Sword Art Online - But Good | .Hack//G.U. Rebirth Review
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- Опубликовано: 2 авг 2024
- Welcome to Steam Sequence, a series where I attempt to play and review as many Steam games in alphabetical order as possible to sort the Trash from the Treasure.
This means that I'm playing through all the terrible games so that you don't have to. Please enjoy my suffering.
This episode features:
.Hack//G.U. Rebirth
Store Pages:
store.steampowered.com/app/52...
@BandaiNamcoEurope
www.bandainamcoent.com
In case you're wondering, Steam organizes games starting with punctuation first, then numbers, and then the actual alphabet. It may be some time before I reach the letter "A" on my journey!
00:00 Intro
00:30 The Review
47:01 The Verdict
53:46 Outro
Join our Discord server: / discord
Ratings for every game can be found here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
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Outro Music by Approaching Nirvana
/ approachingnirvana
Song: Steampowered
Listen to the song on Spotify: open.spotify.com/track/4OsSqY...
Editing by @TomaszRyszkowski / @taisato2091
Thumbnail by @Fupicat 
Игры
And so, after 43 episodes, we finally get a game that people actually played.
I got so used to all these weird / obscure / hidden indie gems that I literally thought this was a side series, not the newest entry into Steam Sequence.
A side series may happen in the future! But not today.
Today (and for the next few videos), we play a real game for a change. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Same. I skipped them because I thought they were just Graeldon talking about a game he liked, then I realised that the games started with punctuation and so where probably part of the Steam Sequence
When you talk about 'animated' cutscenes vs 'in game cutscenes that use the models and animations', the terms you're looking for are 'prerendered' and 'in-engine'. 'Animated' would usually be used to refer to a change in animation style (i.e. to 2d animation).
That is 100% what I was looking for, dangit. I'll make sure that's in the next video!
@@Graeldon I'm sure your way helped explain it for people who are less technical. Also after an hour, I don't remember where or if you said it like this. but I thought "3d cutscene into other 3d cutscene." was the best joke. Because technically you are right.
>over 50 minutes
Oh yeah. Even you know this is the first Real Game(TM) in the alphabetical series.
NGL, the "online" aspect of the game still great for today standard. like asking stuff in the forum, "saving" image you found in internet, news website that keep changing according to your story progress, making party, etc.
the other good thing from this game is the grinding/leveling. it's not tedious like most RPG because you get more EXP if you defeat enemy that on same level or higher
It still bewilders me that they remastered the second set of games in the series that itself has a full 26 episode prologue anime. The number of people that were clamoring for this must have been literally in the dozens.
Like I'm glad it came out, but Bamco had a lot of faith dropping people into the story like they did after such a hiatus here.
Well, they couldn’t remaster the first set, they lost the source code for those games so if the devs and publisher really wanted to release them they would’ve had to completely remake the games.
Since the franchise is basically dead as the last new game was in 2012 and the last non-spinoff new game was in 2007, it was likely decided that remaking four whole games from the ground up would cost more money than they would get in sales and thus not worth the time.
Atoli's behavior and decisions make a lot more sense once you understand her character. That understanding comes in part 2.
It does, but I can also see why someone who has only played part 1 and not part 2 would feel that part 1 was really lacking in character development.
It would be interesting to know how many people never played part 2 or 3
@@Graeldon You can pretty directly see that in the sales numbers back at the time of their original release- very sharp decline with each part. I imagine it's also the reason they decided to only do three parts this time instead of the four parts they did for the original series, because they already knew the sales drop was coming.
I've at least heard of .Hack before, so this was the first time in this series that I wasn't filled with apprehensive dread and uncertainty about whether or not I was about to witness Graeldon walking into a train wreck before watching the video. I'm not sure how I feel about that, knowing that the game about to be played is at least decent.
It _does_ make me excited for the day when Graeldon finally gets to a game in my Steam library, but that's definitely going to take a long while.
As fun as playing through train-wrecks are, it's nice to play a competent game for a change. Gives me a breath of fresh air before diving back into the unknown soon!
@@Graeldon Yeah, there's only so many dumpster fires one man's sanity can take before you need to take a break.
@@Graeldonmakes sense
‘A long while’ is the understatement of the century. I think he said it would take him 13 years to get to the letter A
.hack is one of my favorite series of all time. Happy to see it get more attention through this great project! ❤
I feel super lucky that this game happens to be in the first section of my journey!
I may be a little bit ahead of... everything, but I just saw a video about a awful, *awful* Steam game called "Shaytan".
