A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

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Sadivinedevil
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A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Sadivinedevil »

Sorry if this is a little long winded, but it makes me cry that a series that I have liked for so long is ending soon.

I do remember buying .hack Infection, and being stunned that I got the title wrong since I thought it was invention instead. I'm glad I started this series before adolescence kicked in because I would have just sidestepped it. I don't really like how I got into this series because I had just watched 4-5 episodes of SIGN and got hooked when I heard the first game came out (I would never do this today). I broke my copy of infection and bought another one ticking my parents off when I beat it in just one day. Those were the good old days especially the moment I defeated Skeith and Cubia appeared I practically had a heart attack.

SIGN and the original games were great and there was a brief period that I didn't really care much about .hack until the LOTT anime appeared on TV. I could imagine how much drool dropped from my mouth as a saw the series progress, but now that I have read the manga I realize how sub par the anime was to it. Again my attention strayed from .hack.

The announcement of G.U. confused me but it also intrigued me. To switch the protagonists and antagonists is a very hard thing to do in any series, but G.U. Did it eloquently. It was the other aspects that didn't really leave a great impression on me. For starters Endrance who was the re embodiment of my favorite characters from the original games was GAY, and some characters just right out annoyed me (i.e. Sakaki). The battle setup was outright different and focused more on button mashing than strategy (my favorite aspect of the original games), and the avatar battles were not so impressive. The story hands down is better than the original series, but played out a little awkwardly. Sorry for bashing G.U. , but I just didn't like it as much as the original games because of an issue that is affecting a lot of JRPG's today (Westernization).

Now that I got the G.U. rant out of the way I would like to state one of the high points of the series. The manga for .hack is very good, and I got to say that I was more impressed with G.U.+ than I was with G.U. because a lot of the garbage was removed, and Cubia's appearance at the end made a hell of a lot more sense. X-forth might be the lowest quality of the manga's (too much story not enough books), but the Idea was very solid and I'm glad that they added Cubia from X-forth to Link. LOTT's manga is the gold of the series. To have comedy in a serious series is very hard too pull off, but I've never experienced a good transition until I read LOTT. 4Koma is great for laughs too.

The Novels are nice, and I do recommend that fans read Another Birth. AI buster was a thought provoking book, but its sequel was kind of lame. The G.U. novels take a slightly different approach to G.U.'s story, but all in all it is the same so far. I'm currently in the middle of Cell, and I've liked it so far.

I wonder how I will leave this series behind once link and the latter animes pass. Oh well things don't last forever, and if they do they start to stink to high heaven like aging cheese.
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Tolby
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Tolby »

Uh.. you bashed G.U.? Seems like you were cupping its.. well..


I don't see anything wrong with Endrance really. I mean his attitude was annoying at first, but you can clearly see Elk soon after his characters get explored a little more. It makes sense he would turn out that way. Still a little too... flamboyant for me as well. Unless you just meant you don't like him being attracted to guys at all. Which I hope you didn't.

I also didn't really think his English VA did him justice. Though if I had a character with the looks and movements of Endrance I would have used the exact same voice.
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Gomorrah
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Gomorrah »

and for the record? Endrance wasn't "gay".
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AuraTwilight
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by AuraTwilight »

Endrance wasn't really gay. Bi at best, but it wasn't really sexual. He just found Haseo as a replacement for his absolute, world-swallowing obsession with Mia.
Sadivinedevil
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Sadivinedevil »

AuraTwilight wrote:Endrance wasn't really gay. Bi at best, but it wasn't really sexual. He just found Haseo as a replacement for his absolute, world-swallowing obsession with Mia.
I guess using the word GAY was a little too harsh, but I do admit. Endrance was great in rebirth, but his attitude shift in reminisce was uncalled for.

Anyway who actually owns everything released in america from .hack. I'm just missing Alcor and by the end of this month I will be missing the Link manga. Though when Link for the PSP comes out I'm definitely getting it since I liked the demo so much.
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Tolby
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Tolby »

Harsh? Its not harsh, it just not really accurate. Again its hard to see where you are coming from.

What personality change? You mean when he starts liking Haseo? Thats just his character. It wasn't uncalled for it was just Endrance being Endrance. His dominate/shown personality may have changed, but that was just his character getting some screen time and being revealed more and not his character actually being changed, if that what you are thinking.

I mean you can say that he changed, but thats the way his character was meant to change in that type of situation. In other words if you are saying it was inconsistent character development or him being out of character, it wasn't.
Sadivinedevil
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Sadivinedevil »

Endrance is just one character out of hundreds in this series. I just had issues with his character and that is all. I didn't want to deal with an argument about Endrance just because I mentioned gay in the sentence. In truth he would be gay if the word was used in its original context which meant happy. I understand how the story went and Haseo was basically Endrance's crutch to get out of his deep seated depression after losing the Mia/Aida. Heck I would be upset if my friend was killed in an accident and later on the only object that represented that friend disappeared from my possession. It's just that the switch from Mia to Haseo was very abrupt and a little uncomfortable. Endrance during Redemption was much better since he separated himself from Haseo's group to become more individualistic, and to defeat Sakaki of course. Sakaki ticked me off the most because he played the obsessive villain who actually had no power in the end. If anything he was one of the big reasons I didn't like G.U. that much.

