I can confirm you are able to marry everyone... Included Kite, that goes on making inarticulate noises for the whole cutscene and needs a translator. Marvellous. All in all, I agree: a flawed but entertaining series of games!
I wonder what it was like working on these games. According to Wikipedia, production started in 2002, but who knows how much time passed before actual development (i.e. the bulk of the work) started. The games had to fit in with the existing series' lore. There were anime and manga tie-ins, and the games were even delayed to allow the anime time to finish. Then, 3 games were released in about 8 months, which means that they had to be developed simulatenously. Honestly, sounds kind of soul-crushing. I feel like a lot of the pacing issues you described were a result of the development cycle. I bet the teams had story beats they had to hit, but were kind of left to their own devices to "fill" the rest of the game with content. When releasing 3 games in a year, you're naturally going to see a lot of recycling. And this was a mid 2000s JRPG series, which means that content bloat was peaking around this time and there seemed to be a mandate from the Japanese government that every JRPG needed 200 hours of content. The result is a lot of useless quests and side content, half-baked relationship mechanics, multiple tournament arcs, reappearing characters, and plot holes. That's sad, because I feel like there's some interesting ideas strewn about these three games, even if they've been done to death since they originally appeared. I especially like how authentically MMORPG the look and feel of the games is, along with the metagaming context of logging out, the message boards, and the patch notes. Having a game's in-universe developer play a major role is a really interesting idea that I'd like to see fleshed out more. Great review, and I'm glad to see that you aren't killing yourself with 54 minute videos for mid-level anime games.
Actually although you can send the promise card to literally anyone you want, you can technically only officially marry the female characters and Endrance. If you send the card to any non-Endrance male character, you get a "friendship ceremony" instead, which is basically the same as the wedding except the other person does not wear a wedding dress and the dialogue is less romantic, and the text afterwards will say "best wishes" instead of "forever in love."
So, Part 3 feels a bit more different than the other two parts in this remake. The remake makes us stronger in a few ways, even without the optional cheat mode. This ruins the endgame balance quite a bit. Back on PS2, even the Weapon Superbosses took more than 5 hits at max level. The games were never that hard, but remake kinda destroys any and all challenge it had. It also massively upped the EXP curve. Each game basically always had a point where you would be encouraged to do an extra dungeon to stay on par with enemy levels, but you could still win if you were good. Cubia always suffered from not scaling, but not quite as starkly as in the remake. For original 3, yeah this one feels rushed in parts. I enjoy what it does overall and the superboss definitely is worth the way too long dungeon to me, but plenty of bits feel at odds. At times I felt they were rushing to capitalize on the series before it lost popularity, giving the devs not enough time to fully develop other bits. A lot it for me is because; Part 3 is HUGE story wise if you played the IMOQ games. The name "Cubia" is a hugely important thing... if you played those games and enjoyed them. It's something that makes your heart sink in just the right way, but relies on info you don't get in G.U.. G.U. Parts 1 and 2 I felt were good on their own without a need to point out that this is technically a sequel series. It definitely had plenty of fan service in those parts with there being several characters that were there for the events of IMOQ for you do to the Leonardo pointing meme, but felt like that's all Part 3 had. Wrap up the plot and tie it into the first four games. Which makes it all the more weird to me we've not been given a IMOQ remake. Also let's be real, it's Haseo. You really think he'd wear a tux to his own wedding? That's just accurate to not give him a new outfit.
"Hack part 3: This character you thought was dead is not really dead, surprise!" Seems like they really didnt polish it enough due to releasing it too quickly imo, but oh well. Thanks for the vid!
bro that superboss GOT CLAPPED. also the final boss seemed super underwhelming but felt like it fit perfectly thematically with .hack LOL. Awesome vid buddy cant wait for the end of the trilogy n a bit 8)
I fought the final boss at like level 128-ish, and it was actually challenging and a lot of fun. So I think you're probably not supposed to be max level at that fight. Which is a bit weird, I admit.
(0:26) Wait, isn't this the third game, not the second game? Oops. (7:20-7:37) Wow, that boss... existed... briefly. Also, you were only level 145 there, so it would've fallen even faster if you were actually at level 150. (11:57) The future is now the past! :P (15:26) Oof... Yeah, this final Cubia phase really should've been scaled up to be more appropriate for your level just like the other phases. Oh, well. (16:27) That's sort of true, though I think the male options are more like "best bros forever" or something like that. Let's hope the true finale of .Hack//G.U. ends up being a winner in your book!
I feel like you’ve successfully used Cunningham’s law to boost engagement, but Canada does have Nuclear Reactors en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada. Your point about Australia is correct though.
