Why Is .Hack So Awesome?! What Happened To It?!
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- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
- #dothack #dothackgu #videogames
Twitter: / keys2darkness
Twitch: / keystodarkness
Discord: / discord
dothacknetwork: / @dothacknetwork
Ellen's Twitter: / suzaeuphy
Kazetrigger's .hack//Link Translation Post: / 1740553337257529821
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These games hold a special place in my heart for the countless hours of entertainment. But as good as the games are what happened to the series and why do we not see anymore .hack content? Find out in this video!
.hack is a series of single-player action role-playing video games developed for the PlayStation 2 console by CyberConnect2 and published by Bandai. The four games, .hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, and .hack//Quarantine, all feature a "game within a game", a fictional massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called The World which does not require the player to connect to the Internet.
.hack//G.U. is a series sequel series of games for the PlayStation 2 that was released between 2006 and 2007. The series contains three games: .hack//G.U. Vol. 1//Rebirth, .hack//G.U. Vol. 2//Reminisce and .hack//G.U. Vol. 3//Redemption.
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This is the most fun I've had in minutes! Oh it is so good to be here!...wait a minute. You are still reading this? You want more of me? Well if you want to subscribe to this channel you can, and while you are at it hit that like button. Or not. No one is forcing you, but if you do want to then it shows you want more content like this! - Ігри
Thanks to you , Dothacknetwork, Dothackrevival, Kazetrigger and many others for your hardwork and continuing talking about the series.
I hope one day the franchise come back.
Greetings from Spain!
I appreciate all the support that you and the community has given me when developing these projects. Let 2024 be a good year for .hack!
Seeing a content creator cover dothack in 2024 warms my heart, and I thank you for that.
This franchise is special. How many others will stay memorable after 2 decades?
You are welcome! This series deserves some love!
The ost for Mac Anu Water Capitol is still iconic to this day.
One of the most memorable in the series
The first ever encounter for me was .hack//SiGN. That was a show like no other and 2003 was the year when internet was not like today. I was obsessed with it. I had to jump metaphorical hoops on fire to collect games, novels and OST because they were not available in my country back then.
The project .hack was such a novelty idea that I was infinitely fascinated. It had quite an impact. The screenplay, direction and lore of the series is unparalleled even today. It is gem frozen in an unique time.
i have 3 of the 4 games collected, i loved these games when i was younger and love to see you talking about them and keeping the memory alive, would love to see remakes or something like that of the series. great video
Good stories should be preserved. A lot of games do fade into memory over time. So by making these videos I hope to bring this story to people who have not seen it before. IMOQ and especially GU has themes that we can relate too and reflects what most of us experience (outside of the obvious sci-if elements lol)
Thank you for talking about .hack, I remember after playing G.U, finding out about an mmo being made for the series late 2000s early 2010s, sadly apparently it never got anywhere 😢.
Luckily there are people who are creating all sorts of things for the series like Kazetrigger and Ellen and make new experiences for the series! You’re welcome :)
@@KeyToDarkness yeah it really is a shame that a series like this is now dead in the water, I remember when SAO was all the craze and everyone was talking about it.
While the series is not being supported anymore, I’m glad that we can look back on the series and appreciate the stories and time we got within each version of The World :)
Hey man! Nice video! I have been a huge fan of .hack since I was a kid. So anything that has to do with the series is always appreciated.
I really hope cyber connect or bandai try and bring the .Hack series back in some way... I really do miss these games.
I have yet to play through vol. 4 of G.U. but I will get to it once i've burned through my gaming backlog lol.
Hope you have a great day!
I hope you enjoy Vol 4! You have a better day! Stay classy my dude 😎
Holy crap I'm scared of youtube now it's too advanced
I tell myself that a lot as a creator 😂
Been meaning to get around to playing this game again. I got the collection version on steam. Great game and I feel not many games catch the same feel anymore. What I would really like is the original .hack games to come to pc as well.
A lot of people want to see IMOQ get a remake. We hope that Bandai will green light something .hack, especially since the series has gotten plenty of attention over the last year alone
@@KeyToDarkness I wouldn't mind it if they just did a port. A remaster would be the most I feel I can hope for though.
I think a port might be a bit difficult to do, but! Here is hoping for someone IMOQ related in 2024 😎
I have been going through both IMOQ and GU again recently and even if the original game is a bit rough I still love the stories, .hack, Lunar, and the Shin Megami Tensei franchises were pretty much my childhood games, with SMT being the only one still surviving. It would be great to see a remake of the the original series, but I do worry about them over thinking the updates and it ending up in development hell for 20 years, going the final fantasy 7 route of the remake not really being a remake but a "reimagining" or alternate time line thing, or just doing a low effort port for a quick cash grab.
