.Hack// Retrospective - Part 1: Infection
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- When .Hack//G.U. Last Recode was first announced, I started to remember just how much I love the entire franchise, and how fond I was of the original 4 games. Join ModalBeat as I take a look through the first game in the quadrilogy, Infection on the Playstation 2!
(And also briefly glance over the anime.)
If you liked what you saw, please like and subscribe!
Follow me on Twitter! - / modalbeats
Dude this was incredible! I've been looking for a video that would talk about .Hack like this for a while and I'm so thrilled that you've made exactly that! Your explanations were spot on your humour had such superb timing that I went back and watched a few bits all over again just for that. I hope you keep making content in the future!
I grew up playing this game and I am honestly so happy that I found your video. I was looking through some old games the other day while cleaning out my storage locker and found my .Hack Infection game! Oh the nostalgia! I think the games and your video need more attention! Thank you for making this video!
.Hack was a really nice game but sometimes I feel like it was too complex for it's own good, things like trading objects with other people, gifting the membes of your party equipment so they use it, the puchiguso thing, giving your character an elemental trait from their armor, I feel like there were a lot of not that convenient stuff in the game that you could just ignore and finish the game without paying that much attention to it.
Anyways It's nice to see people that are still interested in .hack nowadays, especially when it comes to the first games, I'll be looking foward to your next videos.
Skeith honestly has to go down as one of the most ruthless bosses in video game history. No wonder hes the only major phase in this game
I expected a retrospective of the first game and in less than 5 minutes I get spoiled the anime I barely started. Great.
Welp. Joined Clemps discord. And now Im here.
Good video. Dot Hack is strangely underrated.
FYI Sora didn't become Skeith lol Skeith was the one who Data-Drained Sora, after all.
yeah ... i remember running after stupidly fast enemy magic caster.
The persona games and FFXIV don't get random dungeons wrong at all. I swear sometimes you have no clue what you're talking about
Well done. This deserves more attention.
WAY more attention
Just went through a "I'm feeling nostalgic" phase and revisted the GU series on the ps5. This led be to buying a new ps2 controller to play the OG 7 games. Because yes I still own them
I feel bad about not watching .hack SIGN now, I didn't think it'd be necessary aside from a few nods the quadrilogy makes to them.
I very recently played the Quadrilogy for the first time around 2 or3 months ago and enjoyed them, they aren't huge favorites of mine, but I definitely don't regret my time spent with them, and I enjoy Kite and his band
But I enjoyed them enough to make the GU remasters a day 1 purchase, and I already enjoyed the beginning tutorials and bigger budget presentation a lot more, BUT THEN THE TIME SKIP HAPPENS AND IT BECOMES VERY APPARENT THAT .HACK ROOTS IS NECESSARY TO WATCH BEFOREHAND.
Found you through Clemps. Good show.
beautiful ❤
I love .hack series 🔥
continue.. 👍
Clemps brought me here. Along with my deep love of .hack
Clemps sent me and I am very surprised how good you are. 👍🏼
You know what needs to reappear? . Hack fragments
The create a character version. If ff15 can make a monster hunter like version of their game you can make a .hack version come on cyber connect, this is gold.
Maaaan, I love .Hack, so glad we filthy Europeans get to play G.U. now too. Also, great work on the video, well presented and a good mixture of jokes and information. Looking forward to the other games!
Playing through G.U. right now, and I gotta say the areas are not as fun as in the original quadrilogy. Not as much variety in design, and it's all room-based, no open areas. Well, maybe things pick up in the other two games. Oh and don't get me wrong, I'm loving what I've experienced in G.U. so far, just that part that bothers me a bit. By the way, maybe I'm misremembering but can't you use Mistral in that final battle? Getting some good spells on her and putting her on healing duty got me through most of the games
You can bring Mistral, but I didn't have great luck when I put any wavemaster on heal duty. For some reason they would just cast one or two spells when you need them and then stop, and party members have a much more limited supply of items than you can potentially have. Maybe I'm just unlucky though, that or the AI hates me! :P
You must've made Aura mad or something
How the heck doesn’t this have more views?