It's not too long, but it's awfully unfair, with a horribly hidden item and a complete lack of checkpoints.
So, I though to myself : "What if I spared a *really* nasty surprise to Graeldon the 5th, in 180 years from now ?"
So, here I am : "The second keycard is hidden under a line of books. Don't worry, the game is almost over : the second box puzzle ends the game !"
I love everything about this comment
From what I can tell through this review, I can't help but notice that a lot of the interesting fights happen in the cutscenes. Considering these are actually supposed to be video game fights, that it feels like a missed opportunity and really drives home how this is, as you said, a playable anime despite taking place in a video game world. I feel like if I was really interested in this, then I'd rather just watch the anime than play the games.
They did actually make an anime version of the games. I haven't watched it, though, to see how well it adapts the story.
Yeah, all the coolest fights and moments are reserved for the cutscenes. However, that is also a sign of the time of when the game was created (2006ish). Some games made a better go of it, but as games and tech has progressed, the epic moments have shifted more and more towards the gameplay itself.
Definitely a missed opportunity here, and likely adds to the feeling of watching an anime rather than playing a game
This is the first game I thought of when I saw this series. Seeing well known game appear at the top of the trash pile is an interesting shake up.
I definitely wasn't expecting a game of this caliber to appear before reaching the letter A! I hadn't heard of the .hack series before, so this was surprising
Such a whiplash going from video after video of small projects and crypto scams to experience you talking about a franchise I've been a fan of for like 15 years.
I was honestly expecting an unspoken rule about avoiding AAA (or somewhat majorly produced) games, glad to see a major video like this, great work.
.hack deserved MUCH more western exposure.
I think this is the first time we’re getting to a more well known game series! I’m guessing any trilogy or two-pack games will be reviewed and contribute to the overall total one game at a time.
some will be grouped (as I've done previously on the channel) and some will be split into multiple episodes. The approach will vary from game to game, really coming down to the depth and breadth of the game itself.
As you explained the plot, I was HOOKED!
I loved the concept behind SAO, and this game has a fun interpretation of the "Video Game Goes Wrong" genre.
Holy wow! hello! Thank you so much for the kind words!
If you ever have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I could do to level up my content!
But, to your point, I love the concept behind stories like SAO, but none of them have ever quite scratched the itch they way I wanted them to. Log Horizon got close, but then went a bit off the rails with politics and fan-service. Grimgar was fantastic, but didn't see enough success to be continued - which is a real shame imo.
@@Graeldon
My DM's are always open! And I agree with your sentiment.
I'm so happy you got to this game! .hack was one of my ps2 guilty pleasurers. I remember being in your community and realizing that you would have to play .hack, a more professional game with a large fanbase on the list, so I'm excited to see a long video to do the games justice!
I can definitely see why people enjoyed it, and if I were playing it for myself I would've spent a lot more time playing with the word system and completing some of the side content. Unfortunately, the nature of this series doesn't allow for that =(
There's 2-3 more videos to go before we're done with .hack though!
@@Graeldon Maybe for these types of games you could try a stream or two of said side content if you’re interested. It would be a way for you to experience said content aside from the main goal you set out to do!
This is genuinely my favourite project on youtube at the moment, and I get excited at every video you upload! Keep up the good work, Graeldon!
Thank you for the kind words! It warms my heart and gives me motivation hearing that people are genuinely excited for this series!
I remember getting really angry at the first area battle because I was winning (like destroying them) and then the game acted like I was losing. Then, when it did that a second time I just quit. I hate when games do that. If your going to have an unbeatable boss, maybe actually make them strong?
Forced losses are an unfortunate trope of some of the middling JRPGs. If you want the player to lose, make a harder fight - don't pull the player out of the experience by trying to convince them that they are bad! I am glad I pushed through with this one though, as the story does the heavy lifting for the game in the end
@@Graeldon Golden Sun did them pretty well. Bosses you were supposed to loose to would give you a special item if you managed to beat them, but they were also made actually hard.
@@Graeldon When you have to say this in a review again, ludonarrative dissonance is a term you could use for this
there are 2 sides to this problems, some players HATE loosing in the cutscenes, but a bigf number of people would also just force reset as soon as they die(more common in older games where you could quickly reset the game ) or just hate having a fight that was unbeatable, even if that was story wise meant to be, just as much as people hate "win in game loose in cutscene" moments. .Hack also has the problem that you are.. very easily outmatching every fight and even fights that are meant to be challenging at liek the intended level, are a cakewalk if the player does side content@@Graeldon
I'm probably going to watch this as soon as I wake up. I've been excited for this video all week
Same here!
