Board 8 > .hack//G.U. Last Recode out today [PS4/Steam]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Because I still consider this a complete miracle and can't quite believe it happened, thought I'd help get the word out and provide some details to anyone who might be interested, because personally these are among some of my favorite games.

What is .hack//G.U. Last Recode?

Put simply, it's a compilation of .hack//G.U. Vol 1//Rebirth, .hack//G.U. Vol 2//Reminisce, and .hack//G.U. Vol 3//Redemption, a trilogy of PS2 RPGs. The basic premise is that you're following a player called Haseo in a MMORPG called "The World." 95% of the game takes place in that MMORPG while you can log out to a "desktop" and read the game's official forums, get/send E-Mails, etc. to learn things, talk with party members out of the game, see glimpses into what's going on in the "real world" or player reactions to what's going on in the MMORPG.

Another perk of Last Recode is that it has added a 4th Volume called Reconnect that takes place after Volume 3.

It has also made adjustments and QoL changes to the original games in the hopes of making things go easier and faster. It also added a "Parody Mode" because why not?

Volume 4?

Yeah, I haven't dug too deep into details on it to avoid running into too many spoilers myself although I'm hearing it's more like an epilogue than a full-fledged volume and consequently pretty short. Each of the original volumes might have been around 25-50 hours. Volume 4 is sounding more in the area of 5 hours from the reports I'm hearing.

QoL Changes?

Yep. Increased movement speed, EXP gain, damage done, retry if you die, increased item inventory limits, etc. There's also a "Cheat Mode" that lets you play at max stats if you just want to breeze through things.

Parody Mode?

Apparently! It look like they're taking some of the more serious cutscenes and changing the dialogue to be completely absurd. Pretty sure it was said to be voiced in the Japanese voicetrack. Not totally sure if it is for the dub. They appear to have gotten quite a few of the old VAs back so hopefully? Also not too sure how extensive it is in terms of how many scenes are altered.

.hack has a bunch of other games and anime though, right? Do I need anything else to understand this?

Short answer: Not really, no.

Long answer: The original games in this case refer to four games: Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, and Quarantine (IMOQ). They took place in an earlier iteration of The World (in-universe the servers went down and the game was rebooted.) There are definitely links and references between the two, including characters played by the same people across both. Good news though is Last Recode also comes included with the "Terminal Disc" which is a summary of those games. Bad news I haven't yet seen it for myself (it was originally only part of the PS2 LE) so I can't tell you how extensive it is. Nevertheless, I think you could follow with minimal trouble without it at all, so...

If there's anything you might want to watch it's an anime called .hack//Roots with is a direct prequel to the games. But even then, you'll mostly be filled in on what's important from there as you go.
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xp1337 posted...

The basic premise is that you're following a player called Haseo in a MMORPG called "Za Warudo."

No need to say anymore. I'm sold
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I bought the very first game in the .Hack series because it came with an episode of the anime, and I thought that was a novel idea. I didn't like either very much.

That's my story thanks for having me.
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iiicon posted...

I bought the very first game in the .Hack series because it came with an episode of the anime, and I thought that was a novel idea. I didn't like either very much.

That's my story thanks for having me.

Fun Fact: Vol 2 and 3 of G.U. each had a Roots episode unlockable in them within the game's movie player.
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Up for the morning crew.
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Id like to play this at some point. I liked the original quadrilogy a lot, but never played G.U. Unfortunately its pretty low priority right now.
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who is HASEO
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What is that joke? I don't get it. If it's from a character contest, you'd think there were so many other niche characters no one ever heard of. It's not as if Haseo was a weak character either...just an annoying asshat.

Anyway, downloading now, will play soon.
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I'm excited for it !!!
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I think it's a joke from Mercs.

i considered making it myself in the first post but i don't know anything about mercs other than the time once a year i wander into a topic to see what's going on there

...on that note with a new volume should we sound the mercs alarm that it could mean NEW FEATS for haseo?
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I will find out who is HASEO
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I wish I'd gotten for that price. PS Store sold it for $50.
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Best Buy now seems to take off an $1 for in store pick up

which I was doing all the time anyway
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Looks like my download is halfway there. I hope to get started before leaving for school.
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WHO IS HASEO is a joke from the 2007 character contest

he did nothing except steal some votes from Riku in the first round allowing Ryu H to get first place in the four-way match he was in
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oh

whoops

i've tried to block most of the 2007 contest out of my mind
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I'm excited to see Mr. Cool , Ovan, again
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Arti posted...

WHO IS HASEO is a joke from the 2007 character contest

he did nothing except steal some votes from Riku in the first round allowing Ryu H to get first place in the four-way match he was in

I find that more sad than funny. The brackets were probably announced well in advance. It's on the users to not have any clue.
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I mean I know who haseo is as in he's the protagonist of this series

but I have no idea WHO IS HASEO as a character
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Every angsty teenage anime protagonist ever. The difference is he gets cool weapons, fancy armor, and weird face tattoos.
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He's like if sasuke was cool
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I won't be able to aford this game two weeks, ugh. Was sad I was missing out on the preorder theme, but it looks like they took the Gentle Hands BM out of the US version, so it's just default PS4 sounds. DRV3 theme remains intact.

That launch trailer showing the graphics difference was a little misleading as to how bad the old one looked, but it's still a pretty big jump.

To those who say "I played one/some of the original series and meh", it's simple: those games sucked, these games are good.
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Wow I'm busting out Gentle Hands for the first time in years and I'm really mad about them snubbing us on the theme.
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They took Gentle Hands out? Boo! That song made the endings awesome. Better than the garbage IMOQ white noise.
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He means from the PS4 Theme. There was a digital pre-order theme that in Japan also played Gentle Hands. It was removed in the NA version.