Excellent video! Reminds me a little bit of Clemps content on youtube AKA great. Keep it up
I love this, I played the first three, binged the anime series [include legend of the twilight], and even read a manga or two. My roommate and I would talk about dot hack for ages, and this video reminded me of that time just playing the game and being like fuck you elk and mia, I was terribly under leveled for those two areas when I first played the game. Thank you, keep up the good work, looking forward to the rest
don't know anything about the series but omg is thi video well made. I will certainly follow any new thing you will upload
Clemps brought me here, and I'm glad he did. Subbed! You're doing amazing work!
Clemps sent me here.
Well done brother you got a sub, amazing video please continue your beautiful craft.
When you brought up random dungeons in video games you mentioned persona and I have to disagree with you there.
The persona dungeons are actually connected to the story and not just random yes I can agree they may get repeative to some but they definetly have purpose if you sait donw and paid attention to them.
The dungeons are never too long with tough and fun enemies that also have gimicks to them (that one's gold oh it had a rare item or alot of gold) but they can also be challenging making you have to think about when and how to use that SP potion or call it quits and return another time, connections like raining, heatwaves and allergy season also pop up so even if you find yourself doing the same dungeon there's always something different.
I kinda see your point but as a persona man I think you missed the point of said dungeons, food for thought.
Great video, gonna keep an eye out for your stuff
Clemps says hi.
I'd say G.U. is dope, and the new stuff is cool...but didn't get the same production value
Great video, very thorough and entertaining but I would have spent a minute covering Orca and Balmung vs The One Sin in the manga.
The Skeith scene at the beginning with Orca is a lot more intimidating and Balmung's appearances are much less irritating if you know that these guys are considered the best players of 'The World'.
Still very much a like and a Sub from me, looking forward to the next vid!
Also, they should reboot the entire dothack story from scratch and give it a FMA:B esque treatment for the new generation. They should translate the light novels into an OVA, expand their stories and make it cohesive for newcomers to understand and atleast FINISH THE STORY. After Beyond The World and Versus, they never consider to make an endgame regarding on who has the right to control Aura, the short animated feature "Thanatos Report" was building up to that "endgame" but the original timeline never crossed the finish line after that and it's quite sad that SAO overshadowed them to the point of no return.
Is ALTIMIT just a mistranslation of "Ultimate"?
No.
Berry good
So so so glad I went to check out this video. Clemps brought it up in his podcast with superbutterbuns. It's weird because I almost NEVER listen to podcasts, but i'm glad I checked out that one. .hack brings me way WAY back to middle school. I remember always watching the show but never once having any idea what was happening, I just wanted to watch this crazy thing called anime!
This is such a well made video! Seriously, especially for someone starting out! I'm very impressed. I'm excited to see what else you come out with, i'll definitely be watching whatever it is!
Now I need to dig out my old, ugly .hack fanart and maybe updated now that I have talent in illustrating.
Hello, I really enjoyed your video, I'm thankful for having listened to Clemps suggestion. I'm wating for the next episode, keep the good work! =D
Clemps squad inc
Yeah air times were bad. But for .hack//sign and FLCL I stuck out of my room to the tv. But .hack//sign grabbed me.
lol my life sucked and I sympathized with Tsukasa. Like if I could have gotten trapped in a game I'd never try to logout, then just fade away when the servers go offline. That'd be a great life.
So I'd like to note, you had the same experience growing up with .hack, Toonami, and all of this that I did, and I love it. Thank you for this video. It's similar to something I've always wanted to do with this series, and I'm glad someone is doing it.