I worry about that too given Bandai’s history with the series, that being said they could introduce a sort of “proof of concept” title to see if it would be viable. Fragment was a good game with many different improvements from IMOQ. A Fragment 2 would be great as a framework that they could use for an IMOQ remake
People know about dot hack? Dayum, I played all the PS2 tittles, I have the GU remaster for steam too, but I'm lazy to replay it. I think IMOQ is a masterpiece, GU to me is an inferior re-paint and made it into a bad guys vs good guys, which I ended up hating compared to the complicated story the original one had. The art design of IMOQ is so bizarre and good! The phases designs were so good.
I have a theory of how everything came to be in IMOQ, gotta see if the archivist guy you recommended has something similar.
IMOQ is good and deserves more attention! Though I respectfully disagree that G.U. is Inferior. At times G.U. Can be frustrating, and filled with anime tropes, but in terms of character development it is one of the best. Especially with its themes and experiences that hit close to home. Some say that G.U. Means "Growing up", and I believe it as most of the characters do grow a lot throughout the story.
The way I see it is that IMOQ and Sign helped set the stage for continual growth for it's characters. It is an important title to help give more context to GU as some of the characters in that game are from IMOQ :)
@@KeyToDarkness I mean, yeah GU has hyperfixated character development but I don't think it's that great compared to the complexity, world building, story and mystery that IMOQ and SIGN offers. Maybe GU is more focused on Haseo and his relationships, where Kite isn't as deep and complicated as Haseo, but GU is much weaker in the other areas I already mentioned. Plus the anime tropes can be detrimental when applied to Haseo because they make him fall unapologetically, where Kite at least is spared and immune to anime cringe.
Yeah the 3rd Volume did feel like there was some story missing as well, it was if Volume 2 was cut in a way where certain parts of Volume 3 were ment for 2. I will also say the voice cast for GU is fantastic. Yuri lowenthal, Bridget Hoffman, Liam O’ Brien and Sam Regal from Critical Role, all fantastic voice actors who did their best with what they had! :)
No series makes me feel the way this one does- powerfully nostalgic of the pre-teens and thematically apropos overall.
There are so many themes in .hack that resonates with so many people!
.hack is a great underrated series!
Very underrated! Let’s bring it back to relevance again for those who have never played it before 😎
IMOQ will forever be my favorite game series, currently trying to 100% the item list. I love the whole franchise still to this day, thanks for making an awesome video
I’m glad to see so many people enjoy the series!
I was just thinking about this game and it’s on sale so I looked it up and see you made this video a couple weeks ago lol cool
I am honestly surprised this video resonates with so many people! .hack is such a good series and I’m glad more people are finding out about it!
Maybe I should hardcore binge through the GU collection... one day the time will come
Yes you should!
I love .hack, I played the original Four Games and then brought an American PS2 and the G.U Series and it became one of my all time favorite Games. I then brought Last Recode on the PS4 completed everything and then later brought it again on Nintendo Switch and looking forward to playing it all over again.
I know a big issue for the Games are that they are "Grindy" but that id my favourite part about them, i've spent hours on Last Recode leveling everyone I could to 150 whenever a Character was available and raising Canard's Guild Level.
I'm pretty sad we never got more .hack games, but I have hope and thank you for cheering me up with this Video!
They pretty much eliminated grinding in GU with last recode as the EXP gain was boosted. I hope one day IMOQ gets the same treatment!
I’m glad you enjoyed the video :D
Thank you for bringing new eyes to these games though I do find it funny that you left out G.U's chapter 4 on last recode "imo it was not worth playing through Chapter 4"
Volume 4 is ok, it’s not great but it’s not bad either. To sum up my thoughts on that is it takes away so much from the previous volumes and while the new stuff is awesome, there is very little time to enjoy it as it is incredibly short. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning in the video as the story felt complete with Redemption lol
@@KeyToDarkness that is fair i guess i just feel like they did us dirty being able to bring gear from chapter 1 and 2 to 3 and then having it all be stripped away in Chapter 4 hurt
I can understand why. From what I remember (maybe I’m wrong) but I think they only had 6 months to develop V4 and tweak V1-3 so that it could release on its 15th anniversary. That’s not a lot of time to develop a game that is using an old engine ment for the PS2
I need to rewatch that anime
.hack//sign is really good!
it is but .hack roots based on the GU games anime wise is pure crap and the very last episodes of Roots as a ENGLISH dub actually got canceled around the time GU vol. 3 first came out so like the last 26 of Roots episodes are really only in Japanese with English subtitles.