@@Graeldon There is no shame in not wanting to watch two (three if you count Legend of the Twilight, which isn't worth it) anime and play four PS2 games (that are unnecessarily expensive if you want to play them legitimately) before playing GU. Last Recode has a summary of both anime and the original games; if you haven't gone through those, I'd highly recommend doing so before continuing because they will become increasingly relevant.
Haseo is insufferable in the first game, but his personality improves as the series goes on. The way he acts and the way his friends put up with him being like that is probably my least favorite part of Part 1. I feel like the later two games in this trilogy improve on everything (except the dungeon repetition, I'm sorry to say). But if you're doing side quests, be ready to HATE the goblins :P.
Fun fact: The trading system worked more or less the same in the first series of games, but items weren't level locked, so it was very easy to go grind some low level dungeons, trade early game gear for end-game gear, and coast until the end. I really missed that when I played the GU games :P.
in-universe internet is always such an interesting concept to me, from GTA V to the kinds of hypnospace outlaw and welcome to the game, these always set a mood of activity beyond what the player directly interacts with, makes the world feel more alive
Oh shit I somehow didn't realize you'd get to the .hack// series so fast
I'm a man on a mission, and I'm grateful for every semi-good or above game that comes my way. .Hack has been a treat to play through so far!
Ahhhh .Hack//GU, brings back a lot of good memories, while definitely more niche than its contemporaries, it was still a staple of the PS2 era of JRPGs, it's quite rough around the edges and the story can be pretty cringeworthy in retrospective (the AIDA situation is understandable but those out of the loop are still taking the game WAY too seriously), there's a lot to love about the series.
As for Yuri Lowenthal, yes, his performance as Haseo is great, probably my second favorite out of his "Edge 2000 agressive anime boys" after Gig from Soul Nomad. The issue is, as you mentioned with Sasuke, Yuri is one of those actors who overall don't variate their voice much, so you get this clash that when you hear the character, you don't go "Ah, it's x character", instead you go "Ah, that's Yuri". Probably the only case where I haven't seen that happening was when he played as Chandlo in Bugsnax, didn't realize it was him until I watched the credits roll.
Have now finished the 2nd game, I can see a bit more of why this series has a dedicated fanbase. I'm not putting any spoilers here though!
But yes, while Yuri does a great job, his voice is just a little too distinct that it's hard to detach from some of his more prominent characters.
But I had no idea he was in Bugsnax! That's amazing!
"Sword Art Online - But Good" So true. So damn true!
Cheeseburger Freedom Man? Well, looks like someone is a fan of Vargskelethor.
It for soem reason never crossed my mind that youd play actual real ass video games that anyone heard about
I remember loving .hack//G.U. in high school, I eagerly anticipated the releases of vol.2 and 3. I was excited when the Recode remaster was announced, but honestly trying to play the game again now, I found the combat hadn't aged well, as you pointed out in the video. Its not bad, and thankfully it does get better in the alter volumes, but it's still pretty shallow.
Yeah, the combat is definitely a bit of a let-down, and it's a shame that the sound design doesn't hold up to the enemy/character design or even the music. I think they made 2-3 sets of "monster hurt" SFX and called it a day.
Without spoiling too much, they definitely took the combat in a better direction in vol 2.
I can only imagine what it was like playing through these as yearly releases back in the day, and transferring the save data. Must have been quite a treat!
@@Graeldon I will say that the combat improves further in vol 3, however my biggest gripe is that it took much too long before those improvements came and the combat largely feels like how it did in vol 2 for most of it. I found it interesting you compared it to Tales of Symphonia, however I would argue that, while it's not anything insanely deep, that game manages to have much more nuanced combat by comparison, given that you have to pay attention to how your combos string together. Then again I'm also a huge Tales fan so I'm a bit biased lol.
To be honest, yeah it was very exciting at the time, waiting for each release and seeing the game's story unfold was special in its own way.
The first AAA game on this list! You made it! 🎉
When alphabetical order makes you play a story heavy series out of order, lol. You’re going to be on this series for a while.
EDIT: NM, apparently this is the only .Hack game on STEAM
Thanks for entertaining me with the long video, while I'm playing the terribly boring Starfield.
I'm glad to hear that I can bring more entertainment than Todd Howards latest AAA masterpiece of flawless gaming!
I'm not judging you or anything but could you please answer me this: Why play a game that's boring for you? I just never understood why people do that. For example: I played BG3 and had massive blast in the first 2 acts but in act 3 I felt completely burned out so I dropped it. And while that may not be the best analogy, I still think that it fits enough.
