Speculation

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Sadivinedevil
Posts: 215
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:11 pm

Speculation

Post by Sadivinedevil »

From what I have heard about .hack//link in Japan it seems to have done well. I also know that some of you have played the import, and I would like to know some things about the game. This will just be general stuff, and I don't really want the spoilers like who the last boss is because I already know about the last boss. The things I want to know are very simple.

How did the game rank in your opinion (1 to 10)?
ie. After playing the demo I would give the demo an 8 in terms of graphics, game play, and their overall size(The demo was 47mb and contained 3 levels which is astonishing to me).

What do you think the reviewers in the US, Europe and Austrailia would give it?
ie. G4 gave G.U. vol. 2&3 a 2 out of 5, and Famitsu gave .hack//Link a 32 out of 40.

Would you consider playing the English version after beating the Japanese version?
ie. I played G.U. vol. 3 from Japan and wanted to play the American version afterwards.

And finally How would you rank Link amongst the other games?
ie. The original 4 were better than G.U. in my opinion.
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Kuukai
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Re: Speculation

Post by Kuukai »

Sadivinedevil wrote:How did the game rank in your opinion (1 to 10)?
ie. After playing the demo I would give the demo an 8 in terms of graphics, game play, and their overall size(The demo was 47mb and contained 3 levels which is astonishing to me).
I'd give it a 10 in terms of story/content. I mean to me it still seems like an impossible request to have a game that resurrects over 140 characters, some which we haven't even seen for eight years, with full voice and full continuity, tying everything together with both an excuse to do this and a real, coherent, good plot that truly ties together the major unresolved questions of .hack and provides some sort of finality, meaning, and closure to the hodge-podge menagerie of fancruft and whatever-someone-felt like-writing-about that is the .hack universe. There's about 60 hours of story-driven gameplay if you do it right, without the need to power-level or stray from story areas. And this isn't even counting the 400-or-so unvoiced Friend Skits I haven't even touched yet.

Unfortunately I'd give it like a 7 for gameplay, at best, and that's being generous because of the novelty of the Unison PC system (also monsters' taunting and strategies were a nice touch). There just isn't enough to keep my brain busy, it's all Unison Combos. They definitely tried, they added a lot of stuff .hack always needed. You can jump, sidestep mid-combo, and you have a lot of different combo options, but they wear out quickly and the focus is almost always Unison Combos. G.U. was much better. Now, obviously the reason for this is because the game is more portable, and they wanted something you could play while on the go, but 60 hours is a very long time and I wanted to steal Haseo's weapons. In line with the portability, levels are shorter and take less time to complete, so you can make quick progress when you have a trainride or whatever. They all have story-driven cutscenes and there are about 100 such levels, so like I said there's no problem with content. The Grunwhale crew system is also a fun touch, and helps break up the monotony of gameplay, but what this game desperately needs is more battle options that don't involve UC.

For graphics I don't have too much to compare it to since I just got a PSP, but I don't really have complaints. Sure, most of the event demos just involve sprites standing around flapping their lips, but thinking back to G.U. the only major difference was you had 3d models standing around flapping their lips. Since they went ahead and head-drew pretty much every .hack character ever sketched in the back of a book, I guess I'll give it an honorary 10.
Sadivinedevil wrote:What do you think the reviewers in the US, Europe and Austrailia would give it?
ie. G4 gave G.U. vol. 2&3 a 2 out of 5, and Famitsu gave .hack//Link a 32 out of 40.
Well, assuming they release it with the same supporting disc that it came with in Japan and the reviewers don't give up trying to understand the story, I'd expect at least a 3. The gameplay isn't as good as G.U., but it is more innovative and it doesn't seem like they're trying to rip you off by chopping one game into three. Again, I think a non-fan would have to make an honest effort to understand this or they wouldn't enjoy it, though...
Sadivinedevil wrote:Would you consider playing the English version after beating the Japanese version?
No, but that's because I already understand it. Plus, there's no Aura other than Maaya Sakamoto.
Sadivinedevil wrote:And finally How would you rank Link amongst the other games?
ie. The original 4 were better than G.U. in my opinion.
In terms of gameplay I think G.U. is the best, then Link, then the original games. In terms of story... I dunno, they're all good, but hell, Link has all the stories, so I'll give this one to Link. Link has an amazing soundtrack, possibly the best especially if you count the tracks it steals from the others. I usually have trouble picking favorites, I don't even have a favorite gundam, I think more in terms of "groups of favorite things." So I'll just say this game is worth playing if you liked any of the other ones...

Though, speaking of favorites, Alph with a voice (not to mention an ending) marks the quickest and highest any character has ever jumped in my internal ranking. She went from barely registered to easily one of my top 10 favorite .hack characters of all time. I had high hopes for Hokuto and Zefie since they're voiced by Madoka Yonezawa, one of my favorite up-and-coming voiceactresses, but Alph stole the show. Kazumi did a really good job too, and of course Maaya Sakamoto is awesome no matter who she plays. There's something to be said for veteran voiceactors. Some more reasons to play in Japanese.

Oh, on that note, I think the voices are compressed or something. There's a very slight hiss. Since the acting is one of the best parts of this game, it's something to mention. For the most part I can easily forget about it, but is it my imagination or is it wreaking havoc on Bear/Taihaku's voice? Or he could just be old. Otherwise, like I said I'm still amazed at how well they bring even the most minor characters from eight years ago back to life...

Sorry it took you a while to get a response. At least you got a lot of opinions, whether you wanted them or not. :P
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