In this final Dot Hack G.U. episode, Haseo and friends endure the most aptly titled post-game dungeon ever and then melt some jerkbag out of his popsicle prison! Oh what a world...
Not fun fact. Vol4 was so short due to losing the programmer that made the area Keyword system and dungeon generator... He was a Rockstar type dev so even with the source the system was so foreign and robust no one could reverse engineer it in time for Vol4 to be worth a damn... hence the WEIRD lack of content and over abundance of linear story. and Of course the SAO money holes took a Fton of time away from last recode in general.
@@RengokuGS form what i can tell... IDK. They "lost" him No references to death or passing but no references of him leaving. Gtranslate of twitter posts and blogs only go so far. that and CC2 keeps drama to a minimum(if any) or at least behind closed doors so really only going off of one sentence from a small interview/QA on why vol4 was so short and missing features... and really if you lose a programmer it could be anything like the lost the ability to read their own notes and code to death or just retiring. Doesn't help that Japan likes being vague when it comes to stuff like that and just skips to apologizing. More info is always wanted but not everything is like the nintedo ninjas or the Squar enix Frame jobs and tax write offs that were drakengard and balan wonderland.
With the amount of times companies charge you overpriced DLCs to get "extra content" that should have been included on release, i was hoping they would do either that or an update patch later on to give them time to fix that particular issue (it would have been the only time i'd gladly pay for a 30$ DLC)
You know knowing who Sakai truly is actually elevates every scene with him for me. Because now all I can see him as is a spoiled foul mouth brat in a cod lobby.
Fun fact, there's an item I believe you get from the Gold Goblins that lets you sneak past any enemy. So get those boots and skip the entire Forest of Pain in like 20-30 minutes
I remember these! Demon Safe Shoes, I'm pretty sure an old gamefaqs or whatever probably lost to time guide, one of those ones that started with ASCII art at the beginning, recommended them to me god knows how many years ago. I want to say there was an exploit to win all bike races that made getting them super trivial? What a weird memory to dig up. I wonder if I could still find that guide nowadays...
You can also add the item Cat Whiskers that you can get from the bike missions to your acessory for no encounters, you'd only have to deal with the boss monsters if don't care about the bonus items, pair that up with 99 Speed Charms and you breeze through the forrest
About that even WITH a NO encounters item reaching the 100th Forest of Pain floor at lv 150 in GU Vol 3 STILL took me a MINIMUM of 7 to 10 hours BUT while you COULD teleport FROM floor 1 to floor 50 after kiling the 50th floor boss the teleporters stop working so floors 51 to 100 have to ALL BE done in a SINGLE run because if you warp out like on Floor 99 that means REDOING the ENTIRE dungeon from floor 51 ALL over again.
Dude, thanks a million for covering a series that means "the world" to me. You truly rock and each video has been a joy and hilarious to watch. 13:18-13:24 this was extremely funny to me
Be me: Clicks the notification bell after watching the series from day 1 * Awaits every part and checks out a few other videos * TH-cam every single time: I'm gonna pretend i didn't see that * Never notified me and i always found out randomly scrolling my subscribed feed *
If you decide to tackle IMOQ as well I'm look forward to it. I also highly recommend checking out Solatorobo and Fuga from their Little Tail Bronx series. Tail Concerto isn't as important lore wise as a lot of things were retconned, but it's a charming and short experience. There's been vague hints throughout these games that they might be connected to .hack in some form. Fuga in particular is being advertised with .hack's A in C major tone and glitches, and there's been some not so subtle .hack like stuff happening with that series. I also agree that .hack isn't dead and if Bandai says no to continuing the series under them I can definitely see CC2 pulling a Fuga and doing a possibly canon spiritual successor through their self publishing eventually. I do hope that they can convince Bandai to let them remake Tail Concerto, Silent Bomber, Solatorobo, and .hack IMOQ someday though as I think these all deserve remakes. Maybe a remaster for IMOQ if that's all they can get for it, I hope they don't nerf the difficulty as badly as they did with G.U. though. I'm glad CC2 is self publishing now and with how well their anime games are doing it looks like they can pretty much do whatever they want with their original games going forward without Bandai or any other publishers holding them back. I'm hoping once they're done with Fuga and they've got their Osaka studio completely set up that the flood gates on their original games open up. I'm really looking forward to what they're going to do with Tokyo Ogre Gate and Cecile. Also I recommend .hack The Movie/Beyond the World it's a much more competent movie than G.U. Trilogy was and it was a nice endcap to the series, it's pretty standalone too. Unfortunately it was a Japan only release so you're going to have to find a subbed copy somewhere online.
...I wonder if Piros's line of "The next world is on its way!" is talking about a possibility that, after Reconnection. The staff of Cyber Connect wanted to completely start over the "The World RX"-saga from the beginning, because that is easily the most divisive of the various Dot Hack sagas. ...Of course, I really doubt any of those ideas are even going to be more than just that. Ideas, nothing more.