Yeahhh I think if they would have focused Roots on Haseo, Ovan, and Shino it would be better in my opinion.
@@veghesther3204 Roots is good if you plan to Play G.U immediately after watching Roots but yeah on its own it sucks
My only experience with .hack is through playing that crossover game: Project X Zone. I hope these games can get a remake/remaster/or rerelease sometime soon. They look pretty fun and interesting. (Also, Stairs of Time is probably within my top 10 or top 15 vgm)
GU is usually going on sale for 5$, if you do see it you should definitely pick that up at least!
@@KeyToDarkness Oh, I didn't know that. I'll look into it.
About that Project X zone did have like 2 sequels for it BUT ONLY the first game left Japan for a English dub the others did not.
By the last episode of G.U. I think they were running out of steam, and you can kind of tell where they were forced to make to make major cuts where they didn't have a great "plan B". Especially regarding the final boss. Shoehorning in a bunch of characters from the spinoff games into the final chapter (which didn't show up in the first two chapters) didn't help either.
The series has a lot of cool ideas, but so many flaws in it's execution (at least G.U. does, I haven't played any of the rest) that it kind of averages out.
It also has a lot of anime tropes as well as some questions design choices, especially in Volume 3 of GU, the final boss was just plain weird 😂. That being said it’s the story that really resonates with me as it has some of the best character development I’ve seen in a long while
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😎👍
Don't forget you can transfer clear data all the way up to recode in the gu series from imoc
Last Recode was a welcome update to GU! While I wish some things were better it does make several improvements over the PS2 versions!
But it still didn't make getting like the 500 to 600 Virus cores in GU Vol 3 in order to fully unlock them sure in the PS2 game you could only get 99 of those via Data Drain at a time but even getting 99 of them still took HOURS on end and even then the Lost weapons for at least Haseo are crap his doppleganger weapons are MORE useful.
In Last Recode I believe you could carry the full 999 Virus cores for those weapons all at once but it still doesn't make it easier TO NOT spend hours to do so.
Thank you for making this
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed the video!
@@KeyToDarkness I’ve never played .hack except for like the first 10 min on switch of GU. Been struggling to decide which game to play next after ys viii and ix. The enthusiasm for .hack makes me think this…..
.hack is a good series to get into! There is a charm with these games that resonates with a lot of people. GU is a good place to start, but I also recommend .hack signs as that is a pretty good early 2000s anime!
@@KeyToDarkness would you say that anime is appropriate for elementary age kids? I have a daughter who watches me play video games but I’d like to watch an anime / show w her that isn’t pokemon or sailor moon lol. Gonna try avatar but open to other stuff ofc
Signs is TV-14 for its themes and some of the characters backstories. While most of the story takes place in the game “The World” it has some moments offline that go into some past experiences.
IMOQ and GU are similar with its theming as they are also games that are rated T. If your kids are really young then I don’t think this would be appropriate. Not to say that it visually graphic like some mature games and shows, but it’s subtlety with its story is handled maturely.
For the show, it’s up to you on whether or not you think that they are ready for conflicts and stories that are suitable for young teens.
For the games, I don’t see a harm in letting them play the game itself and watching the scenes with them. I will say GU does have some heavy themes in Volume 2 and a little bit in 3.
Overall if you think your kids are mature enough for things like dot hack then I suggest playing along side them and answer any questions they might have along the way. That being said also look into what the game/show has before hand. Hope this helps bud!
For anyone interested, I highly recommend reading the manga. I have read A LOT of manga, but it may be the best. It’s beautiful.
I need to get some of the other .hack media to have it for my collection
I played it so many times I love it
I think I have about 180 hours between the three volumes or GU!
This should have been just as big as sao
I think there are a variety of reason why it didn’t. In 2002 when Infection came out there were several games that many consider classics like Kingdom Hearts or Sly Cooper. Plus Bandai didn’t really market the series very well and still find trouble doing so up until recently with Last Recode for switch in 2022.
Really wish they would do a remake or at least a remaster of the original 4 games.
