Premium Edition is a new Novel and a Drama CD so theres bound to be more to the story then we'll see in the game itself. Plus Returner is in there to!
Lindz
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Lindz »

Sooooo 5th Form! Prolly a placeholder name. Rogues only get up to 3 forms normally, and Xth was well... Xth, not 4th. I'd say its likely this new form gets its own special name.

Also to reconcile the form not showing up in Link or Versus... well thats what the 15th month gap is for! After that much time away Haseo's legend and notoriety will have faded some amongst normal players. People would remember his appearances and personality form when he was making big waves in R:2. TK Haseo was only ever 1st Form anyhow canonically so that checks out. Versus is all about that nostalgia so CC Corp. stopping at Xth checks out as well.

As for Vol.4 as a whole I expect it to be pretty small scale and personal in terms of story. No more AIDA, Cubia got dunked on, and presumably the game and real world at large are at peace. Now of course theres gonna be a big bad / final boss but they can't just go introducing some major new catastrophic force! Maybe the opposition could be hackers? Feel like that would be a nice change of pace.

Now what about Returner since its included in the Premium Edition package? At the very start of that episode you see Haseo's inbox and on this screen among other things is "(c) 2016-2017 MineSystems all rights reserved". This can be taken as yeah, Returner happened in 2017. The episode itself has a Summer Festival theme to it, an wouldn't ya know... Vol.3 ends in the summer! We dun gotta take Haseo's retirement as happening immediately the day after Vol.3's epilogue.
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(Phantom) Thief
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by (Phantom) Thief »

The dots on Kusabila's attire resemble the dots on Haseo's 5th form. Maybe she's the one who gave him the upgrade or Kusabila will become AIKA. Also I wanna know what happens to Zelkova. He'a gotta pass net slum on somehow right?
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Falions
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Falions »

(Phantom) Thief wrote: or Kusabila will become AIKA.
Didn't even consider this. The AIDA released in Returner is implied to be AIKA, right? I wonder if she could take on such a form so quickly.
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Xu Yuan »

It's odd you mention Zelkova. To me Kusabira reminds me a lot of Zelkova, the white aesthetic, that weird sash flowing from Zelkova's Goddess Scythe seems to bear similar appearance to Kusabira's sashe's. If she does have some relation to Zelkova she might be another Vagrant AI. She doesn't seem to bear any similarities to AIKA as far as I can see.
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Dasha
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Dasha »

Hmm, since the Vol. 4 happens after .hack//G.U. Returner (if I have read that correctly), I would like for Sakisaka to be there. He was one of my favorite characters from the Project G.U. and I thought it was a bit of a shame that he was nowhere to be seen in the games back in the days. Maybe he could join one last time? Especially since Tabby will appear in the story of the Vol. 4 judging by the screenshots, and I really like the way they interact with each other, it is adorable.
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Bullet Biter
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Bullet Biter »

Some interesting bits of info:

The text on Haseo's new sword says KEY OF TWILIGHT

The text on the stones in Qua Holme say:
Left Stone-
PRINCESS
SLEEP GRAVES
WAKE UP AGAIN
IF DEAR YOUR

Right Stone-
VOICE LISTEN
BODY MAYBE
EXHAUSTED
EVEN YOU ARE

I'm very interested to see what this all means. Even if Vol.4 ends up being short it is looking like it'll be exciting.
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Adhemas
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Adhemas »

Bullet Biter wrote:Some interesting bits of info:

The text on Haseo's new sword says KEY OF TWILIGHT

The text on the stones in Qua Holme say:
Left Stone-
PRINCESS
SLEEP GRAVES
WAKE UP AGAIN
IF DEAR YOUR

Right Stone-
VOICE LISTEN
BODY MAYBE
EXHAUSTED
EVEN YOU ARE

I'm very interested to see what this all means. Even if Vol.4 ends up being short it is looking like it'll be exciting.
This sounds like some disordered cut phrases. Something like "Dear Princess, even if you are exhausted, wake up again" although this is just some quick guess, the rest is still missing but I don't know how to form an actual phrase out of that - might be "maybe your body sleep(s)?" or something. But the "graves voice listen" doesn't fit and it would require a "to" like "listen to (your) voice" or something. Anyway it sounds like a prayer to Aura or something like that.
Really looking forward to this, I hope the game/s will sell on steam since it seems to be some project that might just be the beginning of another .hack season, depending on how popular it gets. Did they ever say anything about the plot of the included LN? I wish it was about Ovan meeting Aina again in real life, but who knows.
Lindz
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Lindz »

On a more gameplay minded note: how're they gonna handle balance in Vol.4?

Dualguns are a gamebreaker as-is. Then the Forest of Pain dumps broken items on ya. Then ya get to upgrade your broken gear with Cheat Codes AND spend Virus Cores on stat+ stuff o.o;
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Dasha
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Dasha »

This has to be a new character too, right? I don't recognize that hairstyle and purple-ish color. I don't think a character looked like that in the other G.U. games. Or... Saika Amagi, is that you?