@@BlowBow2 It's the same psychological thing like when you spend money on in-game transactions, your brain tells you that quitting means you have wasted your investments. With games that get boring or tedious, it's the same, but with time instead of money. I finished Starfield now, btw.
You know, I was so in the mindset of you playing indie and random stuff thrown onto the steam store that I completely forgot that actual established and even popular games would be also part of the series. Granted I’ve never played or seen anything on .hack, but from the video and replies it’s obviously well enough known for this collection to have been made and remembered. Makes me start thinking about some of the games I have being eventually covered while still being excited to see what else you find along the way.
oh right I forgot about the dot . this is gonna epic
It's a bigger deal than I thought it would be!
@@Graeldon of course it’s a port of one of the best jrpg ps2 games ever at the time English copies were also really rare in the west. .hack// anime franchise also inspired newer animes like sword art online and Log Horizon among other animes about being inside an mmorpg.
A game from an actual publisher
Yep we struck gold this time
The music is simply incredible. I still listen to the OST regularly.
SAO but good? Absolutely BASED take. I found it bc my name is Ovan and, a quick search led me to one of my favorite videogames AND stories for nearly 4 years now.
Fun Fact: I actually got introduced to this series when I found a cracked copy of it on the open market with the picture of Devil Jin on the front cover. This is the 3rd or 4th game that I had in my ps2 library that only played the 1st and 3rd game skipping over the second, others that I remember are the prince of Persia, sly cooper and Devil may cry.
How did I miss this?! Another great one.
That weapon proficiency thing reminds me how Final Fantasy 9 with how weapons and skills work.
Yo my hyper is immeasurable
I hope I don't disappoint!
Poor Pyros. being the joke through all hack games from begening through end x)
YEAAA i'm so happy the review is out, i've been excited since the stream
It's been a big effort to get it done, and there are still two, maybe three more to go!
This was one of my favorite games when I was a teenager with a PS2. Looking at it now that I'm older and have played a lot more games, I can see how the gameplay is pretty dated. The story however, still holds up. (I haven't played the new "Episode 4" that released with Last Recode.)
Great video and hope you enjoy (or enjoyed) the rest of the series.
I've finished part 2 now, and you'll be able to see my thoughts in a week or two!
I will ben playing episodes 3 and 4 as well, so look forward to those eventually. I have heard that part 4 is more of an epilogue than an actual game though, only a couple of hours long.
@@Graeldon I'm hoping when you played part 2, you gave some of they mechanics you didn't like or felt they weren't fleshed out enough another chance. For instance, you complained about the Steam Bike (and I won't disagree), but the later games improve on it.
Really, the three games when taken together feel like three discs to one game, much like how FF 7-9 had to do things.
By the way, there is a sort of "post-game" to Volumes 1 and 2. There's a superboss that's available throughout the entire game, where you're only intended to be able to stand a chance against it in post-game because it scales not to your level, but to always be a higher level than you, and you need it to hit the level cap before you can fully catch up and stand half a chance. You can fight him in all of the games, and each game gives you unique equipment (in some occasions, multiple unique equipment so you have to hunt him multiple times) that is game-breakingly powerful in the Volume you get it in, and equivalent to mid-game or early-late-game gear in the next Volume.
Finally watched all the steam sequence videos and caught up LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO
well done, that's a lot of content to watch! I'm glad you're enjoying it!
GF recommends a funny new creator to watch that goes into the kind of in-depth analysis I like, but focused on more niche titles and games that might be unseen. I feel the need to write down exactly how the first five minutes went.
0:01 : "Okay, .Hack, title's spittin facts- let's see where this goes."
2:00 : "Man he's well spoken. This is actually pretty great, ngl."
3:44 : "BANDAI WHAT"
okay now to watch the rest of this video with the missus, but man that was unexpectedly funny.
Sorry if my pronunciation is a bit off, I blame my weird Aussie accent XD
Glad you have been enjoying the video though! I think your GF has good taste ;-)
@@Graeldon I'm just teasing! The video was great, and I'm working my way through the playlist with the missus. So far, it's been really fun to watch, though I don't envy you on some of the games you're playing for the series, ahah
I've been waiting so long for this!
I hope it was worth the wait!
After stumbling on your Arcane Raise video a couple weeks ago, I've made my way through the entire Steam Sequence thus far, and after finally catching up, all I have to say is a big "Bravo!" You've found a unique, interesting idea, gave it high-quality presentation from the start, and made each video, each possible discovery a joy to watch. Watching your journey gives me a certain wonderful feeling of innocent, pure joy of discovery that I haven't felt since I stumbled upon Summoning Salt's Super Metroid video and then watched the rest of his then-current library what must have been at least four years ago. Here's to the rest of this one-of-a-kind journey, and I already can't wait for the Reminisce review in the future. See you around.