I think if they were to do it then it would most likely be a remake. Considering IMOQ is an early PS2 title they most likely don’t have that original code to update it like they did with GU. And even with Last Recode they didn’t have all of that games data as Vol 4 didn’t have the Keyword System.
CyberConnect did say that if we put into numbers our support for the series then it could make Bandai have a second thought into reviving the series. That’s one of the reasons I started doing frequent .hack content now so I can introduce it to new people or welcome people who have played them before!
Dot hack influenced Apple Vision, do you think it will turn into the World?
I don’t know much about the Apple Vision, but there are plenty of projects out there that people are making that replicates the worlds of various media, so perhaps one day we will get The World one day!
FPS mode is great to cheese the Goblin tag mini game
You know, I never tried it for Goblin Tag before. I think I might now lol
About that SOME of them can be put to sleep just not all of them but the Goblin summons damage wise are CRAP and the skills built into all the Goblin based equipment are just as NOT worth it.
Even the TIME weapon armor sets are better but those weapons first can really only be gotten first starting in the 2nd game Mutation but only the armors are worth it not the weapon for Kite.
You know I thought the TIME armor was good…until the final boss of Infection destroyed me lol
Skeith is 1 of the hardest bosses in game.
But since Infection to Quarantine have the buyable items for that speed up skill it kind of makes all the time armors + weapons kind of useless.
While Infection does have that 1 armor that has the HP/SP regen skills its the ONLY copy of that armor type for all 4 games nothing else really has the single target HP and SP regen skill on a single armor piece for all 4 games.
IMOQ has a cool concept but the execution is kind of sad. The post Eva storytelling of the earliest 00s is unnecessarily cryptic, and once deciphered is ironically shallow.
But the G.U trilogy is SO GOOD, like, if that were an anime it would've destroyed SAO. It even had a tournament arc!!
IMOQ has definitely aged with some of the technical aspects of it, but I do enjoy things like raising grunties or doing the time trial for special gear. I see it as a stepping stone entry. Slowly introducing the universe of . Hack.
GU took IMOQs design and worked upon it to make it better. Though it still has its moments, it is a great 60 hour experience!
This is gonna sound flirty, but you have really pretty eyes.
Good video, thanks for spreading more .hack love. 👍
Thank you for the compliment! People say I have pretty eyes, but I just don’t *see*the reason why 😂…(Haha, Dad Jokes)
And you’re welcome for the video! More .hack content is on the way! 😎
Good ? since the 3 GU PS2 games GOT a PS4 Switch remaster but infection to Quarantine still did NOT.
Yeah. People want a remaster/remake of IMOQ, though I would think a remake would be more plausible because the Quad-trilogy is very old and they most likely would not have the tools that would be compatible with those games.
IMOQ is good, though it definitely is rough in some places
In fact CC corp DOES want to make the 4 games but could only do SO IF Namco/Bandai allows it and yes Bandai before the Merger with Namco were the ones that Published Infection to Quarantine so their the only ones that can allow it for a PS4 PS5 Switch port and only they could make a PRE Tales of Abyss collection of the first game Destiny 2 PS2 Rebirth Eternia Legendia and Abyss for ports.
Symphonia doesn't NEED ANOTHER remake unless Free running got ADDED into a PS4 PS5 Switch port.\
You get Bonus exp when you pull off Rengekis making the grind much more fast and fun
I like how the game rewards you for getting Rengeki outside of extra damage. Who doesn’t like free experience! (Ok maybe the only people who don’t like experience is people who do level 1 only runs in Kingdom Hearts Games 😂)
I throw fits everytime ppl bring up that last recode is like 5 dollars I remember buying it close to when it came out for like almost 40😂 I start punching air And blaming tri edge for everything
I throw a fit every time I see one of the IMOQ games go for 150+ bucks while every other game in that line up is like 30. 😔
Oh, don't feel that way. Think that you supported the series, regardless of a sale or not.
@@KeyToDarkness I still haven’t played any of imoq since I was a kid because there’s no way I’m droppping that much for 4 games and then I’d have to find a PlayStation 2 in 2024😭😂 I love the series tho and hope we can finally get a remaster
@@antrod2000 One day we will, I'm sure of it!
I still think of the original .hack games tbh. For a series of PS2 games, it was extremely enjoyable and nice to look at. GU however I've never been very interested in. Apart from the story being of a lower quality, what they did with some of the characters was disappointing to say the least, and definitely unoriginal. .hack//Link just seems extremely odd and even more irrelevant than GU.
