Combined with a system that discourages level busting, the result is a cool idea that was executed all wrong. If we’re giving points for concept, I can understand why this game has often scored so highly. However, I give points for the game itself. This is about to get ugly.

Plot:
This started out quite cool. A super-popular MMORPG with an OS very much designed for it- the game of the future. However, something is causing people to fall into inexplicable comas during gameplay. You see,  there’s this Book of Twilight thing, and it does something. It has something to do with this girl in white and a huge demon whose name is never formally revealed but which your character apparently magically figures out at some point. This is the exposition.

It’s also all the plot you get. The rest of the game is a random dungeon hack. Occasionally, you’ll see something that sounds like it should be plot-related, but nothing develops. This is supposed to be the first of a four-part series, but it truly feels like no more than an introduction. I started off excited, but that feeling drained within a tiny handful of hours. I wanted to see some development, but I got nothing. After a short time, it was all gameplay. That was not necessarily a positive thing.

Graphics:
Mixed bag. Character designs are varied and stylish, and the modeling is decent. Characters are somewhat limited in terms of animation. Additionally, I feel the need to make a huge complaint about the dungeons here. Randomly generated, they are the same few room types arranged different. They are not decorated in  any way. All the walls are textured the same. They are unfurnished. Even when you advance to a new type of dungeon, the walls are merely retextured- everything else stays the same. If it weren’t for the automap, you’d get lost in a second- every room looks exactly the same as every other room. It’s easy to fall asleep playing this. Come on, where’s the attention to detail here?

Gameplay:
Repetition. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Repetition, repetition. Still with me? This will give you a good feel for what it’s like. Remember, you don’t have any more plot-
it’s all gameplay. Combat is accomplished by standing in front of a monster and hitting the X button until it dies or you die. Item use is governed by a menu interface that completely wrecks the flow of battle and takes forever to manage. Your fellow party members are strikingly dumb- they just attack over and over. They won’t use special moves or heal unless you specifically direct them to do so using the same clunky menu. They will simply stand there and take hits until they die, even if they have the capacity to heal themselves. Aren’t these characters supposed to be fellow MMORPG players? You’d think they could look out for themselves just a little. Scratch gameplay points and realism points for this mistake. After a very short while, this total failure of AI becomes very annoying.

The skill system implemented here is positively poor. Weapons and armor contain skills. You can use this
skills when you have the correct armor equipped. Your character, as he levels up, gains nothing but HP/SP and stats. No moves are ever learned, and they change every time you change your equipment. There is no incentive to gain levels here- it’s easy to find the best items from the list of extremely similar equipment, and then no monster can stand before you. There is no immediately apparent gameplay balance.

Dungeons, however, are the thing that will really make you cry. They are randomly generated, and by randomly generated, I mean you will see the same six room shapes a million times. Nothing ever changes- there are similar rooms, containing similar monsters and (often useless) treasure, and there are hundreds of them. Occasionally, the textures used for the walls and floor will change, but that’s all. Every dungeon feels like every other dungeon. Even plot-forced dungeons follow the same rules. They are not unique in any way, There are no puzzles. This is enough to bore even an old-school gamer such as myself, and I really can’t recommend it. The camera, additionally, bites. You must be able to see an enemy to attack it (even if it’s within range and your character model is facing it; I’m not sure what the logic behind this is), and control is clunky.

The only good thing here is the Data Drain system, which is unique. Your character (and yours only) can invoke an attack called Data Drain, which vastly reduces the power of a target enemy, and can make invincible bosses damageable. In addition, you get an item. However, every time you do this, you spread a viral infection over the server. This causes random chaos, and if it hits 100%, you die. Fight enemies to lower the percentage. This is a cool feature, but not nearly enough to save the game.

For some reason, despite all these flaws, I didn’t have an utterly terrible time playing it. I’m not sure why. Not that I got to play it much. Even with side quests, even with random-dungeon level busting, I only squeezed 11 hours of gameplay out of this. Given as this is part one of a four-part series, and given the low level of detail throughout, this could easily have been released as a single game on a single disc. This is what upset me the most. I think they want my money.

Sound:
Present but forgettable. Markedly normal music presides throughout town, field, and combat alike. I wish I could say more, but I’m having such a hard time remembering any of the songs that I really can’t. In .hack’s defense, a sub/dub option is provided, giving you the choice of Japanese or English voice actors. English dubbing of Japanese is typically awful, so I dared not touch the English option.

Fun Factor:
Press X. Press X. Press X. Run through door. Make sure it isn’t the room I came from. Erm, can’t tell- it’s the same room on both sides. Monster. Press X. Press X. Press X. Press X. Run through door. End another dungeon. Pick another dungeon. Press X. Press X. Press X. Oh wait, I beat the game. Yes, the plot develops so little that I had no idea that the final boss was the final boss until after I killed him. Actually, I thought he might be the first boss, seeing as he was the first one with a real name or story tie, and I was only 10 hours in. Boy, was I mistaken!

Overall:
I like originality. I have a huge collection of quirky, relatively unknown games that are so creative in design that I couldn’t help but buy them. However, they have one thing in common. Gameplay. 11 hours of repetition is not worth my $50. I just can’t do it. If all four volumes were released as one game, which they could easily have been, I might possibly have considered it. However, there’s just not enough substance here for me.

2 planets