Thank you so much for the kind words! It's comments like these that give me the drive to keep pushing onwards ❤️
Hell yeah 1h review
Please Bamco, please please PLEASE remake the IMOQ games. I love G.U. - with some gripes with the remake - but IMOQ are peak. These aren't perfect games, but they are mine. And also, god IMOQ adds SO much context to G.U. It's kinda super interesting to see someone who doesn't know the games.
Also, the remake makes the game a lot easier. You get a LOT more exp from this version. Otherwise gotta disagree on a lot of the gameplay parts. Though, I hated FFX so there's that, definitely lacking next to 6/9/12/15.
ωRICE is best .hack character.
We'll have to agree to disagree! The combat is enjoyable in .hack, but having just finished part 2, I can say it does thankfully get better. Part 1 just felt way too basic to me.
FF6 is great, FF9 is okay but too convoluted and easy to break the combat system, I can't comment on 12 yet (unplayed) and I wasn't a fan of FF15's combat, I never felt truly in control, and it was very floaty.
FF10 was just solid, tactical turn based gameplay.
However, I know people that refuse to EVER play a turn-based combat game, and on a certain level, I understand why. It's not for everyone.
Wow didn't expect a Vargskeletor reference here.
The next game after this one that I own is '10 Second Ninja', so it's going to be a bit before you get to another game I've even heard of :P.
Might be some time next year? We should be into the first of the numbered games by the end of the year
10 Second Ninja is also in my Steam library, just before 100% Orange Juice. I never actually played it yet, but I added it to my library during a free-to-keep promotion, and it looked decent enough when I looked at a gameplay video of it. Maybe I'll actually play 10 Second Ninja myself for a bit when Steam Sequence eventually reaches it.
I do wonder how much if the problems of the game are due to when the game(s) are made.
More than likely quite a few are. Game design has come a long way since 2006!
"Atoli is too much of a people pleasure."
Ohohohoho boy. If only you knew.
It's great that I discovered you late. Now I don't have to wait to watch the 2nd and 3rd volume. I wonder if you will comment about your comment in this first volume on your second volume vid.
this sounds wild im intrigued to see the plot of the next games
Thanks for the video :)
I didn't quite finish this game and I'm not sure why as I got to the Magus fight hmmm. Great video, I loved the original games a lot, shame they're not on steam :)
It is odd that the G.U. Trilogy got the remaster treatment, but the original series (I think it was a quadrilogy?) didn't get the same love
Allegedly they lost the source code and that game had a totally different world and combat system.
Square Enix did it for the KH Remasters due to stuff like DDD, but yeah I'm DYING to relive my 10 year old era with a redone set of those 4 games@@Graeldon
51:21 just from my memory of box art, I’m pretty sure he’s the protagonist of the first game but evil now for some reason
You’re half right, it’s not the protagonist themselves, but it is their character data being used by (spoiler character) for (spoiler reasons).
There’s actually a really cool save bonus tied to this that’s lost in the remaster, if you had save data from the first set of games, the name of the evil protag would change to the name YOU gave them in those games.
man i cant wait for when he gets to bigger and better games, this is by far the best game reviewed!
5:45 That actually because of an old hardware limitation. Ps2-era games had to load sound files individually during the cutscene, as opposed to modern hardware being able to pre-load all that stuff. At least, that what I’ve heard is the reason, I may be misremembering.
Really great review, also glad you could come to enjoy it for being more of an anime game than a game anime lol. The story of the .Hack series is really where its strengths lie. G.U. improved on a lot of the repetitive frustrating gameplay beats the quadrility before it brought to the table, but even then it's just kinda meh and very similar to the Tales of games.
The devs actually are really close to the Tales of Symphonia devs actually! Theres a few cameo costumes of Haseo and Ovan in later Tales of games and Haseo and Atoli appear in one of their mobile tales of games so the inspiration or possibly even just the fact a lot of the devs probably worked on the tales games definitely impacted how this game was built. Another fun little tidbit with all the Naruto comparisons, yeah the studio behind this is actually the ones behind the Naruto fighting games (and a lot of other anime fighting games like Jojo, Dragon Ball, etc) so they DEFINITELY had Naruto on the mind when designing the characters. Most the ONLY games CC2 is allowed to work on being anime games sadly. They clearly want to continue making .hack// games but the anime games are where they're making money from while .Hack// is more a passion project they can do occasionally whenever Namco Bandai actually lets them use the IP. They even confirmed in an interview a long while ago that the main character of the first 4 games, Kites design was inspired by Naruto, and G.U. kinda in a way is like the reverse to the first 4 since Skeith and all that were the main antagonists so I guess it's only natural to base Haseo off Sasuke.