Here's hoping we get some new (decent) .hack games, while I liked replaying G.U., I think the series could really do with either redoing IMOQ, or trying something new. G.U. had good ideas, but I personally disliked the gameplay. X.x
So I actually watched someone do a Let's Play for the original quadrilogy and G.U., and while he did add in bits and pieces of explanation as to what was going on when, I much prefer your retrospective; it's both informative and fun. Looking forward to the next video!
(Also I was not a big fan of G.U., but maybe you'll change my mind? XD)
P.S. Clemps sent me!
I disagree. If you have a wavemaster in your party and set their strategy to defensive they will heal the party with spells which is way more useful than popping potions.
Gardenia is three girls playing as a character, they made the character strong as hell and was know for it. Cannot remember which anime had this side story.
mia has a scroll of The Lovers. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
as a fellow .hack peasant imma subscribe to your channel. keep it up dude
Great video! Finally someone actually talks about .hack!! I got one question though: Are you gonna talk about .hack//Liminality in the future, since is as important (maybe even more important) to the original quadrilogy as .hack//Sign.
I do plan on covering Liminality! I didn't go over the first disk in this video because I already had a whole anime to go over and I didn't want to make the video super long, but I'll be covering the first two disks when I tackle Mutation!
Nice pick putting the most chill background music ever on the introduction of the video. Made sure I stuck around for that at least.
I'll stick around for the retrospective.
Came here from Clemps. this is such a well done video, you have an instant sub from me.
I'm really looking forward to more!
the battle theme was a banger though
5 years and it’s still the only retrospective of the first quadrilogy.
Hey, really good video! Great balance of information and entertainment. I never knew anything of the series outside of .Hack//Sign So you got my attention. Look forward to more.
Ha, to bad the only randomly generated area in p5 is that.... Train area...
My buddy showed me this game once or twice when we were in elementary school over 10 years ago, I always wanted to know more as I became a refined gamer. Great video!
"I'm simple minded and I get off on Big Red Numbers... *Ohhh Yeeahhh*"
My first exposure to the .hack franchise was seeing the advertisement in the shonen jump magazines I like to collect. After that, I saw the .hack//SIGN anime and got super obsessed afterwards. After that, I got a ps2 and begged my parents to buy me the GU franchise because they were new and easier to find at that time.
Mostly I hear that the original anime is suuuuuper boring
Elk was my boy. I loved that the series had soooooo many characters. Balmung, mistral, black rose, that crazy ass twin blade dude, piros,
Hey! It's that one good story about a mmo that isnt the usual anime BS cliches and has a compeling mystery! wow! long time no see it!
I love this series, and i do kinda like the quadrilogy more only due to it feeling MORE like an mmo, GU feels like an actual playable good rpg, but everyone knows that mmos are never really GOOD you know? gameplay wise? its just, spam BS over and over? yeah, i'd say its more immersive, but, GU IS more fun to play, i like 'em all, cant wait for the next episode!
Great retrospective. Big .hack fan here! Can't wait for the next one!
Thanks for these videos ! I'll watch them then jump into GU. I hope Bamco make a remaster for the first 4 games one day.
I'm a bit confused on the random dungeon topic, the persona games are all about progressing forward rather than repeating the same thing over and over again, while I can see the complaint for 3, 4 and 5 have specific dungeons you have to go through that are never too long, as well as the games themselves often having those "tough" enemies you mention for .hack that makes you wonder if you should really use those sp recovery items or call it quits for now and try to continue on a later day, despite every day in those games mattering a lot and wanting to make the most of your time.
And for FF XIV, are you talking about the palace of the dead? That's the only randomized dungeon in the game.
Though like this is just a personal disagreement :p
I definitely wasn't clear enough on what I meant when I took a swipe at those games, my bad! For Persona 5, I was referring to Momentos. I hated exploring there, it was long and filled with enemies that I honestly skipped over because of how little of a threat they were and how lacking the floors were with rewards. I recall having more than enough stuff from just the main palaces, with very little decent items from Momentos. For Persona 4, I have to admit I don't remember the dungeons so well and I just wanted to make a joke, remembering that I wasn't a fan of the dungeons and by the end of it. Also yeah, I was referring to Palace of the Dead when I mentioned FF14!