@@kuraux56s59it unfortunately never really took off considering every game got worse from imoq. I don't know how many agree with this comment but I think personally I would have enjoyed the other games more if they played like imoq it was trying to play like an mmo and it nailed that feeling. Gu also had a lot of the mmo and went towards a more action mmo rather than tab target but it wasn't fully that or 90 percent that the little arena was stupid to me to fight in as well as in imoq it felt like I had a massive list of skills while gu not so much. imoqs story was pretty solid as well I liked Gu and thought it was super cool when they brought in old imoq characters as well as the whole haseo thing from imoq but there's my problem is I feel it's best parts are strictly because they call back to imoq never cause something it did new
@@tbenigma4817 I thought the connections of the GU games and the IMOQ quadrilogy was kind of inconsistent. For example, not a lot of players on the story react too much to the fact that Azure Kite is this impostor of Kite, You know. The hero who saved The World R1.
Aye, Fawkyoo man! I LOVE movie Haseo's big dumb Asura faces. It was so much stupid fun! Even asura got a big ol' pissy B-st form in his movie/game. That's just what wrathy guys do. But yeah, it wasn't great as a film. I just love how shlocky it was, and Atoli's aida'd form still lives in my head. I think B'st form was the first time I'd seen someone use "a zillion big dumb swords in a flowing stream" as an attack until Gilgamesh would eventually do it, or kingdom hearts. I actually wish he coulda been playable somehow.
I never caught the Piros bit at the end of Vol.4! That definitely gives me hope for the future of the series, and Last Recode is coming on seven years old. Hopefully we hear something soon.
Well, considering that .hack// didn't end at G.U. I'd assume that the Piros bit was more in reference to the 3rd iteration of The World rather than what's to actually come in the future.
@FearedKamil yeah there were more games after G.U. to my knowledge. One looked like it was some kind of 3d fighting game, another was a psp game I think which had a gimmick of being able to team up with plenty of past .hack characters
@@jrpgjunkie8326 Yeah .hack//Versus was an arena fighter while the PSP game was .hack//Link. Link takes place after the World R:X is released in the .hack// universe. The World R:X is probably what Piros was actually hinting at during GU Vol 4
Aww, thanks for the Christmas present. I'm referring to the dunking on Sakaki's background bit. Been waiting for so long for that and it was worth it. Jokes aside, I'm glad to see the final part and it turned out well. A little surprised to see no mention of the terminal disc, but I assume you didn't cover it since it basically leads with a whole recap of IMOQ and spends a good chunk covering other side material. That said, I'd definitely love to see your takes on IMOQ eventually. Of all the retrospectives I've seen on .hack in general, yours is definitely my fave since you really try to discuss what the creators intended to impart to players. A lot of others I find tend to be a lot more surface level take. It's been refreshing, and I'd love to see that energy with an IMOQ retrospective. Thanks for all the great vids!
i completely missed this video on release but i eventually found it and yeah this is great. i have heard Vol. 4 is short but i didn't know it was THAT short, would've loved to see more of the gameplay side. but as is, it's a nice little bow to wrap up the G.U. story. i really miss .hack, the whole series was truly something special. i know G.U. is now basically a legal adult and the Last Recode remaster/modernization is now already 7 years old and keeps getting discounts on Steam, but here's hoping there's some interest on the dev side for a next .hack installment.
A few things... As funny as it is that Sakaki is a 10 year old in the real world, his story kinda mirrors Haseo's in the previous series The chaotic PKs show up in all 3 volumes, its just relevant in the third one because you get Natsume if you bother to beat them You can use the area word "BBQ Plate" to find the Chim Chim God, if you kick it you get a boost to the party members affection Piros's line in volume 4 isn't forshadowing a new project, its a reference to the PSP sequel .hack//LINK where CC Corp released "The World R:X" about 2 years after the end of R:2, in 2020 Those aside, great conclusion to the review series
Having cleared both FoP and Vol 4 earlier this year this is a welcome surprise to close out the year. Also if you decide to do IMOQ. Ill pray for you overcoming that endgame boos fight for infection. Its utterly dreadful and immensely frustrating.
I was able to go from now knowing anything about this series at the beginning of the year to playing Project X Zone 1 and 2 around the middle to binging the entire G.U. series in August-November and was still able to catch this last video when it was new
John the strategy for every hard fight or boss is always beast awakening. You ignore def and do normal damage allowing you to completely destroy anyone it's 10x stronger than every other awakening. you can equip morale equipment and throw items to raise morale while using the greatsword trick for Fast Rengekis. 1 awakening is good enough to end the fight.
YEAH! Been waiting for this finale. Thank you, I look forward to what comes in the next year. My Christmas got off to a decent start where the home no longer froze like it used to. A wonderful video to end my day on as the sun leaves the sky. Sincerely, I hope you are well and that for as challenging as this year was the next year will carry on great opportunities.