Really curious to know your thoughts on Reminisce, I really think the story got really good in that volume and is possibly the peak of the series. Just keep in mind if you stick with it the 4th game really isn't a 4th game and is like 30 minutes of cutscenes interspaced with gameplay and really shouldnt have been labelled a new volume LOL. And the Avatar battles do become a little more regular in future volumes but uh... your mileage may vary cause I tended to hate the Avatar battles more than general battles with how slow and monotonous they felt.
G.U. has its problems. The AI is kind of weird at times and there are some design choices that could be trimmed or reworked.
Narrative wise this set of games has some of the best character development I’ve seen in a video game. So many characters go through their own personal journey with the themes between them all is in the title. While G.U. Does not have an actual meaning behind it to me the themes are about Growing Up.
How people grow and learn from their experiences. How they handle things that reflect the things that people go through every day. Especially in this digital age that this game mirrors in a way. A lot of what this game predicted actual became reality like Internet personalities and VR headsets
Overall this video was amazing, very objective, and I hope that going into the next parts that you enjoy the series as many have before you :)
This is gonna be a banger
I hope you enjoyed it!
I know it's a long way off but I'm pretty excited for you to reach an. There's an interesting little game that is called analogue: a hate story that is basically equal parts visual novel and data archival simulator, where you trawl through digital diaries and memos of an old colony ship trying to find out what exactly happened. Its a little confusing if you aren't familiar with Korean naming conventions and certainly isn't perfect but it has poked back up in my head for 5 years and wil likely keep doing so
I feel like I've heard of that one before - maybe I spotted it as I was browsing through the upcoming games for interesting ones. I love getting into games with unique mechanics and game ideas
Ayyyyyy I just got this game!
Prepare for spoilers if you decide to watch!
Ooh, I didn’t realize this was a CyberConnect2 game. Love those guys
Read circular sunglasses with wrapped arm who uses a large handgun? That’s a Vash the Stampede!
Can say got half way through the review and decided to play the game myself cause I owned it. This game from what I played so far is what I call being simple and not trying to hide it. Although the can I feel is somewhat simplistic and too easy it can work as a gateway into rpgs I feel. Simple story, simple game play and in general good at being simple. Hopefully to finishing this game soon and maybe giving the second part a try. Also I can say the best part is the forum stuff for how interesting some of them are for world building.
yo been watching your videos for a while now, i played that game back in the day and the remake as well, lemme give you some pointers:
- every entry forces you on a tournament arc, faill proof way to beat it, only use your weapon arts to counter someone else's (and if someone is targeting you in the target selection, target them), while you can be countered the world stops during your animation, so as long as you've reached your target, you're safe, you can also do that to anyone using magic
- almost no one knows of tri-edge, only G.U. and people who are directly related to AIDA that's why piros the third goals sound so dumb, he isn't aware of the coma situation, part of G.U.'s job is to keep things under wraps
- the game will improve over the next releases because if you analyze the time comparisons you made you will that the trilogy would make one whole jrpg time-wise, because the idea from the start was to make one game over 3 releases
- the dungeon you hated for being a puzzle which they gave you the answer and then re-used, that was the point, not to give the player a challenge, but for haseo being unwillingly trained by antares, the guy knew the dungeon ahead of time and tought haseo (against his knowledge) on how to beat it
- piros the 3rd is a nod from the previous trilogy where there was a player called piros the 2nd
- piros the 3rd is a cg nerd trying to protect the graphics, tri-edge isn't "graffiting" the game, he is actually destroying the 3d models that make the world, he can engange with the world's physical aspects instead of activating the in game mechanics like when a player attacks, he actually can destroy his target's data, that's why his marks stands out so much
Can't wait for one day to see him reach series like like atelier or trails.
That’s sword art online login animation. Make sure there’re no death trap
Yuri Lowenthal is also the VA of Teen Ben10
Loved ben10 as a kid!
6:21 he also voices half of all animated characters in existence
I recommend checking out the .hack//SIGN anime and the original 4 games (Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, Quarantine) after you get through these as those two will make aspects of G.U.'s story and some of it's characters stronger, for instance why Endrance is fighting for "Her" makes a heck of a lot more sense if you play the original games. Though I'd highly recommend emulating them over trying to buy them as the 4th game easily goes for over $250 last I checked. I'm hoping in vain for a remaster/remake of these games at this point.
