StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This game is frustrating, to say the least. I bought it the other week, since the store didn't have the first or second .hack games. The first quest of the game is a bitch. The boss monster near impossible to beat. The basic strategy to beating it is to break it's protection and data drain it. The problem is that hitting it is like hitting an ISD with a dart gun, literally.

Ouch.

Just wait and at least get part 2...the leveling alone will save your butt, let alone trying to get play mechanics.

Yeah, the .hack sequels are made with those who have the previous versions already. Trying to play parts 3 or four without the first two are damn near suicide.

.... Hmm.... so y'alls would recommend the .Hack games, eh? I've been looking for something to tide me over 'til HL2 and Doom3... maybe I should pick the trilogy up...

Each game comes with a .hack dvd. The 'movie' is related to the game and crap.

The .hack game(s) is/are amazing. The whole thing is set up to look like you're playing a game in a game. You have a desktop, where you can read email, check news, change wallpaper and listen to music (you find more of both in 'The World') and log on to 'The World'. You can also check a message board before logging on into the game. The boards pretty nifty and the guys Bandai had working on it did some nice detail work on it. You'll even see a message with the word n00b in it.

Problem is, as a game, the .hack series is kinda underwhelming. Level and dungeon designs are extraordinarily repetitive (there's about 6 different room types with 8 or so different styles (based on the Element of the field)). Enemies don't vary a whole lot, and are identical from game to game (except the bosses), differing only by a palette swap.
You spend the majority of each game simply trudging through dungeons and selling off the mounds of crap you accumulate at towns which differ only in atmosphere (you meet the same people in each town, and each town has the same shops). To get the rare/good trade items some NPCs have, you'll have to spend hours trying to get some rare usable items from dungeons, all of which have annoying low encounter rates (I can count the number of Sports Drinks I've found on one hand, and that's from all 3 games).
By the time you get to the third game, you'll have gotten tired of the repetitiveness and just blast through the fields and dungeons as quickly as possible. You'll stop caring about what's in chests, you'll stop destroying pots and skeletons (I got sick of that when I realized it was going to require me to hit 'X' every time I got an item from one of them...and -3- times if your inventory is full!).

.hack's nice and all, but they could've done a lot better.