That paradoy mode cutscene is one of the funniest things I've seen all year, more games should do something like that. Dumb youtube fandubs are one thing but it's a whole other level when it's official content with the actual voice actors!
I love Parody mode. Very much reminds me of an abridged series, which is perfect because these games came out as abridged series were exploding in popularity, and the game is, if I can paraphrase what you said, a good anime wrapped in the packaging of a decent game.
I used to love these games in high school, and while the remaster forced me to realize that they hadn't aged particularly gracefully, I still can't help but feel it tug on my nostalgic heartstrings and appreciate these for what they were. Thanks for sticking through it and producing these video's, it was a fun trip down memory lane.
I've loved hearing from the fans of the series, and I can see why the games have a special place in their hearts and memories. It's similar to how I feel about the first Kingdom Hearts game!
To be slightly fair to teenage us, the remasters messed with the already terrible balance. Though at least this bad balance lets you breeze through and enjoy the story lol. I dusted off my PS2 and tried playing the original versions at some point before the remasters and just absolutely could not 😂
The parody mode is the freaking best! It reminds me of something ProtonJon’s community did to Xenoblade Chronicles 1’s cutscenes. For those interested, it’s called Xenoshade Chronicpains.
Yuri Lowenthal is the voice of Haseo?! I had no idea! That guy is just everywhere nowadays; I literally played a game a few days ago where voiced one of the main characters! Also, congrats on 30k subs Graeldon!
Ovan's gonna need some new underwear. :P I'm glad this series as a whole got the big thumbs up from you. It's not perfect, but it's clear a lot of heart was poured into it.
You're 100% correct! Sadly, I haven't played any Soul Calibur games, so it wasn't a reference that came to mind. That might be the earliest example of a video game whip-sword though
If you want more of a challenge the PS2 versions are somewhat worth playing, they nerfed the difficulty pretty badly for this remaster, but this is the definitive way to play the game if you want to enjoy the story in one shot. Parody mode is actually a staple of the franchise and was actually in the Japanese release of the original 4 games so you could completely play through those games with every line in those games being a joke if you understood Japanese that is. The English release unfortunately didn't have this and they even changed around lines from the main game since a lot of the lines were only jokes or references Japanese people would get. Also I think there are some 4Koma cutscenes in the cutscene viewer in the 3 main games. I don't know if they were unlocked after you beat the games or after you did something specific things in the games, but they're kind of funny to watch as well. I'm hoping in vain for more .hack games, but we'll see if CyberConnect2 can convince Bandai Namco to let them do more with the series at some point. I at the very least would like a remake of the original 4 games since they're worth bringing to modern consoles as well IMO.
I hope you'll understand when I say I have no intention to play through the original G.U. Trilogy haha It definitely feels like they messed up the difficulty balance in the remaster though, which is a shame. It's been an interesting series to review for sure, constantly on the edge of being something amazing but never quite fulfilling the potential - at least from my point of view. That's awesome that the parody aspect has been a staple of the series!
@@Graeldon Yeah you're not going to get much of a different experience it'll just be more challenging. Since I'm a fan I might play it that way my next time though as I wasn't a fan of the difficulty nerfing in this remaster. I think I've mentioned this in your previous videos for this, but the original 4 games are worth playing through as well if you want to check them out. They play more like a very early prototype of Xenoblade and if you want a challenge they can throw some pretty BS stuff at you. Mimics with physical tolerances are always a fun time, and enemies that can spam revive their allies are also fun to deal with too, especially when they come in groups of 2 or 3 and they can revive each other. Oh and don't get me started with Skeith and Macha. Yeah compared to the original series G.U. is a cakewalk even with its original PS2 difficulty. I'd pirate and emulate them though as Quarantine is not worth $250+ at all. I'd also recommend watching SIGN beforehand as well since it's part 1 of the story with the games being part 2 of the story. It's definitely a slow burn though so expect a pretty slow show starting off. Character and action wise I think G.U. is better, but story wise the original series was definitely stronger IMO.
slash-slash You really don't have to say the "slash-slash" thing every time you read one of these names btw. Do you also read URLs as "ech tee tee pee colon slash-slash...?" Probably not. Same deal here. "Dot Hack G U" is perfectly understandable.
