"The infection of boredom! Stay away from this! The king of repetitiveness."

Alright. I am a fan of .//hack sign, and I have the boxset of all eps. I have yet to watch them all, but I said to myself, a .hack game, nice I know I will like this! So I pull up on ebay, and was baffled that owning all games in the series cost will $100! I still am wandering why this game still cost so much everywhere if you are planning on collecting them all, mainly the last game in the series! Its funny how ebay charges stupid prices for the last 2 games of the series, but gamestop charges under $50. Almost like FFVII Syndrome with prices! Its just a old game. I don't care how rare they get, its a old freaking game!!! That goes for the saturn games too! I can care less about rarity, I would never sell them for stupid prices, like I sold both part 1 and 2 for only $20, instead of $40 or more like most people would do! The whole series is not worth that much money! Its not worth it!!! Now my review with the first game.



Graphics 7/10


The visuals from first glance is pretty good. Everything looks all and well until, WAIT! There is something not right here. The fields, dungeons, THEY ALL LOOK THE DAMN SAME! Now this is such bullcrap! What I mean is you get one layout in some dungeon, and some of the rooms repeat the room layout, and as you play the game more and more, they all become the same, but only with a different background, and wall painting. What cheapness!!!


Sound/Music 4/10


Nothing special. The music in the game is not too bad, but its mediocre at best. There is only like 2-4 dungeon themes in the game from what I remember, and most of them are forgettable. The music was pretty disappointing. I was expecting much better for a .hack game. Not too much here to say anymore.


Story 7/10


The story is about a kid name Kite. He is new to the World, an online MMORPG. So basically you are playing a game in a game. Anyway the story all starts after Kite's friend who was playing online with him has fallen into a coma in real life after getting killed by a odd creature within the game. Basically the story is to solve the mystery of why did this happen, and about this ghost woman that following you around and such, and is connected to the events that happen at the beginning. Don't expect to solve much since its only part 1 of 4 in this game.


The anime that came with the game 5/10.


I am disappointed in this. Even if it is part 1 of the anime, its based off the game, but different characters and same plot. I am not going to waste too much time with this since I really didn't care much about this 45 minute anime, and I expected it to be good being the anime fan I am, but I found it a bit boring. Not much to say with it. Its called .hack//Liminality By the way.



Gameplay 3/10


Dear ****ing god if you want to complain about games being repetitive, meet the king of repetitively itself! Now listen carefully before buying this game! When you play the game, expect to be tapping the X button do death. Doing the same combo with such weapon, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again! Yes the same combo, and the occasional magic spell with effects that look like crap, and from something I would see from freaking RPG Maker 2000 or something close to that! Not to insult RPG Maker 2000. Not to mention, how the AI of your partners are as dumb as the stereotypical brute that likes to go all out like a fighter in a stand-up fight that has a good chin, but these pseudo brutes have glass chins that can break in seconds in a high level dungeon!! You basically have to tell the AI to back off to heal itself, its annoying that it can't be any smarter.


Part 2

You get these Wavemaster type characters, but the stand there like they are spacing out on drugs, and they suppose to be mage type supporting character similar to the Force mages from Phantasy Star Online. You have to manually control them, at the same time press that damn X button over and over and over again! Its tedious, and makes them usless almost IMO. You have to keep them because you need them for healing and magic! Annoying as hell!



Part 3


What the blue hell is wrong with the combat system? X X X X X X X all the damn time, and the tedious menu surfing! This suppose to be a simulated MMORPG? Come on, its not that bad! Damn. What makes the worst is that fighting the enemies, they have high HP, and you have to spend minutes at a time fighting enemies in a dungeon, and you have to use this virus thing to kill them instantly sometimes that can backfire on you. UGH! Its really no more about this gameplay to say, but there are only 2 freaking towns in this game! Some cheap game The World is. Runescape is 10x better than this piece of crap, and Runescape does not suck!!!




Final Thoughts

I tried liking this game, but once I realize that everything was the same over, and over again in the dungeons, I quickly sold this piece of trash so fast that the night after I posted the game on ebay, it was bought by the time I woke up the next morning! My point is if you have games like this, don't think of buying, even if you are a fan of the series! What I even discovered is that parts 2 to 4 play the same ****ing way! That is such cheapness! That tells me that someone is playing a really cruel joke on gamers. Go to ebay, and look at the prices of all 4 games, and you will be shocked and pissed. I promise that! Next game to be reviewed will be Half Life 2! The Best FPS I ever played since the old days of Goldeneye/Perfect Dark.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/08/07

Game Release: .hack//Infection Part 1 (US, 02/10/03)