Best Overall Playing Character

[shadow of skeith]

My pick would definitely be Zelkova. Awesome, smart, and very powerful to have in a party or as yourself. I seriously think he would do a better job as an adept rouge than Haseo.

[TheSorrow]

Haseo. Weapon changing and Dual Guns FTW >3>

[Ratsu]

Haseo. Weapon changing and Dual Guns FTW >3>

Eww I hate the dual guns, they made the game way to easy. =/ I think they should have made an ammo system where you had to collect ammo instead. I say the best overall character is Yata XD

[Master ZED]

I think they should have made an ammo system where you had to collect ammo instead.

I'd imagine Bamco would implement that in such a way that all it does is interfere with item farming, so I have to disagree. :\

[LegendaryDarkKnight]

I always have Endrance. Not because I'm creepily obsessed over him, just because hes actually really good.

[_Tri-edge_]

Azure Kite. Even though Aura nudered him and took away his insanely high HP to be in Haseo's party.

[twilight_keeper]

Haseo. Weapon changing and Dual Guns FTW >3>

Eww I hate the dual guns, they made the game way to easy. =/ I think they should have made an ammo system where you had to collect ammo instead. I say the best overall character is Yata XD

I like that you say that cuz Yata is the only way you ever get to find out exactly how a Macabre Dancer actually plays like. Personally, my mainstay team is Shino and Sakubo for the magic backup, mainly because Haseo has enough attack strength on his own to handle pretty much anything.

[iuliathe3rd]

My fantard self wants to say Shino, and her stats are pretty good now that I've buffed them up...

But, I'd actually say Endrance. He's surprisingly strong, and with his Lost Weapon causing Charm, he's doubly effective. (Yes, I realize I could customize a Blade Brandier weapon to have Charm on it, shut up. >>)

[twilight_keeper]

My fantard self wants to say Shino, and her stats are pretty good now that I've buffed them up...

But, I'd actually say Endrance. He's surprisingly strong, and with his Lost Weapon causing Charm, he's doubly effective. (Yes, I realize I could customize a Blade Brandier weapon to have Charm on it, shut up. >>)

Yeah don't diss Silabus, he needs love too! (Lol just kiddin)

[skynark]

I gota say....
and don't laugh becuase I actualy do like this character.

He adds pazaz!!!
He adds Glamor!!!
Like a spotless cheta he rushed into my heart

PRIOS THE SLOW DOBERMEN!!!

[Altre]

Kuhn is nearing one of my favs to play as. I was surprised kinda that firing the gun was a charged attack. What about Ovan's stats, is there anything of .Hack media saying his stats before AIDA?

[_Tri-edge_]

Kuhn is nearing one of my favs to play as. I was surprised kinda that firing the gun was a charged attack. What about Ovan's stats, is there anything of .Hack media saying his stats before AIDA?

No. All we know is that Ovan was of a high-enough level to carry out what he needed to do in his spare time without interruption between PK's or other characters. The only hint of his level before he was infected with AIDA is his Bayonet, Demon's slice, which was a level. 78 weapon. So in my opinion judging by the rules of the game, since you can't use weapons of a higher level until you reach that level, Ovan was at least level 78. Then again it's just a theory of mine.

[Master ZED]

The only hint of his level before he was infected with AIDA is his Bayonet, Demon's slice, which was a level. 78 weapon.

That's not a hint at all. Weapon level for equipment meant for a particular character to start with will often be set to match said character's starting level. Taihaku and Tabby are two other examples of this, and remember that Tabby has never used anything but Feline Soul ever since she got it on one of her first adventures. How the hell could that weapon be (around?) 116 then, let alone be a three slot weapon? Taihaku's Maxwell is 113, just like he is, but he's held Maxwell for months; we know this because he uses it in the Forest of Pain in Roots. How did he manage to avoid leveling up if we go strictly by what the game presents us? The Forest of Pain is a gold mine of EXP if the original forest is anything like the revision, he would have had no choice but to run from every fight to maintain 113.