That was not intentional! Looks like I did some flawed research, sorry! I found an interactive map of all listed nuclear power plants and based my comments off that. Seems I should've checked a few other sources, but I was looking for a map to use as a comparison to the one in game. For reference: www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-plants/
@@GraeldonGlad someone else has pointed this out; I've been inside some of Canada's nuclear power plants (NRX and NRU) and have seen the outside of several more (Darlington and McMaster). You might have mixed up nuclear power and nuclear weapons? Canada doesn't have any nuclear weapons, though we used to host them on loan from the USA. Actually, we used to be a world leader in nuclear reactor design with the CANDU series, until AECL was sold off in 2010.
Australia does have a singular nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, but it is used for research, medical and industrial applications, and not for power. However the dot representing Australia's nuclear reactor on the map is located near Brisbane, not Sydney (two different capitals of different states), where the reactor is actually located.
Ya know, if in 2017 they were able to make a game as complex and stupidly fun to play in-universe as The World using the very coveted Full Dive MMORPG technology, then... the matter of the nuclear power plants amounts and location being different from our less exciting world is pretty much acceptable. Not to mention the definitely fucking sentient AI that is Aura and Morgana that lives inside the game The World. The nuclear stuff is more believable than sentient AI not wanting to die and retaliating by nuking the entire internet.
I'm surprised that you didn't find the reunion scene with Alkaid emotional nor logical. Cuz for me, it made me sob back when I was a kid and still did made me tear up a lil bit when I replayed the game a few years ago. Eh, maybe that's just cuz we enjoy different things. As for the logical part... I honestly don't get why you found it illogical. I think the game explained enough technical stuff about AIDA and Ovan's plan and gave enough nudge to the direction that there is some kind of meta-physical element in the relationship between AIDA and human consciousness. Meh, I'll chalk it up to we enjoy and believe different things. Over alll, I am enjoying my watch. So I ain't complaining.
Yeah Redemption was definitely rushed by comparison to the other two. This is kind of the reason why the way the .hack games were released back in the day hampered their story telling. It honestly would have been better if both the original games and G.U were released as one game each IMO. Heck I usually treat the original 4 games as one game anyway. G.U.'s a bit harder to do that with since the first two games do have their own story arcs, but Redemption is very lackluster since it feels like it's just wrapping up the latter part of Reminisce while throwing Cubia in as the final challenge. Heck the game pretty much ends halfway through leaving the Forest of Pain as a very long post game dungeon to go through which is honestly a very dull final challenge. I'll take the 15 floor data bug filled post game dungeon from Quarantine over that any day. Also this remaster nerfed the difficulty pretty bad compared to the original releases. I remember struggling with both Ovan fights, and Cubia was much harder too, though you kind of ruined that fight by over leveling for it. I personally prefer the story from the first series (SIGN, IMOQ, and Liminality) more as it's more about the mystery of the nature of the game and what the intentions the creator of the game had for it. Ovan and Sakaki are great antagonists don't get me wrong, but AIDA as the virus of the G.U. series pales in comparison to Morgana who was a substantially larger and more interesting threat in the first series. Honestly the stakes felt higher in the first series thanks to her rampage pretty much crippling the world similar to what Cubia did at the end of G.U. but for half of the length of the games. Heck the game is glitched out for the last 2 games whereas things look pretty normal in G.U. throughout the whole story. Anyway if you liked the cutscenes from the G.U. games I highly recommend checking out G.U. Trilogy which is a movie based off those cutscenes. I think the story is pretty butchered from what it is in the games, but damn if CC2 doesn't know how to make some really flashy and fun looking battles. The final fight with Haseo and Ovan in that movie is beyond epic. I also recommend checking out Asura's Wrath if you want to see even crazier scenes to play through as well. Though it is an interactive anime so don't expect the deepest gameplay and expect a lot of QTEs, which honestly enhance the experience IMO. Oh and check out Fuga Melodies of Steel if you haven't It's episodic similar to the .hack games, but each game is actually it's own standalone story arc instead of being a larger story split up into multiple parts.
I can confirm you are able to marry everyone... Included Kite, that goes on making inarticulate noises for the whole cutscene and needs a translator. Marvellous.
All in all, I agree: a flawed but entertaining series of games!
Still have 1 more to go!