Woo! More john to binge through! Sad to see GU off after the time we spent with it. But life must go on... Merry Christmas, John 31:44 fuck me, thought i left my finger on the screen
1 year later & now you've finally put this to review series to rest! I'm so glad you covered all the side content minus the manga! But yeah I hope your reviews give people the chance to experience this series as I'll be sure to talk about it as much as Xenoblade & The World Ends With You & I hope that ending tease with Piros does imply there's more in store for this series! Btw I should put in my own thoughts of Volume 4, which I enjoyed it wrapping it up especially Haseo's new form but yeah it is majorly short but I'm also glad Ovan joins the party & funny how you compared the cutscenes in Vol. 4 to SAO as my mind thought of God Eater alongside the final hit between Haseo & Ovan reminded me so much of Asura's Wrath which is a major complement but yeah I enjoyed Vol 4. tho compared to other DLC expansions like how Xenoblade basically made another game within said expansions, it is lacking but I nonetheless still enjoyed it & with what Piros teased at the end of your video, hope we get more in the series
The movie was made to cover up the fact that Alkaid is Haseo's true love interest! And Im so happy you acknowledged that with the Promise Card! Also, with the Forest of Pain, the best way to deal with things is with the Demon Safe Shoes, to not only boost movement speed (plus by either using Speed Charm or Ap Do, you boost your movement speed even further) but make sneak attacks easier, use only the DGX at farthest range for combo purposes as well as Rengekis, Only have the level 1 Skill Triggers like Gale Blade, and have Atoli and Zelkova, set to Life, in your party because their constant healing (along with Zelkova's infinite items) will allow the Moral Gauge to fill faster, not only that, but give everyone Battle Cosmetics to boost the Morale Guage charge rate. Ultimately, it's best to look up a guide to see the rewards for every floor, because on a few you get Infinite Use items for Health, SP, Fairy Orb, Smokescreen and Return Feathers, as well as some other useful things. But, as John said...the game is over, so there are really no reason to have them outside of 100% completion
Piros is talking about "The World R:X" which is where the next game chronologically (LINK) and story (Quantum) take place. Link was not a great game but Quantum was a fun watch.
I did not know about Volume 4; I only know about the OVA, Returner. It continues off the Volume 3 storyline into a different ending from volume 4 where Ovan manages to return on his own as a completely untold and separate story from the OVA itself, which is just a reunion of old and new characters. While the OVA has less agency about Haseo (and you the player) about getting Ovan back, I like how the story is just a revisit on the character dynamics and just having Ovan back is just a nice treat on top of the characters being celebratory and content with what they already have. In comparison, Volume 4 does come off as more self-indulgent, but there is more content, and that new form looks like fun gameplay (after all of that grind).
In vol.3 there is a area keyword that has an angel chim that can help with the affection rate as well as has the doppelganger in it. Plus you can farm lost weapons keys in it too.
Your confusion about Sakakis capability to manipulate people as a 10-year old is funny. But you have to remember not only anime-rules, but japan also loves the trope of little genius-kids ( with hidden psychpathic traits ) . Also the moment you enter school in japan, you are expected to become a top-scoring genius, so that you can enter a "good" company and that kind of pressure, also leads to a very high rate of self-harm and self-ending. Him "collecting" those kind of people, for a cult-like following/guild isn`t that crazy. After all in an online-game, nobody can identify your age, if the game provides/changes your characters voice to match your chosen character. You don´t need to be an adult, to believe the world is only there for your amusement ( and manipulate others like puppets ) . Growing out of that mindset, is part of the growing up, beside the biologial changes.
That Haseo x Atoli abridged movie sounds hilarious for reasons beyond common sense. Mostly for Atoli's English VA and mentally ill shipper discourse from other media (thanks Digimon Tamers circa the 2000s)
I remember back when I was young playing the original on PS2. I still have the first 3 vols. The only games alongside the original PS2 series that I had ever 100%. But here I was sitting at home on my old laptop reading up online that Japan got a Vol 4!! But we were never going to get it or it wasn't coming to Canada. I remember being so sad and also so excited trying to think about how amazing Vol 4 must be. All the crazy and cool stuff that must happen in it. How it will probably be even longer than the 3rd volume. Smash cut to with the PS4 remake came out and IT HAS VOL 4 oh my god I'm so excited!!!! I waited since my childhood for this! But before I play it I want to play though the rest of the games and 100% them again. So I did. Then it was time to boot up vol 4.... And I swear... In the length of time it took my wife to have a shower, dry her hair and make coffee for us both... It was over. What was maybe 2 hours at most. I was so disappointed in vol 4 that it actually almost ruined my love for the series. Recently a friend of mine started playing the .hack games and my only response was they are amazing, great story lots of fun. Don't play the last volume.