I do feel that you can't mention either game series without mentioning the anime series that preceded them though. .hack//SIGN was a masterpiece in storytelling, highly praised all around. .hack//Roots was interesting enough on its own but with somewhat more tropish characters than SIGN's.
The .hack series has had a series of exciting moments and disappointing results. Despite this the series resonates with a lot of people in a variety of ways, especially now with how online culture is and how much was predicted accurately in the games
Beat .hack 1-4 good game
It is in fact a good game!
The Anime studio that done the .hack// Anime series Studio Bee Train has been dormat since 2012. If they were to bring back the Anime series, they would have to change Anime studios. Also It's sad that they never put .hack// Liminality DVDs on there own separate DVD cases. And the only way you can buy this Anime on DVD nowadays, is if you find someone selling the DVDs separately. Or you have to buy the 4 .hack// IMOQ PS2 games. Honestly if they were to bring back the IMOQ games for modern game consoles, they should bring back the .hack// Liminality DVDs that come with each game. That would be something that Bandi Namco and Cyber Connect 2 should invest in doing for old and new .hack// fans to get into/back into the original series.
I hope that the more .hack stuff gets created by fans the more chance that Bandai would green light a new project for the series
Algorithm comment
Comments are indeed good for the algorithm lol
> "what happened to it?"
sao happened, lol. and then everyone thought it was The Best Thing despite its mediocrity and blatant self-insert protag for small edgy boys (i mean - when the people themselves note that moments in the novel where kirito ISNT there are some of the best - it kinda tells a lot lol), to the point of spawning so many unnecessary games, that it basically overshadowed .hack, that and lack of new games or western releases also didnt help.
GU (and Last Recode) was the last .hack game the west ever got. I don’t like SAO (outside of the abridged series, THAT is good lol), it tried to be .hack without understanding what made it good in the first place. Heck some of SAOs plot points are direct rip offs of .hack. Though I hear season 3 and after are we’re a good watch, but I don’t finish a story if the beginning and middle are bad.
the biggest sin of sao isnt even not capturing what .hack is about - its not capturing what MMO games are about and how they work. .hack was heavily influenced by games like original pso, which was one of the biggest mmo's back in the time (i mean, The World having a lobby and a teleport thing is exactly how pso and the later instalments basically work, tho instead of keywords there were color id's and class/gender combos), so its faithful in its interpretation of the genre. sao isnt. sao is using mmo like its just another flavour of isekai-but-not-really. @@KeyToDarkness
I think IMOQ was more accurate to the MMO experience with its presentation. This is especially true with Fragment as you can make your own character for The World R:1.
I would not call 'emo kids in a video game just sitting and talking for long stretches of time' awesome.
Yes The Slow Doberman, Piro's the Third, with all of his charisma and burning passion is the very definition of "emo" lol. Though he does in fact talk a lot in the short time he has in the games.
@@KeyToDarkness Wow. One whole character that actually has a personality out of how many?
Oh I can name plenty more. Mistral, Silabus, Gaspard, Antares, Zelkova, Alkaid, Saku, Grien, would you like more names? :)
@@KeyToDarkness The franchise still sucks.
We just gonna act like phyllo didn’t pull at anyone’s heart strings he’s the real goat of .hack
This a useless, uninformative video. You don't go into any details on why the story is good, how the game is influential, etc. You just praise it. As someone who knows nothing about this series, I hoped that you'd have some actual information about why it is worth hunting down... but you don't.
The problem is that you frame the video as an analysis: "Why is .hack so awesome?" I still have no clue.
This video is less of an analysis and more of a general summary of the games and my thoughts on some of its aspects. The stories of both sets of games could be its own video as there is a lot to go over.
If you are looking for a full breakdown of series there is a retrospective series by Shinta Reviews.
Another I recommend watching is KNIJohn as he has gone through Volumes 1 through 3 of GU in great detail! :)
They NEED to remaster this for next gen, But cut out all the needless padding/Grindy sections. Ive recently done a full play through (emulated) and it was a tough one to finish as it was ALOT longer than it needed to be
They also need to chill on the enemies with immunities
it's a bit obvious that youre reading off a script in the video mate, would suggest lining up the location of the script and the location of the camera to avoid that or just check the script less.
love .hack though
Yeah I’m still trying to figure out the best way to handle it lol. I’m sure I’ll find a way for a future video as I don’t show my face often when I record. :)
. HACK//GU will always be one of my favorite stories in any game.
While it does use some anime tropes it does it really well. The character development is superb for its time