I should say I love all 4 games to death, I may have come across as hating them but that's far from the truth. I just wanted to make a quick and playful jab at parts that I didn't enjoy much myself, you're free to like them and feel differently about them!
I didn't watch .hack anime,. nor play any of the games. Heck I haven't even watched more than 2 minutes of your video, before deciding to subscribe. Looking forward to your next video and I hope your channel will grow quickly.
Also: Clemps sent me here.
started playing GU remaster but after getting through part 1 all it did was make me crave the originals so load up emulator and here I am reliving nostalgia. Honestly the first 4 games got me into JRPGs in the first place and playing them now after all these years I still think they are great games ( just need UI reworks, if they ever remaster it) it's right combination of punishing and rewarding and it actually feels like you're playing an MMO sometimes and the amount of attention they went into to give you that feeling is appreciated. I just don't like any characters in GU especially Haseo being a complete fucking tool and a swiss army knife of convenience. I hope we get the first 4 remastered eventually but it's really weird in general these guys stopped doing anything with .hack. Considering how popular anime is now in the west vs then and how much more popular in the west the franchise was the fact they don't release any new series or games now really confuses me tbh.
I love the .hack series. I really wish I could restart my life, just so I could relive those memories.
I really enjoyed watching this!
There was one misunderstanding I wanted to point out though.
The dungeons actually are randomly generated, with exception to some of the storyline ones. They do a good job of making it not feel that way though.
The reason the same keywords will always create the same dungeon is really cool too. In programming there is no such thing as a truly random number, so 'random' numbers have to be generated by a workaround. One of the most common ways of doing this is creating an absolutely gigantic number (pi, for example) and starting at a predefined location within that number. Then in order to make it not output the same set of results each and every time, you use something seemingly random to choose where in that number you start reading, this is called a seed. For example, you could choose to use the current time down to the milisecond as your seed, and so when you run something over and over again you will still get truly random results.
However, what the .hack games do is they use the three words of a field name as the seed. So, if you use the same three words as someone else, the 'random' factors of the dungeon will always be the same, because it starts reading random numbers at the same place.
It's a really cool system. I'd love to see it re-used for a real online game at some point.
Wow that's way cooler than what I thought they did. Would it be alright if I corrected myself and brought this up in the next part? I want to give credit where it's due and fix that mistake.
Absolutely! Feel free to do so! I'm happy to contribute!
It's also potentially notable that similar systems do exist in other popular games. For a popular example, in minecraft you can create a world using a world seed. If someone else uses the same seed in the same version of minecraft, they'll end up in an identical world as a result.
If you decided to do a retrospective on the GU games...will you use the visuals from the PC/PS4 version?
They never explain why the main character is stuck in the goddamn game even though she's unconscious in the real world? Like even after your summary, i don't get it. Can someone explain? How's she playing the damn game while in a coma in the hospital and what's physically keeping her from logging off? And why was she picked on by the AI or whatever? This show is extremely dumb or i am.
I love the aesthetics, story and music of the original four games. So happy that you summarized them up so well.
I still have copies of Infection and Mutation but I‘m not sure about the repetitive gameplay. So it‘s nice to watch your retrospective.
SIGN was interesting to watch back then. Don‘t know why I never watched Liminality as a kid or teen. But for me, IMOQ, Sign and Liminality was THE .hack expierence which was so mystical, creepy and just unbelievable to exist.
So.. What happened to the third-part?
Excellent video. Lit my nostalgia on fire! Playing Infection now on my Pixel 6 Pro with the Gamesir X2. 😁 Cheers!
Best 36:55 minutes of my life . Great great great video man. I had to beat infection first before I’ve watch this video.
I always love a good retrospective video. Nice work.