Anyway SIGN is basically part one of that story while the games are part 2 of that story. This first series is also more of a mystery than a more Shonen like story like G.U. is, it was penned by the screenwriter for the Ghost in the Shell movie so if you like that movie you'll probably like this first series. The artist for Evangelion also did the character designs which is pretty cool. This series was ridiculously ambitious and had a lot of pedigree behind it back in the day.
G.U. does have the Roots anime that acts like part 1 of it's story as well which covers the events that happen in that 8 month time skip at the beginning of the game, but I don't exactly recommend it much as G.U. is pretty good at getting you up to speed post that time skip. That anime also loves wasting your time with a bunch of pointless side characters as well. Just be ready for that if you decide to watch that anime.
SIGN is a slow burn and I affectionately call it slideshow the anime because of how low budget it was, but it's worth going all the way through to enrich the story of the games that follow it which can also be a slow burn themselves. I'm not going to say the first 4 games are less repetitive than G.U., but I think they're a heck of a lot more fun than G.U. is. They're also a heck of a lot more BS in terms of difficulty as well so be prepared for that too. The final boss of the first game in particular is easily the most BS fight in the entire series. Just realize that there is no cooldown for using healing items in these games, and you can use them between his one shot attacks. That makes that fight a heck of a lot more manageable.
Anyway they have what I consider a very early prototype Xenoblade like combat system where status effects and elemental weaknesses play a way more important role than they do in G.U. This alone makes these games significantly more fun the G.U. IMO. Each area you go too has a field and a dungeon to explore which is so much better than what G.U. did with it's areas it's not funny. There's a bit more variety with these as well, but the basic goal for each area is to get to the bottom of the dungeon and either collect big treasure chest or watch a cutscene to progress the story.
The same check your emails to progress the story structure is there, but thankfully the main character doesn't awkwardly say "I've got to go check my emails" every time you come back from a dungeon, and it'll give you a notification you have mail instead. Each game is also way shorter, less than 10 hours each, than the G.U. games are so you can pretty much treat all 4 games as one big game unlike G.U. where each game pretty much acts like it's own game with it's own story arc.
Also you don't need to read the light novels and manga to understand the story of the games and anime. A lot of them are actually What if retellings of the games themselves so you're basically experiencing the same story from the games, but told differently. Like if you can't play the original 4 games the Another Birth Light novel series is a great alternative to playing those games and is told from Blackrose's perspective instead of Kite's perspective. Heck I'd argue vol 3 and 4 of that light novel series do a better job at telling the story of those games and actually made me tear up pretty bad by the end.
There are also a couple side stories that I can recommend if you decide to get into this series more. AI Buster and Legend of the Twilight Bracelet's Manga go together and I highly recommend reading both. Don't watch the anime for the latter as it's pure cancer though. I really liked the Cell light novels which are about a random character that showed up in the Roots anime for an episode.
From the 3rd series I highly recommend the Quantum OVA and The Movie (Beyond the World) as they're pretty good standalone entries. I cannot recommend Link outside of just watching the cutscenes as if you think G.U.'s gameplay is repetitive you don't know what repetitive is until you've played Link. Not to mention it's all basically truncated and butchered retellings of the entire series because it's a psuedo time travel game with an annoying fanboy main character. Also f**k Thanatos Report it left the series on a horrible cliffhanger and kind of ruins the happy ending the movie that came before it had.
Also CyberConnect2 has a lot of other original IP games beyond .hack that I highly recommend checking out as well. Tail Concerto, Silent Bomber, Asura's Wrath, Solatorobo and their current Fuga series are all great. It's honestly a shame that they're more known for their Anime games than these gems and .hack nowadays.
Only 106 hours for Elden Ring? My play time fiercely disagrees with that.
the numbers were taken from Howlongtobeat.com which I find is generally pretty accurate.
It actually estimates 57.5 hours for a normal playthrough, and about 105 if you play the majority of the side content as well.
Enjoying the series so far, but I'd like to offer a small piece of criticism: I would have preferred that you cut a bit (or more) of the plot summary. This video felt more like a plot summary than a review. Just my two cents.
Totally fair comment! I'm going to work on being more succinct for the next one, but I still want to recap as much plot as possible, especially considering that a lot of core mechanics will be re-used. I did actually leave out a reasonable amount of stuff, but left enough to be able to understand the core of the story.
I'll take on board the feedback though and work to improve the next video!