Please change the subject!!! I wanted to hear how some people got into .hack since it was overshadowed by DBZ, Naruto, and some other series that were much broader in scope back when .hack started. I also want opinions on how certain aspects of the series moved or disgusted people. I for one have my complaints about some decisions the CC2 made with some of the series. (i.e. Cubia at the end of G.U. not making a whole lot of sense compared to the rest of the story. G.U.+ cleared it up a bit more and was actually more intriguing than G.U. about this part.). I didn't want much argument when I started this thread, but I guess I should never use controversial words from the beginning. Oh well I can't change what I wrote in the past to change what is going on now so I'll just accept that I was a little misguided in the use of the word gay.
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AuraTwilight
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by AuraTwilight »

Endrance is the type of person who can't go on with his life without investing all his personal worth into someone. If he didn't select Haseo as his new crutch, not only wouldhe have refused to help him, but he'd of never left the lake he sealed himself in.

Plus he makes a great parody of the typical prettyboy/bishonen gay guy in anime.
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Gemcrim
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Gemcrim »

How I got into .hack: pure accident picking up Infection. (Edit: looking back on this statement if reworded slightly I could have made an STD joke, so yet ANOTHER thing .hack has made me regret :T ) And I didn't regret it... until some point after GU vol 3 came out. :3

Have gotten most of what has been released stateside save promotional items like plush grunties in individual Sign DVDs and the like.

Am VERY uncertain if I will purchase the Link manga, let alone game should it come stateside. (played already not sure what can convince me to do so again unless the english version somehow makes the story better by leaps and bounds by the magic of me comprehending ****)

Recent events have made me more cynical not only on what's coming out but on the series as a whole. But I can still find love for what brought me here: Sign, Liminality, and IMOQ though limited only to the main story and little else now...
Last edited by Gemcrim on Tue Jun 15, 2010 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Sadivinedevil
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by Sadivinedevil »

.hack has changed and some of the changes came with CC2's side project (Naruto of course). .hack has become more action oriented since the ultimate ninja series started even some aspects of the character designs were copied. Haseo and Sasuke have similar hair styles and attitudes which made .hack G.U. Trilogy's parody on Youtube much more funnier especially Haseo wanting to be more like Sasuke during the level up scene. I must say that I have lost interest in some aspects of .hack because of the shift from Conspiracy to a Revenge story. Oh well Link promises to be different in the fact that it goes over each aspect of .hack up until that point. There is no way CC2 can recover from this finish except for the supposed 2024 anime which I can't wait to see. They have covered the story from one direction and angled it in the opposite direction now they are reviewing and that will be a wrap up all of the possible ways to write a series.

It's sad but true that this series is going to end, but I've dealt with other series doing this (Xenosaga, hopefully Ratchet and Clank, and maybe Jak and daxter). This is just the longest running series outside of Star Trek that I've actually paid attention too. If this series gets any longer it will get dull and get a reputation similar to what Sonic has at the moment (hopping Sonic 4 changes that). I just hope my kids will appreciate this series like I did. Though from experience I know that will not be the case. :(
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k-su
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by k-su »

Saw an ad for Infection in an issue of Newtype USA and thought it looked pretty cool, but had no idea what it was, so it wasn't very much on my radar. Then .hack//SIGN aired on Toonami and I was all over it. Sometime after that, I realized "oh dude, so that's what that awesome game ad was about" and since then I've been following .hack.

I picked up the games as soon as they came out, though I initially had the delimma between buying infection or the ltd box for sign w/ the t-shirt, infection demo and plushie. in the end, i went with the games and acquired the dvds over time while following it on cartoon network.

When the E3 trailer for GU showed up online, I was so hyped. Badass PKs, scythes, chainsaw swords? Why not? I was so into the darker edge the trailer portrayed and then zombie/wario kite putting the smack down on haseo was icing on the cake. Anyways, it was around that time I found dothackers while digging for more info.

Link threw me for a loop, but I got over the initial ankst and decided to give it a fair play. Hopefully, it gets translated, cuz playing thru the story w/o understanding it makes the experience a little shallow, but at least we have Kuukai making sense of things for us, right?

As far as the series ending, I wish it didn't have to, but realize that now's a good time to stop while it's still in a respectable state. Also will give CC2 a chance to start fresh and hopefully give us another awesome story aside from more naruto.
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GyppyGirl2021
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Re: A look back at previous titles. **Spoilers**

Post by GyppyGirl2021 »

How I got into .hack? Well, it's actually kind of a funny story...

I used to play a lot of imported games on my PS2... at one point, one of the devices malfunctioned and I got a second PS2 before realizing it was easily fixed without another one. So now I had two PS2s, and decided to give one to my brother. After a while, he got .hack//INFECTION, saying that it was like a MMORPG with an actual story (the only other real MMO I'd played up until then was Final Fantasy XI, so I was mildly interested).

And after playing .hack//INFECTION for a while, I decided to watch SIGN. For some reason or other (don't ask me how, I don't even know myself), that led to me watching Roots... and I instantly fell in love with Haseo, like, love-at-first-sight kind of thing. (It was also at this time that I was hoping against all odds that he wouldn't be canonically paired with Shino! But that's another story.) Naturally, I decided to look into things more, and that's when G.U. happened. I don't think anything else needs to be said. XD

Ever since then, though, I've been hooked on the series. I'm interested in .hack//LINK, but with the 3DS coming out soon, I'm less liable to get it than I was before (have to save up for that!). I'm not sure I like the sound of the new, upcoming stuff, but we'll see...
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