.Hack//G.U. Last Recode (2017)

The story is ok. It's about kids being stuck in a digital MMO and dying in this game means dying in real life.

The combat is just "level, attack and spam best ability to win". I can hear some people say "but isn't every JRPG like that?". I don't mind it in turn based JRPGs, as long as there's some form of HP and MP management and there are some at least somewhat more challenging enemies and bosses. And it could also be that "every game is use best ability to win". Well, find a way around it. Find something to make it challenging. It's an action game you know? While it has its difficulty spikes most of it can be easily circumvented by leveling. Then just attack and use best ability, literal no tactics required.

Then the completion. Oh boy, don't get me started on completion. By the time it took me to complete this game I could have finished Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix twice. Let that sink in. Completing .Hack required doing chores and hoping you get some good RNG. I would have been able to do it when I played, but nowadays I'm noping the fuck out of it.

Soundtrack could be ok and charming, but also annoying at times.

Overall, just an OK game. Unique setting, but otherwise nothing extraordinary otherwise.

I know that a lot of people like this game, but I believe this has a lot to do with nostalgia. I never played these games back in the day, so I wasn't looking at this game with rose-colored glasses. I was actually excited to play a collection this big and thought it would be an incredible value at the same time. I began with the games suggestion, that if I'd never experienced the game before to play the version it suggested. Which I later i found out was basically the longest (original) way to play.

This is the biggest issue I have with the game. I made it through the first volume, which took an excruciating 35 or more hours. I say excruciating because I can honestly say, I still had no idea what was going on after the end of the first volume. I had the gist of the story, but for the most part EVERYTHING else is completely convoluted. It was just painful to play a game and not have a good grasp on the story.

The second issue I have, while the game is a graphically nice game to look at considering it is a PS2 game, is that everything else about the gameplay was outdated. Even the story of a single player game about a player in a fictional MMO is a genre that has long passed. So playing this was like making a journey back in time I'd rather have not made. It added to the painful playthrough process.

Ultimately, I got about halfway through volume 2 where I hit an arena match I just could not beat. I looked it up, and this is also one of, if not the most difficult fight in the game - and would have required leveling up that I was not willing to go back and do (I'd had enough running through bland, empty environments to rinse and repeat for hours). I finally handed in the towel at this point. It will remain a title in my library that I just did not like and will never finish.

Looking back, I probably should have gone with the 2nd option when selecting which version of the game to play, which would have allowed me to experience the story and from what I read, is a much easier and shorter playthrough. I could still do that, but after dumping about 45 hours into this collection, I am too exhausted to go back and experience something that is frankly, just not that interesting.