Awright, it's been bugging me to write a review on this game, but yesterday i decided i'd wait till i'd beaten it. About 3 hours after that i beat it, and i honestly am just so disappointed.

If you guys know anything about my video gaming, you'd know my favorite game series of all time was the original .hack's (infection/mutation/outbreak/quarantine). Many people complained that they were repetitive, had poor graphics, and was over all flat out boring. I can kind of see the first two, but nobody, and i do mean nobody, complained about the story. It was one of those stories i found myself drooling over, one of those stories i couldn't put down, i loved the easy to pick up controls, the cast of characters, the vast quests, i loved .hack!!!

I couldn't wait to get my hands on .hack//G.U.

Now, i feel i need to clean them. Masturbation leaves a cleaner feeling on your hands than this game.

The first thing i noticed was that Ban-dai (the original producers of the game) had teamed up with Namco (Fun Suckers Incorporated ). I was slightly put off by it, but my over all love for the series helped me place it in my playstation. About 2 hours into the game i realize something, this game managed to take out everything that made the last game great, but then refocused on the two things that were just minor problems. So let's begin this review.

Story:
The story of the game centers around the player Haseo (a legendary Player Killer Killer). Haseo, is quite possibly the most unimaginative characters...ever. He pulls off the whole jackass/dumass/i don't need nobody/i'm a god/SAVE ME!!!! deal. At least Kite (from the first game) had some depth to him. Anyway, the story starts off when your level 133 and you are hunting down a character who killed one of your friends, who slipped into a coma immediatley afterwards (Stop...yes this is about the 5th .hack has used the "coma" plot, but i'll keep rolling with it). When he finally finds the character (it looks like Kite on crack), it uses data drain on Haseo, and he is forced back to level 1. About 20 hours later, the story FINALLY starts, but there is a problem, upon that 20 hour mark, THE GAME FREAKING ENDS. Namco is doing much to sway my opinion, right now. That's right people you will waste 20 hours of your life, if you play this game, on sidequests. But now that i've played the first 20 hours, i just can't stop, I'm a plotwhore, and have to see how it ends...so i have to wait for the next game, luckily it'll be out soon. Back on target the story for this game gets 1/5

Graphics:
This is one of those 2 things that were "fixed." The game is still not beautiful, but .hack tries to simulate a real MMORPG, and none of those have marvelous graphics compared to standard games. It has switched to the more cell shaded (of which i have never been a fan, but ill live) and several of the scenes you could say are just downright awesome (especially the opening one). 3/5

Fighting:
This is the other thing they "fixed." They did manage to make battling a little more exciting, but i don't believe at all as fun. One thing now is that your character has the ability to use ANY type of weapon, as long as you have earned the license. Problem: in the first game you only get the license of 1 other weapon than your twin blades, and that's the freaking heavy blade (i don't like slow weapons). Next thing they give you is pvp, its not online, but it definitely adds to the believability of the game, and is fun as hell when the character stands a chance against you.

One thing about the weapons that has changed, unfortuneatley, is that now you can only equip weapons of your level or lower. In the first games, you could pick up any weapon no matter what its level was, and you wanna know why, because you had hands that allowed you to grip, what more reason do you need.

Also, you can no longer string together several skills in a row, because now you got a little time bar that limits EVERYTHING with exception of your normal attacks. Yes even your items, you are forced to pace your item use.

They have taken away your ability to data drain except in boss fights. No longer are you just having to use a great power wisely, no you can only use it when the game likes you too. So what does it give return, rengeki's, a VERY poor substitute, essentially if you hit a monster enough times you can use a skill, and that skill will do MORE DAMAGE yay. Except guess what, your skills are still limited by that nasty little time bar.

The final thing about the fighting i need to discuss is the boss fights. You will fight all the boss fights as your Avatar, a special power given to you by CC corp FOR KNOW FREAKING REASON, that's right, you're character was chosen random. And rather than giving staff characters these powers, CC corp decides hey let's give random people a power that would allow them to send other characters into comas. Points off the "making sense" category. What's worse, the avatar is tied to the spirit of the player, no not the character, the FREAKING PLAYER. You know what, this is about where i dropped the game, in the original series, it was centered around a bug that the designer knew would cause problems, nobody listened to him, so he left clues all over the "The World" and hoped somebody would figure it out. Now we are dealing the spirits of the players, that's a step backwards, there's no originality left anymore. And to top it off, the vast incredible powers are used in the most boring and repetitive boss fights, they are quite literally EXACTLY THE SAME. Sure the bosses use different attacks, but all you have to do is press the same buttons you did on the last boss.
2/5

Exploration:
This is a needed section. .hack involves going to a near infinite list of other worlds just for the sake of treasure hunting and leveling up.
In the first game, you would be sent to an already large looped field (meaning when you run off the top of the map you'll appear on the bottom), creating the illusion that it is a huge world. There were about 10 different types of fields. After your done exploring the field you can then go to an enormous dungeon on the field which ranged from being 3-5 floors. I have no idea how many dungeon types there were.
Of course all these were randomly generated, but at least you always had something to do.
So .hack//G.U., what's new in exploration? Basically, they took out everything fun and exciting. Now dungeons and fields are completely seperate worlds. The fields don't go on forever, instead every single field is a small map of islands connected by wooden bridges, EVERY LAST FREAKING ONE OF THEM, oh but just to throw you for a loop, occasionally you'll find one where it RAINS!!!! Woohoo! not...
The only thing that has really changed about the dungeons (im not sure whether to be thankful or not) is now they are only two types, billions of maps, but only two types. You'll get classic japanese caslte and underground island cave. That's it...no more...nothing.
Okay there's a little more, you usually only got two types of monsters in either a field or dungeon, 3 if your lucky.
1/5

Over All:
Don't even bother playing this game if your a die-hard .hack fan like me. Save hope for a better game. There is still some enjoyment in this game, it is quickly depleted. Go, find another game, save yourself.
2/5

Meh. I couldn't even stomach the original .Hack thanks to it's boring gameplay and broken pace. I doubt I'd even touch this one now that I've read this review. I'd actually been kind hoping they'd fix the problems with the first one being so damn slow and boring before making a sequel.

The loss of the Japanese voice track was enough to make me skip the game.

I used to watch .hack,but I always got a headache...

Oh crap, I bought G.U not too long ago...>_<
Haven't played it yet, but still spent money on it :(