There was actually a .hack fan that commented on the first video telling me off for not saying "forward slash". My compromise was to only say the entire name at the beginning and end of the videos
Considering how many of the other games reviewed on this channel have had pointless punctuation at the beginning for the sake of putting them higher up in the alphabetized list, I think it's consistent (and funny) to painstakingly read out every single character in the title of these games.
@Zanador 100% yes. There's something to be said for the sillyness of reading out needlessly complicated game titles. It's all as the devs intended when it takes 30 seconds to read out the name of the game
Ovan having an "Accident" actually nuked me. What a conclusion to the trilogy. I LOVED these games and your coverage of them. As a long time .Hack fan who fell out of the loop, it was nice seeing some reminders as to why i loved this anime through these videos. Awesome job brother 😎
It definitely wasn't meant to be the "final game" unless there's some dev info that says this was supposed to be 4 games here too. But it definitely shows they care, on top of all the bonus content. It really, really makes me hopeful there's a new .hack or IMOQ remake. 300 bucks for JUST the 4th game is just... no. I just hope they don't take out the difficulty of at least the first game if it turned out to be a remake. The final job extension is super cool. But the length of the attacks animations are kinda... long... I like the combat in the game, but even I was kinda looking to skip it for Reconnection. It's basically one last stomp through enemies with OP attacks, but without the substance. But hey, we're through .hack! So long little edgelord, there's way too many other games that exist to play!
I hope I've done the G.U. series justice for someone like yourself who is a fan of the games! I also hope my final rating for the series wasn't too controversial as I think there will likely be some PS2 original trilogy purists out there
@@Graeldon Yeah, I didn't agree for much of what you've said across all the games, but your takes are very fair as someone who came into the series completely new to it. Games are far from perfect, plenty of your criticisms are just true, and it's definitely a very good remaster. A lot of good changes were made, but I definitely feel the game balance took too much of a hit in the process of making the games easier. Your Lost Weapons boss clip kinda shows that. So I can't say PS2 purists are wrong to think that way.
@@WeskAlber Yeah from what I've read the game difficulty definitely suffered somewhat in order to make the experience more accessible/streamlined. Personally, I think it's for the best as the combat can get pretty repetitive and it helps to take the focus off that and shift it to the story instead, which in my opinion is the series biggest strength. The doppleganger fights at the end were pretty challenging, it's just a shame that the final fight wasn't balanced to match the players level. It sounds like the secret boss in the Forest of Pain would have been a challenge even at max level though
@@Graeldon Yeah, there is a lot of material. Apparently the correct order to experience the series is - after the 1st game’s tutorial quest - watching a 26-episode anime before continuing with the game.
That paradoy mode cutscene is one of the funniest things I've seen all year, more games should do something like that. Dumb youtube fandubs are one thing but it's a whole other level when it's official content with the actual voice actors!
I certainly wasn't expecting it to be a thing, or to be so enjoyable!
Reminds me of the "outtakes" from the Toy Story movies - good silly fun
I love Parody mode. Very much reminds me of an abridged series, which is perfect because these games came out as abridged series were exploding in popularity, and the game is, if I can paraphrase what you said, a good anime wrapped in the packaging of a decent game.
I used to love these games in high school, and while the remaster forced me to realize that they hadn't aged particularly gracefully, I still can't help but feel it tug on my nostalgic heartstrings and appreciate these for what they were. Thanks for sticking through it and producing these video's, it was a fun trip down memory lane.
I've loved hearing from the fans of the series, and I can see why the games have a special place in their hearts and memories.
It's similar to how I feel about the first Kingdom Hearts game!
To be slightly fair to teenage us, the remasters messed with the already terrible balance. Though at least this bad balance lets you breeze through and enjoy the story lol. I dusted off my PS2 and tried playing the original versions at some point before the remasters and just absolutely could not 😂
Okay, fine, that parody cutscene hit its punchline way better than I was expecting from the leadup.
