.hack//G.U. vol. 1//Rebirth Reviews

The .hack series didn't started with the original 4 games. There was an anime set before the events of the 4 games in the first series called .hack SIGN which was a hit for the time. After the first series of .hack were released to mixed reviews, there was a manga/anime series after the events of the first game series called .hack//Legend of the Twilight. Then in 2008, the new game series set years later the events of the first series, and "Legend of the Twilight" anime released in the US and Japan in 2006 called .hack//GU Rebirth with the other two games release in 2007.

This time a new version of “The World” came out since the last version had it’s data destroyed in a mysterious fire at CC Corp. Our main character Haseo logs in for the first time to meet two random people at the main gate who wants to help him out get used in The World. Haseo joins their party and head to a level 1 field. They teach Haseo the aspects of The World while completing the objective. At the last room where the treasure is, they attacked Haseo revealing themselves to be player killers or PKs who attack low-level players. They were about to finish him off but a mysterious guy named Ovan took both of the PKs out and saved him. Months later, Haseo is now famous/infamous for being a Player killer killer or PKK that got him the nickname “The Terror of Death”. He gets a message from Ovan one day to meet him in an random area. Ovan tells him that Tri-Edge, a mysterious person that PKs people and send the real players to comas is heading back to a church like area. Haseo searches for him ever since he PK’d one of his best friends named Shino. Haseo heads to the spot he is going to show up. Tri-Edge shows up and his appearance is like a zombie like version of Kite from the first .hack series. However Tri-Edge was able to handle any attack from Haseo and data drained him with all of his emails, weapons gone and his level went back to one. He logs back in and finds out about this affect. He gets involved to two other players that are in a guild and at the treasure room. The party almost got PK’d by two PKers that Haseo defeated in the past. He was saved by a woman named Pi who tells him that their's a dangerous power growing inside him.

Like in the first .hack series, you can check up your desktop for emails that continues the story, you can send them to whoever have you on your friend list and you could send a greeting card asking a question that increase affection between you and your friend which you might get better deals for trading. The News makes a return and now you can play short animated movies about them. Also new is a card mini game called Crimson VS but it's isn't playable in this volume. Like any online game, there is a forum with sub forums to post, The sub forums are pretty much one on rumors, “The World” board, news board, and a art one called Apkallu where you download wallpaper for your desktop. Lastly you have a movie player which plays any of the events that you unlocked during the game, and you have the options to change your settings as you like. At the log in screen before you play, you could check on the official site where you could look up information about “The World” and it’s history. Theirs an official forum where you look up on recent posts about the game.

At the town or server you go to. You could go to one of the many shops that sells items, equipment, spells used for only once, scroll to learn the spell to use anytime you like, materials to customize your equipment for affects like adding a fire element to your attack, and EXP up 10%, and later on steam bike parts to customize your steam bike. New in this game is being in a guild for story reasons called the @Home you are able to go to. At the @Home, you can talk to your guild’s grunty to check up your progress on the Book of 1000 that tracks on what you do during the game which unlock BGM, wallpapers, movies, greeting cards and such. Also new is the quest counter, you get to chose one and each one give different rewards and some you be in a party or solo. You can only choose one until you completed it. When you are ready to go to an area, you send an invite to the members that are on. At the chaos gate, you can choose random area words to make an area, or make you own in your choice. The ones you get from emails, quests, and forums will show up in bookmarks. Lastly you can check the wrap history and can switch to another town if you like. At the other root town is the arena where you compete with other players in story or in survival mode and limit battle. In an arena battle, the one that defeats the leader in the party first wins the round.

In the field, the objective depends on the areas words you use like it could be find three items to open the treasure room, defeat a boss, or go in a dungeon until whatever floor has the treasure room. One thing to know that it’s important to collect Chim spheres you use to open certain doors of the area. Also you encounter lucky animals where once you kicked them. You get an effect depending on which one you kicked. To encounter enemies, you can run into them or do a surprise attack on them. Unlike the first .hack series where you can attack once, this is a beat them up action role-playing type battle system where you do many attacks on the enemies. You only have two weapons choices, the twin blades where you attack countless times and the broadsword where you do one attack and a hold button to a follow up power up attack. Another attack you have the option to called skills trigger where you press R1 to chose 4 skills of the weapon you have on now to do more damage while costing SP. If you damage the enemy enough to see a bluish ring around it when you are able to perform a Rengeki that’s more powered up skill and you get bonus EXP each time you perform it. Lastly if you do good actions that helps out the team or do rengeki’s, it increases the morale level and once it’s filled up completely, you could perform a Awakening mode to use a different strength in battle. There are two awakenings you could use, one is beast awakening where your power and speed increases and you just beat up on the enemies until the morale is depleted. The other mode demon awakening where all three of you and your teammates use powerful spells at the same time by pressing the X button rapidly.

I would mention the names in this aspect but I can’t give it away because it’s a major part in the plot but in this different type of battles. You move around and you are able to dash to the enemy or away from its attacks. You can fire energy balls that if you hit a good bunch to it, then it be shunned for you to attack doing more damage. At a certain part during the battle, you have to hit all of the buttons at the same time to not get a lot of damage. Finally once you have the enemy’s HP down, you have to fire a certain skill for about a minute to end the battle unless time goes out and the enemy gets some health back.

Now to the good aspects, like the first .hack series, this does a really good job on making you feel like you’re on a computer checking the emails, news, forums, and such and playing “The World”. There is a good amount of content to play with the quests, the forums post that triggers an event, the arena, and increasing your progress with the Book of 1000. Now to the story, as it went since this is the first volume and there is two volumes after this is surprising good. There are some aspects that people may not like, the characters are fun to see with amusing moments while some of the characters you may don’t care for and it may not help that Haseo comes out as a jerk during this. In my opinion in the case of Haseo, yes he is a jerk but you see growth during the events, you see his soft side sometimes and I started to like him for his character growth through out the game. The music is fine on the most part fitting at the moments the game matters the most while some tracks are forgettable like the battle theme. The gameplay while in my opinion doesn't have the same intensity as the first series, however it’s still fun beating up monsters and being in the arena and it’s helps that the series still have a addicting feel to it that gets you into it and you won’t escape it for a while. Now for the bad, like the first series, it can be repetitive at times checking the emails routine, and the battles. It also doesn't help that there’s not much variety to the areas in the game. It’s abit disappointing seeing that it a game like this, it has a lot of potential to have some really interesting places and it didn't go that far it to take it.

Overall, this is a good start for volume one with a good amount of content to it, the story gets you into ‘The World, battle system fun to play. Now in my opinion of this series, I prefer this to the first series because of the new content and I have to give them credit that in volumes 2 and 3. There are noticeable changes in some of its aspects that surprise me considering that the first series didn't changed a lot in the volumes. If you like the first series, you may like it. If you don’t like repetitive games, you may not like it. I would say give this one a shot and see if “The World” gets you into the .hack addiction.