I wonder what it was like working on these games. According to Wikipedia, production started in 2002, but who knows how much time passed before actual development (i.e. the bulk of the work) started. The games had to fit in with the existing series' lore. There were anime and manga tie-ins, and the games were even delayed to allow the anime time to finish. Then, 3 games were released in about 8 months, which means that they had to be developed simulatenously. Honestly, sounds kind of soul-crushing. I feel like a lot of the pacing issues you described were a result of the development cycle. I bet the teams had story beats they had to hit, but were kind of left to their own devices to "fill" the rest of the game with content. When releasing 3 games in a year, you're naturally going to see a lot of recycling. And this was a mid 2000s JRPG series, which means that content bloat was peaking around this time and there seemed to be a mandate from the Japanese government that every JRPG needed 200 hours of content. The result is a lot of useless quests and side content, half-baked relationship mechanics, multiple tournament arcs, reappearing characters, and plot holes. That's sad, because I feel like there's some interesting ideas strewn about these three games, even if they've been done to death since they originally appeared. I especially like how authentically MMORPG the look and feel of the games is, along with the metagaming context of logging out, the message boards, and the patch notes. Having a game's in-universe developer play a major role is a really interesting idea that I'd like to see fleshed out more.
Great review, and I'm glad to see that you aren't killing yourself with 54 minute videos for mid-level anime games.
Actually although you can send the promise card to literally anyone you want, you can technically only officially marry the female characters and Endrance. If you send the card to any non-Endrance male character, you get a "friendship ceremony" instead, which is basically the same as the wedding except the other person does not wear a wedding dress and the dialogue is less romantic, and the text afterwards will say "best wishes" instead of "forever in love."
That's actually quite funny. Ovan would be devastated.
Ovan actually gets a full on marriage as well but it's only available in Reconnection for plot reasons
@@ElioLappi That's true. I hadn't played Reconnection yet when I made this comment.
note that Canada at least *does* have nuclear power plants - it's 60% of our energy in Ontario here
Yeah, apparently the site I used as a reference has flawed/missing data. Apologies for the incorrect info!
Omg the Ballsack Easteregg is there, also Graeldons Blooper was funny.
So, Part 3 feels a bit more different than the other two parts in this remake. The remake makes us stronger in a few ways, even without the optional cheat mode. This ruins the endgame balance quite a bit. Back on PS2, even the Weapon Superbosses took more than 5 hits at max level. The games were never that hard, but remake kinda destroys any and all challenge it had. It also massively upped the EXP curve. Each game basically always had a point where you would be encouraged to do an extra dungeon to stay on par with enemy levels, but you could still win if you were good. Cubia always suffered from not scaling, but not quite as starkly as in the remake.
For original 3, yeah this one feels rushed in parts. I enjoy what it does overall and the superboss definitely is worth the way too long dungeon to me, but plenty of bits feel at odds. At times I felt they were rushing to capitalize on the series before it lost popularity, giving the devs not enough time to fully develop other bits. A lot it for me is because; Part 3 is HUGE story wise if you played the IMOQ games.
The name "Cubia" is a hugely important thing... if you played those games and enjoyed them. It's something that makes your heart sink in just the right way, but relies on info you don't get in G.U.. G.U. Parts 1 and 2 I felt were good on their own without a need to point out that this is technically a sequel series. It definitely had plenty of fan service in those parts with there being several characters that were there for the events of IMOQ for you do to the Leonardo pointing meme, but felt like that's all Part 3 had. Wrap up the plot and tie it into the first four games. Which makes it all the more weird to me we've not been given a IMOQ remake.
Also let's be real, it's Haseo. You really think he'd wear a tux to his own wedding? That's just accurate to not give him a new outfit.
I hope you like the ballsack final boss
"Hack part 3: This character you thought was dead is not really dead, surprise!"
Seems like they really didnt polish it enough due to releasing it too quickly imo, but oh well.
Thanks for the vid!
bro that superboss GOT CLAPPED. also the final boss seemed super underwhelming but felt like it fit perfectly thematically with .hack LOL. Awesome vid buddy cant wait for the end of the trilogy n a bit 8)
These 2000s 3D JRPGs all look the same to me, somehow.
Still awsome reviews ! I think it might be a good idea to explicitly say if a game is considered gem or garbage
I fought the final boss at like level 128-ish, and it was actually challenging and a lot of fun. So I think you're probably not supposed to be max level at that fight. Which is a bit weird, I admit.
13:00
complains about multiple points of no return prompts, then proceeds to show ONE point of no return prompt, and several "boss warning" prompts.
(0:26) Wait, isn't this the third game, not the second game? Oops.
(7:20-7:37) Wow, that boss... existed... briefly. Also, you were only level 145 there, so it would've fallen even faster if you were actually at level 150.
(11:57) The future is now the past! :P
(15:26) Oof... Yeah, this final Cubia phase really should've been scaled up to be more appropriate for your level just like the other phases. Oh, well.