There's also the fact that Ovan's stats and Ovan <Tri-Edge>'s stats don't match. Sure, he's LV. 90 in Reminisce in either form without a doubt, but then his <Tri-Edge> form is 126 in Redemption while Ovan himself is 140. This could fool an idiot into thinking that <Tri-Edge> had weakened and that Ovan wasn't running out of time after all, he just couldn't wait anymore and phrased his words to create a sense of urgency.

Really, you can't trust the game data to tell you more about the story. We could go on and on about this, such as how Antares is a "legendary" former Emperor and Endrance has been playing since R:2 began, and yet both were eligible for the Demon Palace, and how such a low leveled character as Taihaku was able to hold the title of Sage Palace Emperor prior to his AIDA infection, but the story and the game are just two different beasts.

[_Tri-edge_]

That's not a hint at all. Weapon level for equipment meant for a particular character to start with will often be set to match said character's starting level. Taihaku and Tabby are two other examples of this, and remember that Tabby has never used anything but Feline Soul ever since she got it on one of her first adventures. How the hell could that weapon be (around?) 116 then, let alone be a three slot weapon? Taihaku's Maxwell is 113, just like he is, but he's held Maxwell for months; we know this because he uses it in the Forest of Pain in Roots. How did he manage to avoid leveling up if we go strictly by what the game presents us? The Forest of Pain is a gold mine of EXP if the original forest is anything like the revision, he would have had no choice but to run from every fight to maintain 113.

There's also the fact that Ovan's stats and Ovan <Tri-Edge>'s stats don't match. Sure, he's LV. 90 in Reminisce in either form without a doubt, but then his <Tri-Edge> form is 126 in Redemption while Ovan himself is 140. This could fool an idiot into thinking that <Tri-Edge> had weakened and that Ovan wasn't running out of time after all, he just couldn't wait anymore and phrased his words to create a sense of urgency.

Really, you can't trust the game data to tell you more about the story. We could go on and on about this, such as how Antares is a "legendary" former Emperor and Endrance has been playing since R:2 began, and yet both were eligible for the Demon Palace, and how such a low leveled character as Taihaku was able to hold the title of Sage Palace Emperor prior to his AIDA infection, but the story and the game are just two different beasts.

Strange, since the game is basically the core of the story. However, do you have other examples of this, because if what you said is true, then what can we go by? Both Roots and volumes. 1-3 are part of the canon story of G.U. in Comglomerate. From what you're going by, a player who just began playing R:2 was able to choose a weapon regaurdless of level to start off with?

[TheSorrow]

I think the point here is that the games lie in either the fact that you can only equip weapons of a level lower or equal to yours, or that Feline Soul is a high-levelled weapon while it must be lv10 or so. And whatever it is, thanks to this we can't say for sure Ovan's real level by his weapon's level. ...Though still, i'm quite surprised Tabby is THAT high-levelled as she seems in Redemption o-o Didn't she quit playing by the time Shino became comatose, and just came back playing? So how come she's almost as strong as the lv133 Haseo-Terror of Death? o-O lol

his <Tri-Edge> form is 126 in Redemption while Ovan himself is 140

How do we know Ovan's level?

[Master ZED]

Strange, since the game is basically the core of the story. However, do you have other examples of this, because if what you said is true, then what can we go by? Both Roots and volumes. 1-3 are part of the canon story of G.U. in Comglomerate. From what you're going by, a player who just began playing R:2 was able to choose a weapon regaurdless of level to start off with?

I'll get back to this later, but for now,

his <Tri-Edge> form is 126 in Redemption while Ovan himself is 140

How do we know Ovan's level?

I went and tested his Tri-Edge form myself, and I also checked his stats when I managed to fix his menu freezing BS (it's a subscreen portrait problem).

[_Tri-edge_]

I went and tested his Tri-Edge form myself, and I also checked his stats when I managed to fix his menu freezing BS (it's a subscreen portrait problem).

So you made a hypothesis by analying the battle against him in Vol.3?

[twilight_keeper]

I gota say....
and don't laugh becuase I actualy do like this character.

