.hack

I'm considering getting in .hack at the moment, actually. I'm not even that sure why since I didn't like //SIGN when I first saw it years ago and even though I enjoyed the first game initially, I soon got bored with it. What order do things go in? I understand it goes:

.hack//SIGN -> the first 4 games -> .hack//ROOTS -> .hack//G.U.

But there's more to it than that, isn't there? Where do the other things fit in and what are they (e.g. an OVA, a manga, a novel etc)?

Yeah, there's a lot more to it than that.

First of all, the OVA you're thinking of is probably .hack//Liminality, which comes with each of the four games and documents events taking place in the real world which relate to the events of the games. Like the games, Liminality comes in four parts.

The manga you're thinking of is .hack//Legend of the Twilight, which is really more like an epilogue to a series which "doesn't need an ending". There's also another series called .hack//XXXX, which is a manga adaptation of the events of the four games. There's a lot in here that violates canon (for instance, Cubia takes the form of another player-character instead of the giant skull-with-roots he usually looks like), so this is really more of an alternate universe.

Legend of the Twilight is also an anime series, usually called .hack//Dusk for some reason (probably just because it's shorter to type), but it doesn't have a whole lot in common with the manga.

.hack//AI Buster, a novel I have in my possession, tells a story about a player called Albireo and his interactions with Aura's prototype, Lycoris. This takes place prior to SIGN, and part of the story documents Balmung and Orca's infamous battle with The One Sin. AI Buster 2 is a series of short stories that cross over with several different parts of the series, including SIGN and Dusk.

There's also .hack//Another Birth, four novels which retell the story of the games from Black Rose's point of view. These are actually pretty good, since Black Rose is often off on her own during the events of the games, and you get to see what she was up to. You also find out a lot more about her character than what is revealed in the games, since the story follows her in the real world as well.

Then comes Roots and GU. If you picked up the special edition of the first game like I did, you get a bonus "Terminal Disk" which has unlockable content that reveals some of the events that led up to GU, including the creation of the Avatars from the remains of the Eight Phases. It also reveals a few fun facts for those who don't catch on to events in GU; Haseo is the same player who played Sora in .hack//SIGN, for instance.

Finally, there's the .hack//Trilogy OVAs mentioned above, which seem to be a retelling of GU with a lot of differences. Time will tell whether this is any good or not, but I'm putting my money on a smash hit.

I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting, but that's everything I can think of at the moment. Don't let the massive amount of content intimidate you; just play the first four games through, then add to your knowledge base with the rest of the series a bit at a time. Or just visit .hack's Wikia Page

*EDIT*
Then again, if you got bored just playing the first game, you might be better off just looking for a copy of .hack//Rebirth with the Terminal Disk (or watching the videos on Youtube; just search for "terminal disk"); the next three games don't add too much to the gameplay, and GU is way better in every way than the first quartet.

Er...still...after GU's massive update, if Bandai reverted to R1 or even to Fragment, it wouldn't do too well. It's a terrible idea to downgrade what has been done in GU. Bandai knows this, so that's why they would never even bother with making said game. If they did, I'd buy it, but I don't think others will be too pleased.



Er...just to correct you, but .hack//Trilogy is actually a CG movie... If it is an OVA, that would probably be better, but I'm a little doubtful. Also, it should be noted that there's .hack//GU Returner, a one-episode OVA that serves as an epilogue to GU. Following that is .hack//LINK, which, although starring a new protagonist, Tokio, who seems to be inside the game, the highlighting point so far is that both Kite AND Haseo show up in this new version called R:X. How big a role they'll play has yet to be seen.

Comartemis: Thanks for all the information. Well I'm starting by downloading SIGN and ROOTS and the first GU game. I don't think I can bring myself to bring any of the first four games again, particularly when there's three GU games that are better than the first four games. So does this Terminal Disc summarises the events of the first four games?