(16:27) That's sort of true, though I think the male options are more like "best bros forever" or something like that.
Let's hope the true finale of .Hack//G.U. ends up being a winner in your book!
I feel like you’ve successfully used Cunningham’s law to boost engagement, but Canada does have Nuclear Reactors en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada. Your point about Australia is correct though.
That was not intentional! Looks like I did some flawed research, sorry! I found an interactive map of all listed nuclear power plants and based my comments off that. Seems I should've checked a few other sources, but I was looking for a map to use as a comparison to the one in game.
For reference: www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-plants/
@@GraeldonGlad someone else has pointed this out; I've been inside some of Canada's nuclear power plants (NRX and NRU) and have seen the outside of several more (Darlington and McMaster). You might have mixed up nuclear power and nuclear weapons? Canada doesn't have any nuclear weapons, though we used to host them on loan from the USA. Actually, we used to be a world leader in nuclear reactor design with the CANDU series, until AECL was sold off in 2010.
Australia does have a singular nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, but it is used for research, medical and industrial applications, and not for power. However the dot representing Australia's nuclear reactor on the map is located near Brisbane, not Sydney (two different capitals of different states), where the reactor is actually located.
Ya know, if in 2017 they were able to make a game as complex and stupidly fun to play in-universe as The World using the very coveted Full Dive MMORPG technology, then... the matter of the nuclear power plants amounts and location being different from our less exciting world is pretty much acceptable. Not to mention the definitely fucking sentient AI that is Aura and Morgana that lives inside the game The World. The nuclear stuff is more believable than sentient AI not wanting to die and retaliating by nuking the entire internet.
I'm surprised that you didn't find the reunion scene with Alkaid emotional nor logical. Cuz for me, it made me sob back when I was a kid and still did made me tear up a lil bit when I replayed the game a few years ago. Eh, maybe that's just cuz we enjoy different things. As for the logical part... I honestly don't get why you found it illogical. I think the game explained enough technical stuff about AIDA and Ovan's plan and gave enough nudge to the direction that there is some kind of meta-physical element in the relationship between AIDA and human consciousness. Meh, I'll chalk it up to we enjoy and believe different things. Over alll, I am enjoying my watch. So I ain't complaining.
2:25 They're not behind the plants?
The whole story is confusing
Those discs are to deflect the male gayze
but why can you marry someone?? like, where does that come from??? arent they all teenagers??!? does it even mean anything to get married ingame?
Yeah Redemption was definitely rushed by comparison to the other two. This is kind of the reason why the way the .hack games were released back in the day hampered their story telling. It honestly would have been better if both the original games and G.U were released as one game each IMO. Heck I usually treat the original 4 games as one game anyway. G.U.'s a bit harder to do that with since the first two games do have their own story arcs, but Redemption is very lackluster since it feels like it's just wrapping up the latter part of Reminisce while throwing Cubia in as the final challenge. Heck the game pretty much ends halfway through leaving the Forest of Pain as a very long post game dungeon to go through which is honestly a very dull final challenge. I'll take the 15 floor data bug filled post game dungeon from Quarantine over that any day.
Also this remaster nerfed the difficulty pretty bad compared to the original releases. I remember struggling with both Ovan fights, and Cubia was much harder too, though you kind of ruined that fight by over leveling for it.
I personally prefer the story from the first series (SIGN, IMOQ, and Liminality) more as it's more about the mystery of the nature of the game and what the intentions the creator of the game had for it. Ovan and Sakaki are great antagonists don't get me wrong, but AIDA as the virus of the G.U. series pales in comparison to Morgana who was a substantially larger and more interesting threat in the first series. Honestly the stakes felt higher in the first series thanks to her rampage pretty much crippling the world similar to what Cubia did at the end of G.U. but for half of the length of the games. Heck the game is glitched out for the last 2 games whereas things look pretty normal in G.U. throughout the whole story.
Anyway if you liked the cutscenes from the G.U. games I highly recommend checking out G.U. Trilogy which is a movie based off those cutscenes. I think the story is pretty butchered from what it is in the games, but damn if CC2 doesn't know how to make some really flashy and fun looking battles. The final fight with Haseo and Ovan in that movie is beyond epic. I also recommend checking out Asura's Wrath if you want to see even crazier scenes to play through as well. Though it is an interactive anime so don't expect the deepest gameplay and expect a lot of QTEs, which honestly enhance the experience IMO.
Oh and check out Fuga Melodies of Steel if you haven't It's episodic similar to the .hack games, but each game is actually it's own standalone story arc instead of being a larger story split up into multiple parts.
Day 68 of waiting for Celeste
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