Post
by Kuukai » Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:35 pm
There are really three different reactions to be had here, in my opinion: that .hack is ending, that that ending is LINK, and that LINK is on PSP.
I'm sad that .hack ending. They've never, ever said this before, so we have to assume they mean business. I really did want to see .hack on the PS3, and I wouldn't mind if the series just went on forever, but I'm glad they're ending it by bringing back old characters. We all know we always wanted to see most of them again, and the little I've seen of the game so far gives me hope that this will be a satisfying ending.
I have no qualms with LINK itself based on what I've seen. Groupthink on this site states that the plot is bad and it's too shounen. I, however, am captivated by the fact that this seems to be the first .hack with an actual villain, and I think that the unanswered questions of the plot show great promise and carry on the spirit of .hack. On the other hand, the choice of platform is disturbing. Hopefully there will be some all-important, yet-unseen WiFi component to gameplay, otherwise this simply can't be justified. LINK itself isn't a cop out or fan title like fragment, they've clearly done a lot of original work building the story and setting, creating new characters rebuilding the old, and bringing it all together. But doing this for any platform less powerful than the PS2, on any medium smaller in size than a DVD, and in just one volume is extremely risky unless there's something else they haven't told us yet.
There was a series called Sakura Taisen that had a similar problem. After three multi-disc games on the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, featuring extensive voicework and cutscenes and two distinct casts of characters, they decided to make a finale that included all of the characters and fit on a single GD-ROM. This was a horrible decision, and although it was a decent game, the drop in robustness of content and length of gameplay was extremely distracting. I'd like to think that CyberConnect2 might be able to do a better job, but by choosing PSP they have picked an extremely narrow foundation to build the game upon.