Even in the manga, the series end with Haseo beating cubia, 4th form or Ovan coma back is just fanfict from CCorp at best. Vol.4 is just "Boruto" of .Hack. To make things worst, cant access any side quest or another area in vol.4 is just make it pointless add on.
I'm watching this as a newly sick person. I hope they inevitably make a continuation. The world changed a lot and would be ... kinda cool to see the alt ver of our strange world in this World.
the sakaki is a 10 year old thing stops being so insane when you remember the "plutos kiss incident" thats discussed in imoq's news and board aka the time a random child almost nuked the world by hijacking the us government with a virus- id go into more detail but i feel like thats something you can talk about when you get to IMOQ (the world of dot hack is nuts it starts off by saying in universe it has an os with 100% attach rate)
This is a nice conclusion to my viewing of your .hack//GU retrospective. I’m glad that you shared your honest takes on the series and I hope you get the time check out the original IMOQ games. Outside of that, I love your videos and how transparent and fair you are.❤❤❤❤ Merry Christmas and have a wonderful new year.
Daran Norris voiced in a lotta rando 6th gen console RPGs and anime back in the day. Drakengard, Tales of Symphonia, and Digimon Frontier were very unexpected roles.
This retrospective got me considering what these games would've been like if they had been made today instead of on the PS2. Like, would they still have split it into 3 parts, diversified the side quests more, given us more intricate dungeons, had better combat balancing, etc.? It's interesting to think about where they could've taken this had budget and time (and maybe technology) had been better for what they wanted to achieve.
Trilogy did suck, but being honest, I was deeply fascinated by how it reinterpreted the Atoli deep dive scene and, just, how it decided to skip the plot for funsies. Absolutely mindless hype, which is always nice occasionally. Unfortunate it never got dubbed, that shit would be hilarious.
And so with G.U. finished we can all start looking forward to the superior story (and unfortunately clunky controls) of IMOQ... Aka the .hack// game series that SHOULD have been remastered in the first place.
Yeaaahhh... we're not touching the Dot Hack Trilogy with a 10 foot pole if it doesn't do it's job to summarise the previous three chapters... except it's Voi. 1. Who thought to call this a Trilogy?
"But remember that Alkaid is still objectively the correct choice"
JOHN IS BASED
Not fun fact. Vol4 was so short due to losing the programmer that made the area Keyword system and dungeon generator... He was a Rockstar type dev so even with the source the system was so foreign and robust no one could reverse engineer it in time for Vol4 to be worth a damn... hence the WEIRD lack of content and over abundance of linear story. and Of course the SAO money holes took a Fton of time away from last recode in general.
Did they die?
@@RengokuGS form what i can tell... IDK. They "lost" him No references to death or passing but no references of him leaving. Gtranslate of twitter posts and blogs only go so far. that and CC2 keeps drama to a minimum(if any) or at least behind closed doors so really only going off of one sentence from a small interview/QA on why vol4 was so short and missing features... and really if you lose a programmer it could be anything like the lost the ability to read their own notes and code to death or just retiring. Doesn't help that Japan likes being vague when it comes to stuff like that and just skips to apologizing.
More info is always wanted but not everything is like the nintedo ninjas or the Squar enix Frame jobs and tax write offs that were drakengard and balan wonderland.
With the amount of times companies charge you overpriced DLCs to get "extra content" that should have been included on release, i was hoping they would do either that or an update patch later on to give them time to fix that particular issue (it would have been the only time i'd gladly pay for a 30$ DLC)
@snintendog thanks for clarifying and that's sad either way
Makes me hope they can reverse engineer it for a later installment. I'd love to see the .hack series launch as an mmo again.
You know knowing who Sakai truly is actually elevates every scene with him for me. Because now all I can see him as is a spoiled foul mouth brat in a cod lobby.
Haha, yeah. It made the replays a lot more fun with that in mind.
Peak fiction has returned let's us rise up and cheer for it
SKEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIITH!!!!!
As a brazilian dude, I'll try to honor the image of Salvador by living as the same ways as him
Ele é um exemplo para todos
É isso aí, samba samba samba! Kkkkkkkkkkkk
Fun fact, there's an item I believe you get from the Gold Goblins that lets you sneak past any enemy. So get those boots and skip the entire Forest of Pain in like 20-30 minutes
I remember these! Demon Safe Shoes, I'm pretty sure an old gamefaqs or whatever probably lost to time guide, one of those ones that started with ASCII art at the beginning, recommended them to me god knows how many years ago. I want to say there was an exploit to win all bike races that made getting them super trivial? What a weird memory to dig up.
I wonder if I could still find that guide nowadays...
You can also add the item Cat Whiskers that you can get from the bike missions to your acessory for no encounters, you'd only have to deal with the boss monsters if don't care about the bonus items, pair that up with 99 Speed Charms and you breeze through the forrest
About that even WITH a NO encounters item reaching the 100th Forest of Pain floor at lv 150 in GU Vol 3 STILL took me a MINIMUM of 7 to 10 hours BUT while you COULD teleport FROM floor 1 to floor 50 after kiling the 50th floor boss the teleporters stop working so floors 51 to 100 have to ALL BE done in a SINGLE run because if you warp out like on Floor 99 that means REDOING the ENTIRE dungeon from floor 51 ALL over again.