It sums up the key events and displays most of the major cinematics but there's a lot of little hints and cues that you'll miss if you don't play Infection through Quarantine.

For instance, a news article early in Rebirth mentions a stand-up comedian named Usagi, I think, which is a reference to a minor character with a lousy comedy act in Mutation (or was it Outbreak...?), Nuke Usagimaru. Piros the Third shows up quite a few times, you'll recognize him almost immediately if you played far enough through Infection.

Harder to spot but not hard to guess at is Endrance, who reveals early on a connection to Mia, the name of a character Elk used to hang out with in the first quartet, so it's easy to come to the conclusion that Endrance = Elk if you've played through the first games. It's not really essential, but I feel that it adds a bit to the experience.

It's actually quite difficult to get a hold of the first four and if you're not a .hack fan, I have a feeling that you won't want to struggle through it, which is why Bandai distributed some Terminal Discs... In any case, if you happen to find the first four, buy them or download the ISO. Also, make sure to get the .hack//Liminality DVD that's supposed to go along with them, since it says what happened in the real world as the .hackers are fighting the Eight Phases.

On the other hand, if you happen to find it, there's the .hack//XXXX manga, or X force, which is essentially a manga retelling of the four games with some added, though non-canon, events. Dunno if it's translated anywhere, but try it and you might like it.

By the way, I suggest reading the .hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga, since the anime is both crappy and non-canon. If you want additional backstory, then read the .hack//AI Buster novels.

Hurray! Other .hack fans like myself! .hack//XXXX and .hack//G.U.+ at the very least have been licensed by TokyoPop. I'll probably get them both since they are each only a few volumes long. I hope .hack//4koma gets licensed and that .hack//LINK is also finished and licensed quickly. You guys have seen the new Kite, right? Though it is hard to say if it is Kite, or just a person role-playing as Kite the .hacker.

Personally, I like GU more than IMOQ. I think the main reason is that the developers took just about everything from IMOQ and made it better. Graphics, the battle system, character development, etc. The number of vocal pieces still astounds me. The only things IMOQ has going for it are the number of fields types w/ dungeon combinations and the Friend E-mail system. In GU, the number of areas are fairly limiting and you have to waste one of those greeting cards to get to know a character beyond the normal story line. It's too bad though that Skeith's last form can only be used in that single battle, even if you use the Serpent of Lore to replay those Avatar battles. My favorite characters are Haseo (Xth form of course), Alkaid, Silabus, and the poetic Endrance. OF course, the Azure Knights are also pretty BA.

I really disliked .hack//DUSK (anime ver.). Everything changes with that haunted house episode and stops being canon. Not to mention that annoying as hell "RRRREEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAA!!!!" shout that we have to hear from both the English and Japanese VAs. Also, no Zefie.

@ Blaze: (referring to an earlier post) The character designs for .hack//IMOQ that were created by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto came first. The .hack//SIGN characters were based off of those designs. If you said the same thing, then I must have misread something and I'm sorry.

Lastly, I'm eagerly awaiting a fansub of GU Trilogy.

I can't stop looking at ZeroOBK's sig...

Well, back to .hack, I'm now on episode 5 of SIGN. In many respects it's better than I remember - the opening song doesn't make me want to rip off my ears any more, either - but actually Tsukasa seems like way more of a little smug, self-centered emo twat than I remember. It's also hard to take Mimiru seriously as a character since she clearly feels something for him when any person with a brain would think "oh god, typical angsty 15 year old, please fuck off".

I also had a little go at Infection and it brought back a few good memories. It seems that over time my opinion worsened of it since I stopped playing it. Replaying it now I remember how much I liked it at the time (though the combat system feels even more tacky and simple than it did before now that I've played RPGs with battle systems like Tales of Symphonia/the Abyss, Star Ocean 3, Final Fantasy XI and XII and Phantasy Star Universe.)