@@Graeldon makes sense! I know how ridic these anime games can be in terms of plot, so I sympathize.
Now I can't wait for you toget sucked into the rabbit hole that is the Trails series. A long way off at this point, but the series is still ongoing anyway.
I'm curious - will you be going back in the alphabet periodically to see if new games get added to Steam once you're past certain letters?
As a person who has actually played (some of) the Sword Art Online video games (at a steep discount for obvious reasons), I certainly gotta agree with the video title, not gonna lie.
It came far before sao
3:41 BandaiNamco is the publisher, not the developer
Never played the games but loved the anime.
I'M RIGHT HERE!!!
Burn it into your eyes!
SKEEEEEEEEEEEEITH!
Welcome to "The World", I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story. My personal favorite is the next volume, Reminisce.
Actually I think that's a lot of the fanbase's favorite, really...... Anyway have fun with Reminisce, Redemption and Reconnection !
I'd assume the awkward voice acting is related to the same reason it's often awkward when dubbing anime (older ones, specifically). The Japanese voice lines went on longer than the English ones and they didn't have the means to delay or, in this case, speed up the scene/subtitles. Often times, the voice actors just try to match up their lines with the lip flaps but the game using in-engine scenes that don't move the mouths probably made the feat of localizing much easier and less hoop-jumpy. Except when it used rendered scenes. Then, we got awkwardness again. There may have been some thoughtful reason for the cutscene styles, but it's more likely it was a budget constraint rather than a "think of the dubbers!" reason.
Day 26 of waiting for Celeste
It's gonna take a while.
I totally forgot, despite playing the series years ago, that the title has the dot at the start
He looks like Vaan from Final Fantasy 12 XD
As someone who loves anime style games but never really got into anime (by anime games, I mean Tales and Trails and such), Yuri Lowenthall is a name I’m familiar with in a lot of other places, just not Sasuke. Yosuke, Luka from Bayonetta, or for a more obscure and…special case, the final voice for gaslighting @$$hole Kevin Winnicott from Xenosaga.
A lot of English Dub voice actors seem to be quite prolific. Most stick to Anime though, or games directly tied to said Anime. So good on Yuri for branching out!
@@Graeldon Yeah, Yuri’s a particularly notable one, but he’s hardly the first VA I’ve come across who’s done tons of both video game and anime roles. Seems more like the norm than just locking themselves to specific series; look into the VA list for a Tales game (the series has anime versions, but are games first), see if you recognize anyone.
Probably the most obscure connection I’ve made: Xenosaga has a kid party member named Jr (a bit more complicated, let’s leave it at that). Probably one of my favorite characters in that series…enough that I instantly recognized his voice in a kid in Blue Exorcist’s beach episode.
47:17 uh, Harvest Moon got put on the RPG list?
Do you plan to go back and cover new games behind where you are, because that would make this basically infonote
The japanese dub also has the same wierd pauses in dialogue scenes albeit less noticable.
Fay 38 of waiting for Celeste
5:26 in-universe too
Judging by the fact that I’m halfway through and it’s still game 1, I’m guessing you’re not doing all 4. Or are you doing those in subsequent videos?
Nope, We're doing all 4! Second part is in works, and i think the third and fourth games will get covered in the 3rd video. That's atleast the plan for now
@@taisato2091 thanks! Are you an editor or something btw?
@@andreworders7305yeah i'm an editor since ...knew the beginning video
45:22 wait, is t that dude the protagonist from the earlier games?
If/when you get to any games whose direct sequels come first alphabetically, will you just have to figure out what happened in the first game before you play it?
If they are on Steam as separate products, they'll be played in alphabetical order.
The Assassin's Creed series should be fun!
I think it's always interesting to see how well a game holds up if you're starting in the middle of a franchise.
I had this for ps2 but i dont think i ever played it
So it seems like the sequels are really just same game, but it was released in parts for some reason
Of "edgy '00s game protagonists", Haseo is probably the most unique. Between his complex backstory spanning from R:1 to R:2, his range of weaponry and his character development as a commentary on online relationships, he's got an identity that very much transcends his initial concept springboard as a Sasuke clone to Kite's Naruto clone.
Why don’t they just report the antagonist for hacking, lol.
Within the story, it’s explained that the player they’re looking for is untraceable. Basically they definitely exist but the servers don’t register that, so there’s no user data to ban.
So how do respawns work? Player Killing wouldn’t really be all that annoying unless there is some sort of item loss.
11:02 Tales had fighting game combat at one point? That sounds kind of awful. Glad they went back to RPG battles.