"Friend to lonely housewives!" made me laugh waaaaay more than it had any right to.
And then, at the very last moment of The World R2, a new hero rose up to give fans a glimmer of hope.
Piros really is the hero he said he was.
38:23 i REALLY love the reversal here from Ovan welcoming Haseo into the world, to Haseo welcoming him back into the world.
I'm gonna miss this journey we had in 「The World R:2 」! Thanks for the laughs, John! And Happy Holidays to ya!
"Alkaid is the objectively correct choice" I got friends who'd said Bordeaux but THEY AIN'T ME LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO
Dude, thanks a million for covering a series that means "the world" to me. You truly rock and each video has been a joy and hilarious to watch.
13:18-13:24 this was extremely funny to me
John, your late December reviews always put a smile on my face.
"Pat Sprigs newest roommates" that broke me. XD
Be me: Clicks the notification bell after watching the series from day 1
* Awaits every part and checks out a few other videos *
TH-cam every single time: I'm gonna pretend i didn't see that * Never notified me and i always found out randomly scrolling my subscribed feed *
You too huh? I only knew cause I scrolled my feed
I liked the Sakaki reveal. He was like an evil inversion of Wiseman from the OG dotHack. I appreciated the callback.
If you decide to tackle IMOQ as well I'm look forward to it. I also highly recommend checking out Solatorobo and Fuga from their Little Tail Bronx series. Tail Concerto isn't as important lore wise as a lot of things were retconned, but it's a charming and short experience. There's been vague hints throughout these games that they might be connected to .hack in some form. Fuga in particular is being advertised with .hack's A in C major tone and glitches, and there's been some not so subtle .hack like stuff happening with that series.
I also agree that .hack isn't dead and if Bandai says no to continuing the series under them I can definitely see CC2 pulling a Fuga and doing a possibly canon spiritual successor through their self publishing eventually. I do hope that they can convince Bandai to let them remake Tail Concerto, Silent Bomber, Solatorobo, and .hack IMOQ someday though as I think these all deserve remakes. Maybe a remaster for IMOQ if that's all they can get for it, I hope they don't nerf the difficulty as badly as they did with G.U. though.
I'm glad CC2 is self publishing now and with how well their anime games are doing it looks like they can pretty much do whatever they want with their original games going forward without Bandai or any other publishers holding them back. I'm hoping once they're done with Fuga and they've got their Osaka studio completely set up that the flood gates on their original games open up. I'm really looking forward to what they're going to do with Tokyo Ogre Gate and Cecile.
Also I recommend .hack The Movie/Beyond the World it's a much more competent movie than G.U. Trilogy was and it was a nice endcap to the series, it's pretty standalone too. Unfortunately it was a Japan only release so you're going to have to find a subbed copy somewhere online.
The funniest part about Sakaki's identity is that he is the SECOND small child that CC Corp put on payroll. Who is in charge of this shit?
Only japan you love to see it
Who was the first?
@thomasalvarenga2839 Wiseman from IMOQ
@@thomasalvarenga2839 Also known as Yata from G.U.
...I wonder if Piros's line of "The next world is on its way!" is talking about a possibility that, after Reconnection. The staff of Cyber Connect wanted to completely start over the "The World RX"-saga from the beginning, because that is easily the most divisive of the various Dot Hack sagas.
...Of course, I really doubt any of those ideas are even going to be more than just that. Ideas, nothing more.
Thats what i was thinking
@@sdbzfan1 Yeah, the Dot Hack series fell off.
@@kuraux56s59it unfortunately never really took off considering every game got worse from imoq. I don't know how many agree with this comment but I think personally I would have enjoyed the other games more if they played like imoq it was trying to play like an mmo and it nailed that feeling. Gu also had a lot of the mmo and went towards a more action mmo rather than tab target but it wasn't fully that or 90 percent that the little arena was stupid to me to fight in as well as in imoq it felt like I had a massive list of skills while gu not so much. imoqs story was pretty solid as well I liked Gu and thought it was super cool when they brought in old imoq characters as well as the whole haseo thing from imoq but there's my problem is I feel it's best parts are strictly because they call back to imoq never cause something it did new
@@tbenigma4817 I thought the connections of the GU games and the IMOQ quadrilogy was kind of inconsistent. For example, not a lot of players on the story react too much to the fact that Azure Kite is this impostor of Kite, You know. The hero who saved The World R1.
@kuraux56s59 ya that was one of my biggest issues but than again azure kite being in it bothered me as well
A great vid to end the year. I do hope one day we see new dot hack games. Who knows maybe 30 years from now we could get The World VR
Aye, Fawkyoo man! I LOVE movie Haseo's big dumb Asura faces. It was so much stupid fun! Even asura got a big ol' pissy B-st form in his movie/game. That's just what wrathy guys do.