He adds pazaz!!!
He adds Glamor!!!
Like a spotless cheta he rushed into my heart

PRIOS THE SLOW DOBERMEN!!!

May the stars shine on you until the end of your journey my friend! I like Piros mainly because he looks like a super robot from the Grendaizer era

[Master ZED]

I went and tested his Tri-Edge form myself, and I also checked his stats when I managed to fix his menu freezing BS (it's a subscreen portrait problem).

So you made a hypothesis by analying the battle against him in Vol.3?

It's not a hypothesis, <Tri-Edge> is definitely 126. Weapon effects on normal hits outside of Beast Awakening start working at target's level - 4, and is easily indicated by the sound the weapon makes on impact. If it sounds weak, you don't even need to verify whether the weapon effects kicked in, your level is too low for the majority of them to work. Weapon effects like Avenging Bullet that only affect the user obviously don't follow this rule.

EDIT:

Strange, since the game is basically the core of the story. However, do you have other examples of this, because if what you said is true, then what can we go by? Both Roots and volumes. 1-3 are part of the canon story of G.U. in Comglomerate. From what you're going by, a player who just began playing R:2 was able to choose a weapon regaurdless of level to start off with?

That's what the game mechanics of G.U. tell us, though it can't be true. It's more than a coincidence that Pi, Kuhn, Tabby, Natsume, Zelkova, Kaede, Gabi, IYOTEN, Asta, Grein, Piros... all those characters (and likely more) started with weapons equivalent to their starting level when we get them, and they're all rare save IYOTEN, Asta, and Grein (but the former two have upgraded versions in the game's data that go unused, and they're not even finished (don't pay attention to the weapon's name or level, I wrote that in myself)). Those three may use common weapons, but they stick with those weapons throughout the story, just like how Haseo and Atoli are portrayed as doing. What Tabby does is make this pattern not only extremely evident, but very suspicious. She didn't start with those weapons like these other characters did; they were a gift from Sakisaka during one of her first adventures, and she's been using them ever since. How could they possibly be LV. 116 if she's been using them for so long? A mechanic where a preferred weapon upgrades and levels up with the user is never once introduced in either Roots or G.U., so how could this have happened?

This is one of the aspects of the games we're supposed to ignore for the sake of the story, like how Tabby made it 50 blocks into the Forest of Pain by herself when a) she's not good enough nor does she have the tools to do that and b) the game won't let you go into the second incarnation of the Forest alone until you complete it. The story doesn't give a crap about stat specifics, in fact, level is generally only brought up when there's a severe deficiency involved. Haseo as the Terror of Death was an exception to this rule.

If we go by the story, characters' weapons seem to remain consistently useful throughout their time in The World. Rarely, if ever, do we see an actual weapon change no matter how significant the new weapon may be. Haseo never used the Honeysuckles Shino gave him during Roots, the hi-res cutscenes in Redemption never show the Epitaph Users using their Lost Weapons, neither did still shots for that matter (hell, in one still shot flashback, Haseo is shown to be using the Spin Heaven in the final battle with Ovan... I still can't explain that one), and the latter is horrible in cases like Endrance where the weapon's absence could damn well be considered a plothole. Even if Endrance has finally moved on as much as he possibly could, he wouldn't just leave a memento like that in inventory to collect dust. Oh, a weapon that feels like an embodiment of Mia's spirit... think I'll chunk it in storage to rot! Yeah, that REALLY sounds like Endrance doesn't it? Sure it does... if he were (involuntarily) wasted at the time like Mia was in Outbreak, maybe. At least she had an excuse to spit on Elk's generosity.

Yet that's what the game would have you believe, which is why I consider the Lost Weapons non-canon. They look like part of the story, but the Sacrament is of no more significance in G.U. than the Bount arc is to Bleach, or the movies are to DBZ in the grand scheme of things. Hell, Zelkova's hack of the Sacrament at the beginning of volume 3 and the complete lack of storyline significance afterward completely pisses that part of the saga down the drain. When you make it to Redemption, you learn the true significance of the Sacrament was merely to create another chore in completing Ryu Book VII, some crappy weapons you can't sell off, a decent Blade weapon, and a couple of inexplicably badass weapons that make Sakubo and Kuhn into offensive monsters.