Amazing review, it was funny
Can’t wait for the next one!
As someone who is hooked on .Hack GU Last Recode, I'm looking forward to this.
Don't see that many videos talking about this series.
The reason the original IMOQ quadrilogy can't be remastered is because the master copy of the game was lost prior or after the release.
Not a fan of having Mistral in "badass" fights but she is a MUST on healing for the Skeith fight. I had to pick up the slack occasionally, or get her back up when Skeith got her, but other than that, she let's Kite go pretty 1 on 1 with "The Terror of Death". I also remember this fight being incredibly long. I think my playthrough in recent years took something like 45 minutes to beat him. Skeith is the penultimate final boss for me. A final boss done right. Nondramatic, badass buildup, all business, major tone shift, looming threat finally faced, insanely overpowered but not impossible, optional level of confrontation. You know its coming, so get ready. Despite Skeith giving me nightmares as an 8 year old playing this game over a decade ago, I will always cherish that battle.
This series was my go to whenever I needed a shorthand for explaining why sword art online is garbage. .Hack is the perfect combination of late 90's early 2000's endearing anime jank that puts a smile on my face. The characters really drew me in, heck even the ones I didn't like were still memorable to me. The world (both figuratively and literally were so immersive. I would start getting into actual MMOs by mid 2004, and seeing the amount of effort they put into making the game simulate that feel was really a treat. CC2 have been great at dynamic visuals, even before they got into the Naruto games and I was kind of sad that they never tried their hands at another original project series like this with their current skill level.
Also, Natsume was my GF. I spoiled that girl rotten, haha. Whenever I would check the books on my in game totals, she would always be like 2x higher in terms of money spent on her compared to the 2nd place person.
Hey! Great video!! Going out of a limb here but I may have played FFXIV in years past, my character was Lenz! Definitely have a memory of discussing Dot Hack you in the past and I really enjoyed watching this video! Thought I'd leave you a comment years later to share the love. Hope you are well!
Found it! Got back into this series a couple days ago and was looking for a video talking about the ups and downs of. The start of this kinda hit the key points of letting me know I'm not crazy. Game didn't age well, dialogue was always weird, kid brain didn't get it. The atmosphere sold me and stuck in my head. The visuals, the bears around the bed, Hoerwick upside down, the opening, the songs, all top notch. And story itself and the five million years spent in recovery frames after each attack.... not so much.
And hey, your video style is cool. You're a funny guy, subscribed.
Legend of the Twilight is actually one of my favorite manga of all time. The 4th and final book especially was a near-masterpiece
First time playing this series after watching a streamer play it and it's just as average/mediocre as he made it out to be. The story is good, the gameplay is below average, that's the overall gist. There was really no need to split this into 4 games. It could've been two at most.
On one hand, the story is engaging and I'm quite interested in what's going on, exception of course is how the characters act like extreme LARPers. On the other hand, the gameplay is bland and boring. You go through the same dungeons with the same rooms over and over and it's not really engaging. The fields are uninteresting and consist of the same flat surface with a few landmarks scattering around. The only exception to this is one of the Wood element areas where its more of a dungeon in layout.
There are a ton of interactables in the game, most usually matter in the late game, but you WILL have to do them alot to complete the Ryu Books. And my god do these books pad out the game.
The biggest pain in the game were the boss fights, the beginning ones were really unfair because you were so weak and had no reliable ways of dealing damage or healing. Meanwhile the bosses can drain you of almost all of your health in one hit and you have to spam heal throughout the entire battle. The worst part of the Snake boss fight is that you are forced to go at it solo, with the exception of Mia who gradually wears down the boss for data drain.
The final boss, Skeith, is way too powerful for being the first Cursed Wave boss. With a single attack he can knock the party off of almost all of their health, even with blood items for defense. Even level 30s will struggle with him. The other issue is that he uses these attacks at a rapid pace so by the time you heal or revive, you only have about two seconds to attack him before he does another attack. Once he gets data drained he will spam the shockwave attack for the rest of the fight and it will mess you up fast if you don't constantly heal. I started the fight with 99 HP potions and ended it with 36.