But yeah, it wasn't great as a film. I just love how shlocky it was, and Atoli's aida'd form still lives in my head. I think B'st form was the first time I'd seen someone use "a zillion big dumb swords in a flowing stream" as an attack until Gilgamesh would eventually do it, or kingdom hearts. I actually wish he coulda been playable somehow.
thanks John for this wild ride on Haseo's Journey and happy Holidays
I never caught the Piros bit at the end of Vol.4! That definitely gives me hope for the future of the series, and Last Recode is coming on seven years old. Hopefully we hear something soon.
Well, considering that .hack// didn't end at G.U. I'd assume that the Piros bit was more in reference to the 3rd iteration of The World rather than what's to actually come in the future.
@FearedKamil yeah there were more games after G.U. to my knowledge. One looked like it was some kind of 3d fighting game, another was a psp game I think which had a gimmick of being able to team up with plenty of past .hack characters
@@jrpgjunkie8326 Yeah .hack//Versus was an arena fighter while the PSP game was .hack//Link. Link takes place after the World R:X is released in the .hack// universe.
The World R:X is probably what Piros was actually hinting at during GU Vol 4
It was so cool seeing my name in the Patreon credits, keep up the good work brother 💪
This series really made me want to play the games, thanks for making the videos! I will def be rewatching these again, great narration.
Aww, thanks for the Christmas present.
I'm referring to the dunking on Sakaki's background bit. Been waiting for so long for that and it was worth it.
Jokes aside, I'm glad to see the final part and it turned out well.
A little surprised to see no mention of the terminal disc, but I assume you didn't cover it since it basically leads with a whole recap of IMOQ and spends a good chunk covering other side material.
That said, I'd definitely love to see your takes on IMOQ eventually. Of all the retrospectives I've seen on .hack in general, yours is definitely my fave since you really try to discuss what the creators intended to impart to players. A lot of others I find tend to be a lot more surface level take. It's been refreshing, and I'd love to see that energy with an IMOQ retrospective.
Thanks for all the great vids!
i completely missed this video on release but i eventually found it and yeah this is great. i have heard Vol. 4 is short but i didn't know it was THAT short, would've loved to see more of the gameplay side. but as is, it's a nice little bow to wrap up the G.U. story.
i really miss .hack, the whole series was truly something special. i know G.U. is now basically a legal adult and the Last Recode remaster/modernization is now already 7 years old and keeps getting discounts on Steam, but here's hoping there's some interest on the dev side for a next .hack installment.
NGL I subbed as soon as I reached the point of the video where you said "this is too much for me, and i used to make linkin park drangonball z amvs!"
A few things...
As funny as it is that Sakaki is a 10 year old in the real world, his story kinda mirrors Haseo's in the previous series
The chaotic PKs show up in all 3 volumes, its just relevant in the third one because you get Natsume if you bother to beat them
You can use the area word "BBQ Plate" to find the Chim Chim God, if you kick it you get a boost to the party members affection
Piros's line in volume 4 isn't forshadowing a new project, its a reference to the PSP sequel .hack//LINK where CC Corp released "The World R:X" about 2 years after the end of R:2, in 2020
Those aside, great conclusion to the review series
I've waited for this for so long. Thank you for this.
I didn't think it was possible for Jhon to make a retrospective under an hour
wow, I literally just re-watched the first three videos LAST WEEK. Very funny that you happened to upload the final part
Those wedding ends were some of my favourite parts of the 3rd and 4th game
And i love how lax and fun they are
Having cleared both FoP and Vol 4 earlier this year this is a welcome surprise to close out the year.
Also if you decide to do IMOQ. Ill pray for you overcoming that endgame boos fight for infection. Its utterly dreadful and immensely frustrating.
I was able to go from now knowing anything about this series at the beginning of the year to playing Project X Zone 1 and 2 around the middle to binging the entire G.U. series in August-November and was still able to catch this last video when it was new
John the strategy for every hard fight or boss is always beast awakening. You ignore def and do normal damage allowing you to completely destroy anyone it's 10x stronger than every other awakening. you can equip morale equipment and throw items to raise morale while using the greatsword trick for Fast Rengekis. 1 awakening is good enough to end the fight.
The original dot hack games next year finally
Long awaited finale to Peak Fiction? Hell yes.
YEAH! Been waiting for this finale. Thank you, I look forward to what comes in the next year. My Christmas got off to a decent start where the home no longer froze like it used to. A wonderful video to end my day on as the sun leaves the sky. Sincerely, I hope you are well and that for as challenging as this year was the next year will carry on great opportunities.
However INFECTION to Quarantine still NEVER LEFT the PS2 ERA those 4 still NEED a PS4/PS5/Switch port/remaster.