The parody mode is the freaking best! It reminds me of something ProtonJon’s community did to Xenoblade Chronicles 1’s cutscenes. For those interested, it’s called Xenoshade Chronicpains.
I absolutely love that it exists, and is genuinely funny to boot. More games need to include things like this
Yuri Lowenthal is the voice of Haseo?! I had no idea! That guy is just everywhere nowadays; I literally played a game a few days ago where voiced one of the main characters! Also, congrats on 30k subs Graeldon!
Thanks!
Yuri pops up in some surprising places!
Yeah, I had an accident. And it's brown 😎
Poor Ovan
I personally would give these reviews of the .Hack games a 10:30 out of 10
Nice
steam sequence is back lets go
Back to obscure games next week!
Ovan's gonna need some new underwear. :P
I'm glad this series as a whole got the big thumbs up from you. It's not perfect, but it's clear a lot of heart was poured into it.
If anyone's wondering where the sound is. It's only audible on the right side. Switch/take out your earbuds.
Not sure what's going on with your sound but it's definitely in full stereo?
@@Graeldon Huh weird. I've run into this a couple times. I don't know what causes it.
Finally the end is here!!
Good job on these reviews Graeldon I had fun and I'm excited to see what comes next
It definitely took longer than I was expecting, but we got there!
Back to the garbage next week!
@@Graeldon hopefully it will be ⭐good⭐ garbage xD
I liked that sword better in Soul Calibur (1998). (Also a Namco game)
You're 100% correct! Sadly, I haven't played any Soul Calibur games, so it wasn't a reference that came to mind. That might be the earliest example of a video game whip-sword though
Thanks for the reviews. Very inspirational
I'm glad you are enjoying them!
If you want more of a challenge the PS2 versions are somewhat worth playing, they nerfed the difficulty pretty badly for this remaster, but this is the definitive way to play the game if you want to enjoy the story in one shot.
Parody mode is actually a staple of the franchise and was actually in the Japanese release of the original 4 games so you could completely play through those games with every line in those games being a joke if you understood Japanese that is. The English release unfortunately didn't have this and they even changed around lines from the main game since a lot of the lines were only jokes or references Japanese people would get.
Also I think there are some 4Koma cutscenes in the cutscene viewer in the 3 main games. I don't know if they were unlocked after you beat the games or after you did something specific things in the games, but they're kind of funny to watch as well.
I'm hoping in vain for more .hack games, but we'll see if CyberConnect2 can convince Bandai Namco to let them do more with the series at some point. I at the very least would like a remake of the original 4 games since they're worth bringing to modern consoles as well IMO.
I hope you'll understand when I say I have no intention to play through the original G.U. Trilogy haha
It definitely feels like they messed up the difficulty balance in the remaster though, which is a shame. It's been an interesting series to review for sure, constantly on the edge of being something amazing but never quite fulfilling the potential - at least from my point of view.
That's awesome that the parody aspect has been a staple of the series!
@@Graeldon Yeah you're not going to get much of a different experience it'll just be more challenging. Since I'm a fan I might play it that way my next time though as I wasn't a fan of the difficulty nerfing in this remaster.
I think I've mentioned this in your previous videos for this, but the original 4 games are worth playing through as well if you want to check them out. They play more like a very early prototype of Xenoblade and if you want a challenge they can throw some pretty BS stuff at you.
Mimics with physical tolerances are always a fun time, and enemies that can spam revive their allies are also fun to deal with too, especially when they come in groups of 2 or 3 and they can revive each other. Oh and don't get me started with Skeith and Macha. Yeah compared to the original series G.U. is a cakewalk even with its original PS2 difficulty.
I'd pirate and emulate them though as Quarantine is not worth $250+ at all. I'd also recommend watching SIGN beforehand as well since it's part 1 of the story with the games being part 2 of the story. It's definitely a slow burn though so expect a pretty slow show starting off.
Character and action wise I think G.U. is better, but story wise the original series was definitely stronger IMO.
It's done! It's finally done! You can play some of the worst games on Steam once again!
diving once more into the unknown...
Say 77 of waiting for Celeste
finally
Day 74 of waiting for Celeste
slowly getting closer!