All the above goes to show how badly paced the first game is with difficulty.
Damn I remember LOVING .hack sign as a kid (and not really understanding it) and really wanting to play the .hack games...and not having a PS2.
The Jet Set Radio Future music in the background is GOAT shit lol, nice video!
Yeah, the first Quadrilogy has a great story, but the gameplay would turn people off if they weren't into it, unlike the G.U. trilogy which is more action oriented with shortcuts foe things.
Omg, hundred millions infected and only seven die? G.u. has seven epitaphes of twilight users and one extra that was made by a certain someone's brother . Less about pulling at your drama bone and more plot connections.
Wow and you video was so informative and fun to watch and reminds me why I 💗 hack so much. Aww the memories of my first MMR games. Without hack I would have never gotten into KH games.
I've always just wanted an mmo like The World. Not the vr aspects, but just a game with the aesthetics of the world without all the glitchy 4th wall stuff.
I'm a fellow lover of Dot hack! Good to see the series I love getting some attention
That intro to Skeith got me really moist. cant believe i forgot how good it was as a kid
You have definitely tapped into that young child I once was watching anime on Toonami. That's how I discovered the dot hack series and then the video games so forth. Thank you for making these videos.😊
P.s. I'm 24
I think the game devs decided to kick you out of the dungeon on purpose knowing you will go back for the gott statue. This way they're indirectly throwing more enemies at you to make sure you don't have to go out of your way to grind. Because it's not like sprite ocarinas are expensive and you can always command a party member to use one as they will always restock their supply to 5, at least until the last game when they for some reason only restock to 2.
You probably already know this by now, but Piros was actually based off of one of the directors of the .hack// games.
Ok, wut if they remade the quadrilogy (as a single game), with a soulsborn combat style?
5 Years later, still no remaster or remake. I'd love to see it get one, with some QoL stuff, like maybe controls based on G.U. and all.
Hey any chance anyone know what the music in the background is in the beginning of the video? I'm digging it, brings back memories to the vibes from when I was a kid :D
Madregora MANDREGORA MANDREGORA. my most vivid memory of this game
I would love for them to do the first games it was a big part of my childhood I actually enjoys more than the guy series don't get me wrong there good but I spent countless hours just figuring out different code words and leveling up my gruntys it amuses me how many people don't even know of the first four games even tho things from them are put into the guy series
My buddy played this before me and didn't realize it was gonna be a 4 part game. He grinded kite out to lvl 99 before the last boss.
good video man any advice for someone who is starting with .hack GU last re code as to not miss the any story beats?
Watch .hack//Roots if you have the time, at least up to the 13th episode! Be careful of spoilers beyond that point though!
ModalBeat got it was that the anime you were talking about that deals with escapism?
Nah, that's Sign! Think of Sign as the prequel or lead up to the original quadrilodgy, while Roots is the prequel or lead up to G.U!
ModalBeat you have no ideal how helpful that is I've always wanted to get into this series but didn't want to be by 8 games 3 anime series much appreciated and good luck with the series I'll be watching the other ones when they're out looking forward to them
Great video overall! I'm really happy to see that there actually are people out there who experienced and still remember the .hack series and I will certainly forward anyone who's interested in it to this video BUT come on! The music playing in the cathedral is absolutely beautiful and really adds to the mystery of the story. AND Mistral is unbearably annoying and hurts my ears (at least the original voice does) Black Rose is best girl and that's a fact. Fite me
ive always found the game interesting but it was too complex and difficult also lvling felt pretty bad i remember it taking forever to lvl up
I'm confused to how your first youtube video is so good?? Do you have other channels?
I wanna play so badly the games, but I don’t have a PlayStation 4 or 2, How can you emulate them?