"The Beginning of a New Saga....."

Well its been awhile since the last .hack game but GU is finally here but is it worth it? The first 4 games were only about 10-15 hours long each and for a lot of people were not worth the hefty 50 dollar price tag for each game. Especially since each game was relatively the same. But if anything was good about the original game series was that it gave a great story. But the problem with that story is that it was only given in small bits. Thankfully .hack//gu addressed almost all the problems from the original games and improves on them.

Graphics

The original games were definitely anything but eye candy. However with GU we find that the graphics have improved drastically. everything is much bigger and looks much nicer than the original game. The dungeons and fields still have a bit of a bland look to them being the only fault I can find in the visuals. However the characters and towns in this game all look great. Especially nice are the cutscenes which are some of the best on the ps2.

Story

While I wont spoil anything about the story I will say that this story will definately appeal to anime fans and fans of the first game. The game last about 20-25 hours while most of that is actually spent in cutscenes. This may throw some people off because there is a lot of talking in this game but that is to be expected as the original .hack was similar. The end of the game will leave you begging for more as it gives a great cliffhanger similar to the first volume of .hack.

Audio

The same team from the first .hack comes back to compose GU and they do a great job. The cutscene, town and even battle music in this game are all very well done and really help the overall atmosphere of the game. However once again the field and dungeon music is rather bland. While this game does not offer dual audio, it does have a very good voice cast. While a couple of characters come out a little annoying the rest all fit their role very well. Especially Haseo, Ovan and Yata which just do an outstanding job. This is one of the few rpgs I have played in which I felt there was no need for the japanese audio, trust me its that good.

Gameplay

The game now has a new and improved battle system. While there is still no random battles (hurray) they did change it so that when you go into a battle you are in a battle stage with boundaries unlike before where you could just run across the hole stage. Newly added is the block feature in which I guarantee anyone will forget to use, however if utilized well it can be quite useful as you take less damage and cannot be knocked down. There are two typed of attacks, the standard combo attacks, and the charge attacks. The charge attacks can be used to do large amounts of damage, knock enemies away from you and into other enemies causing both to receive extra damage. Obviously the downside to these attacks is that they leave you wide open in which your enemies will take advantage of. The AI commands dissappear for your teammates in this one and instead are replaced with a drastically improved AI. You may set your teammates to either focus on recovery, use special moves like crazy, or to conserve them and support you. Overall youll find your teammates very useful in this title and can hold their own in battle. Special moves are also present in this title as well. While you only start out with one as you use your special moves more and more your weapon skill levels up causing you to gain more skills. After using a weapon skill is used a little bar is formed over your characters head in which you may not use another weapon skill or charge attack until it is depleted. Also when an enemy is hit enough times by you and your teammates a blue circle forms around them allowing you to preform a rengeki which makes your weapon skill do more damage to the enemy and fill up your morale guage. When your morales guage is full you may perform one of two awakenings. one of which stops the screen and lets you mash a button for a period of time to throw a magic attack on the enemies. Another which lets all ur characters power up making them run and attack much faster. Finally There are special battles in this game which are called avatar battles which are 1 on 1 boss fights. As an avatar you may either throw energy balls which if they hit the opponent enough times they will stun it, you can also slash at the enemy with your scythe which is the main way to damage them and finally you can dodge enemy attacks with the dodge button. These battles r usually very intense and were an excellent way to do the story boss battles of the game.

Conclusion

GU is a great game that improves on the original in almost every way. I give the game an 8 because I think there is room for improvement and the battle system can get a little tedious. But if you ask me how much I enjoyed it I would give it like a 9.3 because I love games like this. My only problem now is that I have wait until summer for the second game. Anyway I hope this review helped (its my first one hurray) and I hope anyone who buys this game can find at least some enjoyment from it Happy gaming.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/07