Woo! More john to binge through! Sad to see GU off after the time we spent with it. But life must go on...
Merry Christmas, John
31:44 fuck me, thought i left my finger on the screen
1 year later & now you've finally put this to review series to rest! I'm so glad you covered all the side content minus the manga! But yeah I hope your reviews give people the chance to experience this series as I'll be sure to talk about it as much as Xenoblade & The World Ends With You & I hope that ending tease with Piros does imply there's more in store for this series!
Btw I should put in my own thoughts of Volume 4, which I enjoyed it wrapping it up especially Haseo's new form but yeah it is majorly short but I'm also glad Ovan joins the party & funny how you compared the cutscenes in Vol. 4 to SAO as my mind thought of God Eater alongside the final hit between Haseo & Ovan reminded me so much of Asura's Wrath which is a major complement but yeah I enjoyed Vol 4. tho compared to other DLC expansions like how Xenoblade basically made another game within said expansions, it is lacking but I nonetheless still enjoyed it & with what Piros teased at the end of your video, hope we get more in the series
I rewatched every .hack of yours literally yesterday just to make sure I was caught up for when you drop this! Can't wait to watch it.
And so it ends... For now. Good job John
The movie was made to cover up the fact that Alkaid is Haseo's true love interest! And Im so happy you acknowledged that with the Promise Card! Also, with the Forest of Pain, the best way to deal with things is with the Demon Safe Shoes, to not only boost movement speed (plus by either using Speed Charm or Ap Do, you boost your movement speed even further) but make sneak attacks easier, use only the DGX at farthest range for combo purposes as well as Rengekis, Only have the level 1 Skill Triggers like Gale Blade, and have Atoli and Zelkova, set to Life, in your party because their constant healing (along with Zelkova's infinite items) will allow the Moral Gauge to fill faster, not only that, but give everyone Battle Cosmetics to boost the Morale Guage charge rate. Ultimately, it's best to look up a guide to see the rewards for every floor, because on a few you get Infinite Use items for Health, SP, Fairy Orb, Smokescreen and Return Feathers, as well as some other useful things. But, as John said...the game is over, so there are really no reason to have them outside of 100% completion
Piros is voiced by the same guy who does Cosmo from 'The Fairly OddParents'
And i find that entertaining.
A Christmas miracle
Piros is talking about "The World R:X" which is where the next game chronologically (LINK) and story (Quantum) take place. Link was not a great game but Quantum was a fun watch.
First video i ever watched of John's was GU part 1. Feels good to finally be here at the end, but sad to know there wont be more.
I wouldnt take the Piros comment so literally
Piros works for the ingame CCcorp and after the World R2 is the World RX
7:14 So you’re telling me Shino is one of those people who use just their first name as their gamer tag?
I did not know about Volume 4; I only know about the OVA, Returner. It continues off the Volume 3 storyline into a different ending from volume 4 where Ovan manages to return on his own as a completely untold and separate story from the OVA itself, which is just a reunion of old and new characters. While the OVA has less agency about Haseo (and you the player) about getting Ovan back, I like how the story is just a revisit on the character dynamics and just having Ovan back is just a nice treat on top of the characters being celebratory and content with what they already have. In comparison, Volume 4 does come off as more self-indulgent, but there is more content, and that new form looks like fun gameplay (after all of that grind).
In vol.3 there is a area keyword that has an angel chim that can help with the affection rate as well as has the doppelganger in it. Plus you can farm lost weapons keys in it too.
Your confusion about Sakakis capability to manipulate people as a 10-year old is funny. But you have to remember not only anime-rules, but japan also loves the trope of little genius-kids ( with hidden psychpathic traits ) . Also the moment you enter school in japan, you are expected to become a top-scoring genius, so that you can enter a "good" company and that kind of pressure, also leads to a very high rate of self-harm and self-ending. Him "collecting" those kind of people, for a cult-like following/guild isn`t that crazy. After all in an online-game, nobody can identify your age, if the game provides/changes your characters voice to match your chosen character.
You don´t need to be an adult, to believe the world is only there for your amusement ( and manipulate others like puppets ) . Growing out of that mindset, is part of the growing up, beside the biologial changes.
That Haseo x Atoli abridged movie sounds hilarious for reasons beyond common sense. Mostly for Atoli's English VA and mentally ill shipper discourse from other media (thanks Digimon Tamers circa the 2000s)
Awesome video John. Totally worth the wait.
Doing the lord’s work.. Lord Piros
You know thinking about it now i think John took longer making these videos then they took making the games.
this is the best Christmas Gift ever!
Amazing I liked the video without even watching it after watching it I so wish for more
imagine not playing through forest of pain 3 times to get duplicates of all the items to make all characters godlike broken
39:05 As a God Eater once said, “Don’t run away from living!”
Except Lindow isnt going around infecting people with malware that causing eternal slumber and screw up their living hood.
holly shit, ITS BEEN A YEAR!?