So what can we actually use from how the game operates, given these terrible inconsistencies? Basically, we just see if a certain aspect of the story disagrees with the game mechanics and trust the former on those matters. Does that mean contradictions like how Roots has no battle cage and allows team Rengekis and G.U. doesn't can be resolved like this? No, or rather, not entirely. Seeing how the story is portrayed in the cutscenes, we can assume that canonically, the battle cage only really exists in the Arena. We can't make any assumptions about how Rengeki operates as it's never used in the course of G.U.'s tale; it's purely a gameplay mechanic. This sounds REALLY confusing, I know, because I feel like I'm running in circles right now. Why the hell I'm still typing this is beyond me. I should just go find a Penny Arcade comic that closely resembles the argument I'm trying to make right now, post a link and move on even if it's not even remotely close to the subject at hand. The calendar one where Gabe comments on how long he's gone without saying the word f**k might be as far as I go and I'd still feel like I made a worthy argument.

The point is that the gameplay tells the story much differently than CC2 may have ever intended. If you look at IMOQ, level has no direct impact on damage, ever, so the characters in R:1 almost all look like absolute idiots for not changing equipment, especially when horrifying things like the Dark History and Kagayuzen exist. In G.U., this policy is flipped 180 degrees, so if you have a low level, you may get slaughtered with ease, and you can't fight back all that well. This forgives Haseo using a LV. 20 broadsword at LV. 133 by quite a lot, since if he encounters even a LV. 123 PK, he's still very likely going to turn them to mulch, and given the kind of moron he targeted typically never made it even to LV. 100 (unless, of course, they were Haseo in better times), Haseo really didn't need the upgrade. Of course, that just creates bigger problems, like how a team like The Sweepstakers didn't flatline Taihaku a long time ago. How was he even beating LV. 130 teams by himself? Did they just happen to be all mage teams composed of Mirelle-like miracle kids that couldn't really fight? What about Sirius? He follows Taihaku's path, but he's even worse off as a Tribal Grappler that can't seem to use combination regular attacks. He MUST use Arts, and only two of them actually work correctly going by gameplay. At least Endrance is LV. 45, and entered the Arena after his AIDA infection took hold, so there's nothing to take issue with there. You could challenge the low level given how long he had been playing, but Endrance was never interested in power, so I'd let this slide. Taihaku, though, is likely unforgivable, his level manipulated for Haseo to get a much earlier victory than we could have expected otherwise.

I'm questioning whether I should've even posted this now... screw it. I don't care. Read the last paragraph when your head stops spinning.

I guess my summed up answer is that G.U. was clearly slapped together in patches that are incredibly difficult to make sense of because there are so many thought processes of the numerous authors and programmers conflicting with each other, and Azure Kite's own body represents the road map of pain followed to create .hack's second saga. We know the overall tale that was intended to be told, and that's all a sane person needs to know. To that end, I apologize if my rant made no sense. Once I started thinking about it deeply, I couldn't find an answer.

Oh, well. I tried. :\

[skynark]

you tried and you did make a bit more sense. I really go tot see the flaws in the game. but if you try not to think about those and just play the game (and ingore the fact Alkaid became a love intrest out of freaken no where... I still like her though. SHES MINE!!!)
its actualy a good game.

sometime I wonder if they made the game knowing people would hack it and make their own character?
but what ever back on topic

Prios is the most intrestin character and when I used him he kicks serious monstar @$$ (Alkaid has a nice @$$ for a game character. off topic again) and I mean Prios has really helped me out in a monster jam before and it seems he is one of the smartes AIs when on Free will. I like his style (exept when you heal him and he says that creppy line "Your love makes me hot") and he keeps me going Oh god what the hell, why is that funny?

So like a horse with no sattle I am free to like Piros the thrid and his theme song you get as a BGM for your title page.