I'm assuming that's not the case in the actual game. I'd hazard a guess they didn't want to get the rights to use the song or something.
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Oh god, I don't even want entertain.the thought that they took it out of the game itself. Licensing can't be THAT fucked.
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I would be absolutely stunned if they did that. I was just clarifying the situation.
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Finally ready to play

I'm already noticing huge improvements. The text in the HUD and character text boxes has been cleaned up and enlarged (good for visually impaired suckers like me). The character models are more fluid, and the speed Haseo runs is so much better. I'm not a fan of all these advancements being done on the sort of washed-out/cel-shaded Mac Anu. However, that was more on the design aesthetic than anything they could remedy. The affection meters have turned into hearts...kinda cute.

Battles should be smooth as silk.
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And our first typo. Wow...
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Arby's plz...

https://twitter.com/Arbys/status/926479083277500416
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I wasn't expecting that. What I was expecting was feeling disgust when Gaspard ran into me. Stupid beat animal thing. Mages are terribly balanced in this game. It's too bad I have too much other stuff today. I want to bust through this game.
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Got my copy, should be able to start later tonight.

Would like to reiterate that the box art is A+
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xp1337 posted...

Got my copy, should be able to start later tonight.

Would like to reiterate that the box art is A+

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.hack has always intrigued me but I feel like I was always too far behind the bandwagon to adequately experience it.

Would you consider this to be a great place to start?
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Yep.

Technically it continues for the Quadrilogy, but you absolutely do not need to play those.
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someone should just highlight the need to know info from the original 4 games going into this
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ninkendo posted...

someone should just highlight the need to know info from the original 4 games going into this

I would certainly appreciate that.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

ninkendo posted...

someone should just highlight the need to know info from the original 4 games going into this

I would certainly appreciate that.

people not reading my little mini-FAQ in the first post =(

xp1337 posted...

.hack has a bunch of other games and anime though, right? Do I need anything else to understand this?

Short answer: Not really, no.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Would you consider this to be a great place to start?

But really, to elaborate a bit more. Yes, this would be a perfectly acceptable starting point. Some callbacks might miss you/not impact you as much, but nothing big. The game will fill you in on anything important you need to know from earlier material (which isn't much)

In addition, Last Recode comes with summaries of the original four games. Each game gets a ~15 minute video you can watch right from the start if you so choose in a section you can select from the main menu. I hadn't seen them when I made the topic, but I have now and they're pretty serviceable but also reinforced to me the idea that "you don't really need any of this to follow anything"

The game itself with provide you all you need to know.

~~~

Anyway, played a little (spent a good portion of time watching Terminal Disc and Parody Mode stuff before getting lost in NEWS and FORUMS) and one thing I noticed quickly was that Vol 1 got the engine updates, or at least the ones I could access this early, that Vol 2 and 3 got. I imagined it would, but glad to see that confirmed.

damage buff too strong can't rengeki things because they die too fast =(

>_>
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I saw the bit about the terminal disc if thats what you mean. Im just not sure what's on it and it would be nice to read the overview beforehand.
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Ah, well, it's a collection of videos (technically speaking cutscenes.)

I might be misunderstanding what you're asking for, but...

You start up the game and you're brought to the main menu. On it you can pick Vol 1/Vol 2/Vol 3/Vol 4/Terminal Disc/Parody Mode. If you do what I did and go immediately to the Terminal Disc option before doing anything else, you'll have 4 videos available to you. Each one corresponds to one of the original four (IMOQ) games and gives you a narrated/video summary of what happened during that game. It's presented in-universe as a kind of diary recording so there's some flavor to the commentary but yeah. Each of those videos is approximately 15 minutes long. It's not as comprehensive as playing the actual game, but it does give you the gist of what happens in each of the games' main plot.

(Technically the Terminal Disc is 13 videos but the remaining 9 appear to be gated behind your progress in the game. I only unlocked one of them since I just started and based on that one it looks like it's giving some added detail about what happened between the two games.)

All this said though, you could even completely ignore the Terminal Disc and G.U. would still provide you with what you need to know. You'd really only be missing callbacks. The anime .hack//Roots would give you some added background on Haseo and a few other characters but again, all the important aspects of that are almost immediately made clear by the game itself so I wouldn't even call that necessary to understand or enjoy the game.
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I love the new EXP balance. Any high level area is practically free 3-5 levels, provided I kill everything. This will shave off so much annoying downtime, especially when trying to handle Arena crap.
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xp1337 posted...

Each of those videos is approximately 15 minutes long. It's not as comprehensive as playing the actual game, but it does give you the gist of what happens in each of the games' main plot.

all I needed thank you
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Didn't know there was a Steam version. Cool.
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I feel I should mention that you probably shouldn't watch .hack//roots first because it drops a pretty big spoiler for the games in the last quarter since it aired between the second and third games.

also because roots is bad and doesn't really add anything too important to gu
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BRAUGH! I'M GABI! :D

Gabi!
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I'm happy reached the point I can finally use three attackers instead of lugging Atoli or Gaspard. Haseo/Kuhn/Pi were seriously damn effiecient at killing mobs than just Haseo/Silabus.

Also, I am not taking Piros ever, ever, ever. His IMOQ quests carry enough residual backlash to hate him forever. Guh. So dumb.
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But

But

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUf3ZY9aNfI
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Finally started it today. I could have sworn Vol. 1 starts with the scene of leveled up Haseo attacking the group of PKs, then flashes back to when he first started playing.
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I don't know what these players get from killing a character that just started. I guess it's just for the fun of it?
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They are pricks. That's their life's work.

Also, Vol. 1 complete on my end. Gentle Hands is still in, thank God.
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