Woot the finale!!
8:14
He a real one. He just like me fr fr.
The azure knights promise events are the best. Cuz when you actually think about it, their "obsession" kinda fits.
I remember back when I was young playing the original on PS2. I still have the first 3 vols. The only games alongside the original PS2 series that I had ever 100%. But here I was sitting at home on my old laptop reading up online that Japan got a Vol 4!! But we were never going to get it or it wasn't coming to Canada.
I remember being so sad and also so excited trying to think about how amazing Vol 4 must be. All the crazy and cool stuff that must happen in it. How it will probably be even longer than the 3rd volume.
Smash cut to with the PS4 remake came out and IT HAS VOL 4 oh my god I'm so excited!!!! I waited since my childhood for this! But before I play it I want to play though the rest of the games and 100% them again. So I did. Then it was time to boot up vol 4.... And I swear... In the length of time it took my wife to have a shower, dry her hair and make coffee for us both... It was over. What was maybe 2 hours at most. I was so disappointed in vol 4 that it actually almost ruined my love for the series.
Recently a friend of mine started playing the .hack games and my only response was they are amazing, great story lots of fun. Don't play the last volume.
apparently there's quite a few reasons its basically a glorified bonus feature.
Even in the manga, the series end with Haseo beating cubia, 4th form or Ovan coma back is just fanfict from CCorp at best. Vol.4 is just "Boruto" of .Hack. To make things worst, cant access any side quest or another area in vol.4 is just make it pointless add on.
I'm watching this as a newly sick person. I hope they inevitably make a continuation. The world changed a lot and would be ... kinda cool to see the alt ver of our strange world in this World.
the sakaki is a 10 year old thing stops being so insane when you remember the "plutos kiss incident" thats discussed in imoq's news and board aka the time a random child almost nuked the world by hijacking the us government with a virus- id go into more detail but i feel like thats something you can talk about when you get to IMOQ (the world of dot hack is nuts it starts off by saying in universe it has an os with 100% attach rate)
the mad man finished it
Ive been waiting for this...
the music in these games always hits the feels so strong 😭 I need a remake of the original 4 ASAP!
I haven't played these games in over a decade. But Alkaid IS the objectively correct choice.
best xmas gift ever. now the journey has ended...
This is a nice conclusion to my viewing of your .hack//GU retrospective. I’m glad that you shared your honest takes on the series and I hope you get the time check out the original IMOQ games. Outside of that, I love your videos and how transparent and fair you are.❤❤❤❤
Merry Christmas and have a wonderful new year.
i was expecting everything here, exept Brazil
Please do original series ASAP I just spent the last 2 days watching all of these lol
Pretty sure Online Jack is voiced by Cosmo from The Fairly Odd Parents...? Who was also the janitor from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.
Daran Norris voiced in a lotta rando 6th gen console RPGs and anime back in the day. Drakengard, Tales of Symphonia, and Digimon Frontier were very unexpected roles.
He's also Piros
TOOK TH-cam SIX DAYS TO SHOW ME THIS LET'S ROCK
This retrospective got me considering what these games would've been like if they had been made today instead of on the PS2. Like, would they still have split it into 3 parts, diversified the side quests more, given us more intricate dungeons, had better combat balancing, etc.? It's interesting to think about where they could've taken this had budget and time (and maybe technology) had been better for what they wanted to achieve.
LET'S GOOOOOO
Also Seasons greetings, John.
Trilogy did suck, but being honest, I was deeply fascinated by how it reinterpreted the Atoli deep dive scene and, just, how it decided to skip the plot for funsies. Absolutely mindless hype, which is always nice occasionally. Unfortunate it never got dubbed, that shit would be hilarious.
hell yeah! he's back!
XD Its been forever you fiend!
Well done John. Now rest up.
Absolute cinema.
And so with G.U. finished we can all start looking forward to the superior story (and unfortunately clunky controls) of IMOQ... Aka the .hack// game series that SHOULD have been remastered in the first place.
With it being extremely short, i forgive Vol 4. Ive always seen it as 80% fanservice anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The GOAT.
39:30
Omnimon
They created Omnimon
Oh wow almost missed this
Boutta bing everything now.
damn these chapter got hands
This took forever to come out wow
Back at it
Yeaaahhh... we're not touching the Dot Hack Trilogy with a 10 foot pole if it doesn't do it's job to summarise the previous three chapters... except it's Voi. 1.
Who thought to call this a Trilogy?
NEW PART?, LETS BETTER RE WATCH ALL PREVIOUS ONES FIRST!!
a took my time but now lets watch it and put a nice bow to it, thanks for all your work!
Is it finally done? Time to rewatch from the start, because I forgot everything that happened in the previous videos.
2:56 That's Bo-BoBo!
Dad came back with the milk!
I can’t remember if this is what I asked you for, now I am forever in stasis of perhaps longing and perhaps satiety