Annoyingly I downloaded the PAL version but the other games (all 6 of them) that I'm downloading are the US NTSC versions so my saves wouldn't be compatible. Well I sucked it up and now am downloading the NTSC version. I suppose it's not a bad thing as I'm supposed to have finished watching SIGN before I play the games, right?

Not necessarily; knowledge of SIGN is hardly necessary to play the games, though it does help to explain a number of cameo appearances that the characters make in the later games. You can get Mimiru's Blade in either Mutation or Outbreak, Sora's Blades (some of the best Twin Blade weapons in the whole series thanks to their Death enhancement) in Outbreak, and Subaru and Tsukasa become available as party members after you beat Quarantine.

Hmmm...TokyoPop's really going out of their way to license a ton of .hack related mangas. Hopefully, they'll improve their quality...and not attempt to censor (see Komiyama's wish in .hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet). As for the failure that is the anime version, I agree. Why did they stray so far when Zefie was in volume two, which the anime lightly touches? The only thing I remotely like about the anime version is Ginkan's (Silver Knight's) cameo as a man who learned his lesson. He's pretty popular to show up there and at the end of .hack//Roots.

As for anything you said about the GU games, I agree. However, the few fields that GU had were pretty enjoyable, especially the Lost Grounds. Those really added an awesome element to the game. I also like Haseo's Xth Form the most, but Bst Form might kick even more ass than expected. Guns or Unlimited Blade Works and wielding two Broad Legs at the same time? Hmmm...

Oh, and I didn't realize that IMOQ characters were designed first. Kite had more of a main character feel to him than Tsukasa... In any case, whichever characters were designed first, most of the IMOQ characters weren't expanded upon, asides from the little things you learn in side quests. .hack//SIGN's characters may have come later, but they had more depth to them. Still, Kite owns Tsukasa any day.

I see. Though it does also introduce certain elements that seem important in the games. I remember getting to the cathedral place in the game (something like Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground) and while it obviously stood out it didn't seem nearly as significant as it did after I saw it appear a few times in SIGN.

Yeah, that episode with Silver Knight is the only one I would willingly watch. He has quite a few great quotes, "To think that you're their leader now. The end is near." His appearance at the end of ROOTS was a major WTF moment, in a good way. His cameo in Returner, along with just about everyone else including Kaochin (I believe), was very nice.

The first chapter of Links has been translated by the group "aurasuki". Looks like it will be decent at the very least.

I think the "Rena-chan in a pair of socks" was a simple mistake. If it was an attempt to censor, then the image of Rena there would have been censored. And it's not as obvious as the Ouka/Orca/Houka thing.

I also agree with you on the available areas being great, though it would have been nice to actually do more than story events in the Lost Grounds. I mean, they were designed so well, and each has their own song attached to it that it feels like a shame that very little time was spent there. Even the Hulle Granz Cathedral doesn't get the attention it deserves in GU. The Outer Dungeons feel like I'm going through the Firewall area of Star Ocean 3, and the traps in the Tower Dungeons are quite interesting.

In IMOQ I notice that your party members have their own supply of GP which they spend to refill their item stocks when you're in town. It's a cool idea but I was just wondering, how do they get more GP? BlackRose has gone from 1000GP to 400GP to 0GP and it doesn't seem to be going up again. Also, do they ever buy more weapons for themselves or is it just basic items they spend their cash on? I've already upgraded her sword once but it's obviously going to be very expensive if you're responsible for all the party members' equipment.

On a different topic, I was trying to "sneakily" level up by going into areas of too high a level for me and just spam magic attacks/scrolls but I found that even an area of one or two levels higher than me can totally kick my ass - every enemy feels like a mini boss. Is this to do with the Enemy Type parameter on the warp gate thing? i.e. I might be fighting enemies only one or two levels better than me but they're a powerful enemy type so even though their level isn't so good they're still tough by default. Is that the case?

