This game looks cute, but the storyline looks kinda bleh >>

[Nya]

I may have cheated a little and gone to wiki to see what I could see about the plot(because I read a bit of the manga and,my god!, I was bored stupid) and it looks dumb, so much so, as the crazed .hack fan I am i'm having trouble accepting it as canon. I also feel as though i'm the only who thinks this game is gonna blow up in CC Corps .hack universe face. >>; Not to totally bash the game though, I looked up a little three minute video of the characters fighting with their special move(rengeki?) thingys and holy **** it was cute. Like I don't even have an emoticon to describe how cute it was.

[GyppyGirl2021]

Well, there were a few reasons why it wasn't accepted as canon... because the story looked completely out there, and the protagonist pissed a lot of people off.

It's actually a lot better than it looks, apparently. XD

[_Tri-edge_]

Yes. At first, we took this game quite lightly. It was dull, stupid, and just plain old retarded at most points, because simply put, NO ONE had any background to the game. Fortunately, one of the members here has recently been clearing up the plot for us, and what we've been hearing has been very plesant so far. This plot is a LOT deeper and more complex than we thought, and it very well rivals the past stories of .hack, well...maybe because it HAS all the stories of .hack. lol. Basically, //Link's story is not what it seems to be at first glance. CC2 had surprised us once again, for most of us didn't think they could do all of this and still remain canon without completely destroying the series.

[Nya]

Really? Can you give me the link to that board/post? Plz and Thank you <3

[TheSorrow]

Really? Can you give me the link to that board/post? Plz and Thank you <3

http://www.dothackers.net/forums/viewto ... &start=260
You could read the whole topic if you wish, but all the pages before the one i linked are all mostly about people advancing on the game, describing things they saw, and speculating about it for they didn't really have japanese knowledge to fully understand what was going on. Since the page i'm linking to, Kuukai has finished the game and has fully understood pretty much every detail on it, so yeah, it's his posts the ones you'd like to pay attention to. Mind you, the topic is called "Massive Spoiler Thread"...so yes, be ready for some massive spoiling XD

You might also want to read this other topic, as it contains some important details on LINK as well, which aren't truly described in the Spoiler topic.
http://www.dothackers.net/forums/viewto ... 34&t=17539

And i have to completely agree with _Tri-Edge_. I was such a LINK hater, thinking it was a very stupid and retarded idea from CC2, deciding to end this with a game full of fanservicing, disregarding all that's happened in the old .Hack series and just adding a new silly protagonist that will fight alongside every other character in the series for no reason, other than to "please fans". But it's far more than that...it's not a fanservicing game that destroys the rest of the series, in fact, it's the complete opposite, and truly "links" to the rest of the series in such a complex and deep plot, that answers many questions and gives a new conclusion to everything that's happened. I wouldn't want to say that LINK is an "awesome" game, as i still have several bits of hate to it, and probably won't admit anything until i fully play it myself...But i have to say, LINK's story is anything but retarded or stupid, and it completely deserves the right to belong to the series and be called a ".hack//" game.

[Gemcrim]

While Link has proven it's not AS stupid as it was once thought to be. Even after reading about the plot and actually playing it I still can't say I'm impressed. Perhaps I'm just falling out of the .hack fandom because I certainly am starting to look at some of the older entries to the series with contempt. Whether this is due to my dislike of Link or not is something else altogether though.

So while Link isn't a massive failure it still is horrid in my eyes even with more details from Kuukai and others. You might enjoy it, I didn't but just know you'll at the very least be less disgusted with it than the manga... save for maybe the final boss.

So yeah, still hate Link. <3

[Kuukai]

As far as canon goes, it leaves everything better off than it found it. Link clears up a lot of those annoying little ambiguities. Between the game and the books that come with it, it explains Cubia more fully, solves Unison, those AIs Kite found, answers once and for all the question of what gender Hotaru and Sophora's PCs are, ends ZERO, and explains AIDA in G.U. a lot better. And seeing as how it includes a character from every single .hack work, the sheer amount of fact-checking must have been incredible...

Well, considering that most of the game's 2020 plot is about the final boss, I think it works a lot better with the build-up. And like I've said before, this whole episode, especially the last boss, provides a much more satisfactory explanation to what was going on in the past, especially G.U., and leads to what looks like an interesting future... And it's not like .hack bosses were ever supremely creative...

[AuraTwilight]

Kuukai, comprehensive plot dump plz.

[Kuukai]

Well, this isn't the thread for it, but I'm going to try that eventually. The game is ludicrously long, though. It's kinda like summarizing G.U. up to Cubia, or something. And just like the rest of .hack, the entire reason for the long, winding story progression is to build up over time complicated ideas that would have been difficult to explain in a paragraph, so those are the things I've been writing gigantic posts about. I think most people have a vague idea of the basic event flow, you all know about the egg and the boss, but the bigger picture and key details were missing...

[Nya]

TheSorrow, thank you for posting the link, i'm more confused then I was before, but despite that its peaked my interest, and it doesn't sound quite as stupid as it did before. I'm still not sure i'll be completely statisfied with how the storyline folds out, but i'll pretty defienately buy it to see for myself. Um, and also in responce to Gemcrim, I actually really enjoyed the manga with all its stupid sillyness. It didn't add much depth to the story, but I found it was a satisfying little, happy semi-conculsion.

And Kuukai, thank you for the spoilers. <3