Day 80 of waiting for Celeste
Wow this video isnt performing well. Comment for the comment god.
I don't blame people for being a bit sick of .hack content!
slash-slash
You really don't have to say the "slash-slash" thing every time you read one of these names btw. Do you also read URLs as "ech tee tee pee colon slash-slash...?" Probably not. Same deal here. "Dot Hack G U" is perfectly understandable.
It's just fun tho :3
There was actually a .hack fan that commented on the first video telling me off for not saying "forward slash".
My compromise was to only say the entire name at the beginning and end of the videos
Considering how many of the other games reviewed on this channel have had pointless punctuation at the beginning for the sake of putting them higher up in the alphabetized list, I think it's consistent (and funny) to painstakingly read out every single character in the title of these games.
@Zanador 100% yes. There's something to be said for the sillyness of reading out needlessly complicated game titles. It's all as the devs intended when it takes 30 seconds to read out the name of the game
@Graeldon fun fact, the .hack franchise predates Steam. So that was just super not why they did that.
Ovan having an "Accident" actually nuked me. What a conclusion to the trilogy. I LOVED these games and your coverage of them. As a long time .Hack fan who fell out of the loop, it was nice seeing some reminders as to why i loved this anime through these videos. Awesome job brother 😎
man reviewing the .hack series basically became a minis series of its own on your channel
It did, but we're through it now and returning to your regularly scheduled dumpster diving next week. Bring on the trash games!
The segmented sword is a whole trope. Probably the most well-known example is Ivy's whip sword from SoulCalibur, but I doubt that's the first.
It would be interesting to know what the earliest videogame appearance of different weapons are!
It definitely wasn't meant to be the "final game" unless there's some dev info that says this was supposed to be 4 games here too. But it definitely shows they care, on top of all the bonus content. It really, really makes me hopeful there's a new .hack or IMOQ remake. 300 bucks for JUST the 4th game is just... no. I just hope they don't take out the difficulty of at least the first game if it turned out to be a remake.
The final job extension is super cool. But the length of the attacks animations are kinda... long... I like the combat in the game, but even I was kinda looking to skip it for Reconnection. It's basically one last stomp through enemies with OP attacks, but without the substance.
But hey, we're through .hack! So long little edgelord, there's way too many other games that exist to play!
I hope I've done the G.U. series justice for someone like yourself who is a fan of the games! I also hope my final rating for the series wasn't too controversial as I think there will likely be some PS2 original trilogy purists out there
@@Graeldon Yeah, I didn't agree for much of what you've said across all the games, but your takes are very fair as someone who came into the series completely new to it. Games are far from perfect, plenty of your criticisms are just true, and it's definitely a very good remaster.
A lot of good changes were made, but I definitely feel the game balance took too much of a hit in the process of making the games easier. Your Lost Weapons boss clip kinda shows that. So I can't say PS2 purists are wrong to think that way.
@@WeskAlber Yeah from what I've read the game difficulty definitely suffered somewhat in order to make the experience more accessible/streamlined. Personally, I think it's for the best as the combat can get pretty repetitive and it helps to take the focus off that and shift it to the story instead, which in my opinion is the series biggest strength.
The doppleganger fights at the end were pretty challenging, it's just a shame that the final fight wasn't balanced to match the players level.
It sounds like the secret boss in the Forest of Pain would have been a challenge even at max level though
Day 76 of waiting for Celeste
Day 79 of waiting for Celeste
You’ve gotten me into the .hack franchise. Thank you.
You're welcome! You've got plenty to catch up on!
@@Graeldon Yeah, there is a lot of material. Apparently the correct order to experience the series is - after the 1st game’s tutorial quest - watching a 26-episode anime before continuing with the game.
Algorithm whatever whatever.
Ivy from soul calibur has had a sword whip for decades.
Unfortunately I missed the boat on the Soul Calibur games when I was younger 😥
Oh wait new Video Jumpscare
Boo!! 👻
Videos are on Sundays now =)
@@KSaran7 get on Heartwood
Day 78 of waiting for Celeste