I don't know exactly how it works, but I had noticed that they tend to buy only basic items and don't upgrade their equipment. It doesn't really matter since you should occasionally get decent weapons for each character from chests. I think their GP fluctuates, but don't be surprised if it says 0 GP most of the time. Also, you really don't need to worry about not having enough GP. By the end of Quarantine, my Kite had over 3 million GP (if I remember correctly) and I was never hurting for money. Although, I do tend to sell a lot of stuff like scrolls. So, it should actually be pretty easy maintaining everyone's equipment throughout the games.

As for the enemies, I'm surprised you're having so much trouble. They're only a couple levels above you and aren't Data Bugs, right? You might need to upgrade everyone's equipment, or at least change their equipment so they can use skills and spells that hit the enemies' weaknesses. Either that, or you're fighting monsters with status effect-inflicting abilities, and you need to choose another area or bring plenty of status healing items (and also give some to your party members).

One reason why .hack//dusk anime ang manga are so different is because they were written at the same time, with the anime finishing before the manga.

Likely, the writers just got a blanket description for the characters at the start then they just went on from there.

The anime's incestual undertones creeped me out.

@ fatman: I don't think that is necessarily the case. The manga is definitely canon, while the anime is definitely non-canon. The manga started half a year earlier than the anime, but was completed a year after the anime. Considering that Dusk was only three volumes long, its story was probably planned out in advance. I speculate that the anime was just to get people into the series who were turned off by Sign. A lot of reviews I've read from places basically say that Dusk is a fun little show and that Sign drags on far too long and has too little action. So, the Dusk anime was made to counter the bad reviews that were attached to Sign. Of course, this is just speculation. I, personally, can not see the manga storyline of Dusk in anime form at this point, nor can I imagine a manga form of the Dusk anime. It just seems weird.

But I agree, the incest angle was weird. It doesn't help that most .hack doujins are about the anime version of Dusk, with emphasis on hentai, loli, and incest.

Well the reason I mentioned the enemies being tough is that I generally seem to come up against huge enemies that seem as if they should be somewhat uncommon yet appear every time I approach one of the yellow spawn point things. The giant trees are a recent example. Earlier today it was the Scorpion Tanks; they're now easy to defeat but back then I had to alternate between casting a fire spell (which usually missed) and healing BlackRose who was acting as a tank.

Basically, it seems as if I'm getting an area of enemies at the level the gate says but they seem to be pretty high calibre enemies so they're better than their level may suggest. To use a quite disconnected example, a level 10 rifleman would lose against a level 10 battleship despite being the exact same level. It sometimes feels like that.

You might try noting the element of the enemies you're facing, then input keywords in the Chaos Gate that take you to a field that doesn't have those enemies. I seem to recall the scorpion tanks being water-element enemies, so head for a fire field. That, or invest in some weapons with a natural elemental strength against the enemies you're facing, even if they're slightly weaker than what you're using. Nothing in those games is quite as satisfying a busting out a Tiger Claw in a group of enemies and getting multiple elemental criticals.

...Except using Sora's Blades against Quarantine's "Guardian" enemies and watching the Death enhancement slice their HP in half a couple of times in every fight. :twisted:

Even more so when you're using them against Data Bugs and 30,000+ damage pops up on screen. :D

@ teclo: I figured you were facing those enemies (I had a similar experience). They'll cause you trouble for a little while, but it's just a temporary thing. By the time you've completed the series, you'll be so used to seeing Magical and Physical Tolerance enemies you'll wonder how you even cared about a measly Scorpion Tank. Like Comartemis said though, focus on the Elemental Weakness. If you're missing a lot, then maybe you should get equipment with physical elemental attacks or bring a Wavemaster with you. It might be a good idea to have the whole party cast the same element spell on the enemy consecutively.

My standard party almost always had Black Rose, Balmung, Mia, Gardenia, or Terajima Ryoko and either Mistral or Elk. Wavemasters are essential at the higher-level fields when you start encountering Mimics with their thrice-damned physical damage resistance, but they're also extremely helpful on any field where you want a healer backing you up.