Image
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k-su
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by k-su »

Someone on Gamefaqs debunked that. It's just showing what all is inside the magazine.
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Dasha
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Dasha »

Oops! I really thought that it was Saika Amagi for a second. :lol: Well then, problem solved I suppose. Thanks!
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Kuukai
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Kuukai »

"Or the Dreams of the Serpents who Spin the World"
I think it's been mostly said, but this is a reference to an existing theme in G.U., the idea that history repeats itself in The World. "Gate of Uroboros: To My Sister..." is the 12th Bansyoya file, where he has to pass on his mission to Pi. It's also referenced by Yata's interior design sense:
Image
The cycle of death and rebirth (which notably are the first and last phases) feeding each other and holding the world together has existed since ancient times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros ... _mythology

I think everyone knows my stance on this, but I think Kusabira has something to do with with Zelkova and Spoke. Haseo also has the "AIDA dots" though, and Ovan is connected to the benign AIDA in Returner, so that's possible as well. Or all of the above.

We didn't even know about Vol.4 when they announced the remaster, it's possible what we know now is still a small sliver of a full volume with a new Arena, etc. (Although I'm not sure I'd want/need that)
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by (Phantom) Thief »

Lindz wrote:Sooooo 5th Form! Prolly a placeholder name. Rogues only get up to 3 forms normally, and Xth was well... Xth, not 4th. I'd say its likely this new form gets its own special name.

Also to reconcile the form not showing up in Link or Versus... well thats what the 15th month gap is for! After that much time away Haseo's legend and notoriety will have faded some amongst normal players. People would remember his appearances and personality form when he was making big waves in R:2. TK Haseo was only ever 1st Form anyhow canonically so that checks out. Versus is all about that nostalgia so CC Corp. stopping at Xth checks out as well.

As for Vol.4 as a whole I expect it to be pretty small scale and personal in terms of story. No more AIDA, Cubia got dunked on, and presumably the game and real world at large are at peace. Now of course theres gonna be a big bad / final boss but they can't just go introducing some major new catastrophic force! Maybe the opposition could be hackers? Feel like that would be a nice change of pace.

Now what about Returner since its included in the Premium Edition package? At the very start of that episode you see Haseo's inbox and on this screen among other things is "(c) 2016-2017 MineSystems all rights reserved". This can be taken as yeah, Returner happened in 2017. The episode itself has a Summer Festival theme to it, an wouldn't ya know... Vol.3 ends in the summer! We dun gotta take Haseo's retirement as happening immediately the day after Vol.3's epilogue.
Here:

Image

You know I'm not really sure when all this is supposed to happen. (How dare they go after Peaco's Story. Atoli's character development is a work of art.) But it would be even more surprising if Vol 4. was after Returner and Kusabila or someone else was behind why Ovan is trapped in that stone. On a side note I think Saika and Geist also appear around this time as well. Since Saika did first encounter AIKA in The World two years before the start of The World R:... :!:

Wait a minute...

Sources: rpgsite.net & .hack//archives 05

Image

Image

7_7

a coincidence... eh...

Falions wrote:
(Phantom) Thief wrote: or Kusabila will become AIKA.
Didn't even consider this. The AIDA released in Returner is implied to be AIKA, right? I wonder if she could take on such a form so quickly.
I'm not too certain myself. But if we include the monster from returner then she's had at least three forms so far. So maybe Ovan was using her as a messenger. Another idea that's come to mind is are some of the newer characters from the web novels.
Xu Yuan wrote:It's odd you mention Zelkova. To me Kusabira reminds me a lot of Zelkova, the white aesthetic, that weird sash flowing from Zelkova's Goddess Scythe seems to bear similar appearance to Kusabira's sashe's. If she does have some relation to Zelkova she might be another Vagrant AI. She doesn't seem to bear any similarities to AIKA as far as I can see.
Yeah. I guess it might be too much of a stretch. Maybe she's just another AI produced by the game.
Dasha wrote:Hmm, since the Vol. 4 happens after .hack//G.U. Returner (if I have read that correctly), I would like for Sakisaka to be there. He was one of my favorite characters from the Project G.U. and I thought it was a bit of a shame that he was nowhere to be seen in the games back in the days. Maybe he could join one last time? Especially since Tabby will appear in the story of the Vol. 4 judging by the screenshots, and I really like the way they interact with each other, it is adorable.
Never give up hope. Though they haven't really mentioned anything. Maybe in the future we could get some sort of large spinoff game for what he was doing back then since the game Sakikaka switched to Riot Gun was also affected by AIDA.
Bullet Biter wrote:Some interesting bits of info:

The text on Haseo's new sword says KEY OF TWILIGHT

The text on the stones in Qua Holme say:
Left Stone-
PRINCESS
SLEEP GRAVES
WAKE UP AGAIN
IF DEAR YOUR

Right Stone-
VOICE LISTEN
BODY MAYBE
EXHAUSTED
EVEN YOU ARE

I'm very interested to see what this all means. Even if Vol.4 ends up being short it is looking like it'll be exciting.
That's actually very awesome. Although it doesn't make much sense. My guess is that the princess in this case is actually Aina..
Adhemas wrote: This sounds like some disordered cut phrases. Something like "Dear Princess, even if you are exhausted, wake up again" although this is just some quick guess, the rest is still missing but I don't know how to form an actual phrase out of that - might be "maybe your body sleep(s)?" or something. But the "graves voice listen" doesn't fit and it would require a "to" like "listen to (your) voice" or something. Anyway it sounds like a prayer to Aura or something like that.
Really looking forward to this, I hope the game/s will sell on steam since it seems to be some project that might just be the beginning of another .hack season, depending on how popular it gets. Did they ever say anything about the plot of the included LN? I wish it was about Ovan meeting Aina again in real life, but who knows.
That actually makes more sense. Although Aura vanished after R:2 someone has to wake her up eventually... . wait just another moment what happened to her after Returner

Kuukai wrote:"Or the Dreams of the Serpents who Spin the World"
I think it's been mostly said, but this is a reference to an existing theme in G.U., the idea that history repeats itself in The World. "Gate of Uroboros: To My Sister..." is the 12th Bansyoya file, where he has to pass on his mission to Pi. It's also referenced by Yata's interior design sense:
Image
The cycle of death and rebirth (which notably are the first and last phases) feeding each other and holding the world together has existed since ancient times:
[ur]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros ... _mythology[/url]

I think everyone knows my stance on this, but I think Kusabira has something to do with with Zelkova and Spoke. Haseo also has the "AIDA dots" though, and Ovan is connected to the benign AIDA in Returner, so that's possible as well. Or all of the above.

We didn't even know about Vol.4 when they announced the remaster, it's possible what we know now is still a small sliver of a full volume with a new Arena, etc. (Although I'm not sure I'd want/need that)
She could be. There's so much going on with the series that its really hard to guess what's about go down. Genius should be starting things around this time. We hardly know anything about papa... other than they have wandering AI and that there's a mama.
Last edited by (Phantom) Thief on Mon Aug 14, 2017 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Kuukai »

December 2018 should definitely be interesting, even if the focus is only on G.U. My major problem with the timeline is that if Pi is still looking for Ovan in Quantum, then this game is a bigger waste of time than the Forest of Pain. How many fakeout Ovan "may we meet again someday" returns do we need? Unless there's an epilogue to the epilogue set in the far future, as Haseo is still the figurehead of Canard in 2024 which is well past all the "Ovan is missing" hooks.
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by (Phantom) Thief »

It might turn out where we end up saving Masato but not nessarily Ovan himself. Sort of like what happened with Sora and Ryou. And I'm crossing my fingers that he won't end up like Aina from the light novels. Because  while she's technicaly a living god AINA's original body is quite gone..
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Falions »

(Phantom) Thief wrote:



She could be. There's so much going on with the series that its really hard to guess what's about go down. Genius should be starting things around this time. We hardly know anything about papa... other than they have wandering AI and that there's a mama.
Papa? Are you referring to Genius or is there a whole nother thing I have no idea about?
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by (Phantom) Thief »

Falions wrote:
(Phantom) Thief wrote: She could be. There's so much going on with the series that its really hard to guess what's about go down. Genius should be starting things around this time. We hardly know anything about papa... other than they have wandering AI and that there's a mama.
Papa? Are you referring to Genius or is there a whole another thing I have no idea about?
Around the 2030 there are two Wandering AI named Maria & Luna who have the ability to restore and different copy abilities within the game. In their first appearance during the Autumn Festival they're introduced as investigators looking into the appearance of a wandering AI named MOMI-G and during the main story Luna, Maria's sister briefly notes how it they created by third character called who she refers to as "Papa". However Guilty Dragon's main story never really answers just who that was. which they might have have been from CC Corp. I don't have the images anymore, but IRC there was something about CC Corp as well during one of the side stories. (I also sent an email to CC2 about it a little while ago, but nothing's happened yet.)
Lindz
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Lindz »

How do you think they'll handle the Sakubo stuff? If your Vol.3 clear data carries over to Vol.4 and you chose to have Saku disappear... any idea how that'd work? Given they're making it so you can manually choose to call in either one of them I doubt Saku's meant to disappear on her own anytime soon. Especially with Haseo's retirement, not having him or her around would suck for Bo.
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Re: G.U. Vol.4

Post by Kuukai »

I wonder how that will work, it feels like they will come up with an excuse for Saku to come back.
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