Playstation 2 - Hack//Infection

Format
Playstation 2
Publisher
Bandai
Developer
Cyber Connect
Country of origin
Japan
Genre
RPG

(dot)Hack//Infection

By David Rasmussen
20th Mar 05

The (dot)hack "quadrilogy".
The four part PS2 video game trilogy spanning from Infection to Quarantine.
This is Part 1, Infection, the beginning.

It all started off when you were invited to play in "The World" by your friend Orca... yes, oddly enough there's another Orca a few years later... but that one is a female character... maybe it's best not to think too hard about it, just in case.

Anyway the "World" has been around for awhile. It's been a few years since the Twilight incident some years back with the boy who was (in fact) a girl, Tsukasa, and the strange events that was told in (dot)hack//SIGN (the Anime series). As the story opens a few still remember the incident, but not many, and if the corporation behind the "World" has it's way then nobody will remember that bad time.

Too bad it looks like what the mega corpos want just won't be happening as the bad old times are coming back once again. After your friend and you run into a mysterious ghostly girl (Aura) and a strange entity wielding a red staff that is chasing her, your friend Orca ends up in a coma... yes, the same coma that was taking players out during (dot)hack//SIGN.

You want to investigate the mysterious girl, the strange figure with the red staff, and later the strange "bracelet" that Aura tried to pass onto Orca, but ended up giving to you. The Bracelet, which can rewrite the data of enemy viruses ("Data Drain") seems to be the same attack that "drained" your friend Orca, but what is the connection between this and the strange entity that attacked him?

Who is the mysterious girl Aura, and why did she seek you out? And what is this strange cryptic message (in gibberish but I figured the gist of it after playing for awhile) about her wanting to be born again?
What about the strange Book of Twilight? What is that about?
And why is it the very corporation who should be helping you solve this case (and save their paying customers) are going out of their way to hinder you, maybe even so far as make you an outlaw in "The World"? One thing is certain, you can't do this alone... and before this game is over you won't be alone.

But this is only the first chapter, with three more chapters to go things are looking up despite the fact you are nowhere near to finding solutions... but at least you'll get by with a little help from your friends.

If you've heard the hype about (dot)hack you've probably wondered if it's true, well I can say without a doubt that the hype is all it's cracked up to be! The game is good! Gameplay is solid, the action intense, the graphics and music are top notch, the cut scenes are beautiful, the story is engaging and keeps you playing to uncover more and more, and even the extras (unlocked as you play and viewed from your "main screen" when you're "offline" from "The World") are great. There is very little about this game that is bad.

Combat is quite unique. As you engage your enemies you can either chose to rush up and slash with your weapon, rush up and choose a special attack attached to your weapon which deals out damage but drains magic, or attack at a distance with magic attacks.
The choices for attacks, defense and healing changes with each and every piece of equipment you attach to yourself! Even a choice like armor, glove or boot can somehow change your lineup of available moves which means you can access different things with different stuff... for easy reference you just need to swap out your armors for different offensive magics so keep at least several armors on hand for swapping so you have access to different offensive magic types, same with your weapon (several twin blades should be on hand to access different attack moves of different elemental types.)

Elemental types are important. Match up your attack with an enemies weak point and you'll wear them down faster, so paying attention to their type (what type they are or immune to) can go a long way towards getting you the heads-up on dealing with them on a creature by creature basis.

Another plus is the ability to create your own levels using keyword combinations to create fields from the Chaos Gate. Don't worry, as you play you'll be given information on how to make your own fields so keep an eye out for that.

Voiceover work is doubly good because you can hear the entire game in either English or Japanese EXCEPT when looking over old cut scenes from previous games... sadly you'll have to be playing the game in question (or have it in the PS2) in order to hear it in Japanese. If you are playing, say, Mutation and want to relive your cutscenes from Infection you'll have to have Infection in otherwise it's English only.

There are lots of side quests, many being important since they get you in touch with much needed allies you'll need to get through this game, or gets you items or even Virus Codes you need for gate hacking... yeah, sometimes the side quests are just there for fun but those are cool too.

The only problem I have with this game is that it's too short. In comparison to other RPGs I've played it was way too easy to get through Infection. And without a difficulty setting there's just no way to change the difficulty of the game... but then again with the ability to customize levels you can create your own "difficulty" levels, so to speak.

Still the story is short, and you'll need to get ahold of Mutation (Part 2) in order to continue. But once you do that you can transfer your game data from this one to Mutation and carry on where you left off.
And hey, this game even comes with a DVD featuring a unique (dot)hack Anime called "Liminality" which ties into the game, so that's another plus to having this game if I ever saw one!

So play this game hard, and work your way to Part 2, because you're going to find that (yes) despite the fact it's abit short on story (guess that's the tradeoff for all the loaded extras and great gameplay and so forth) it's tall on playability and just plain fun.

Oh, one more thing. Try to be at at least Level 25 when you move on. That's about the right place for you and your allies to be when you roll into Mutation from my experience with the game.

(dot)hack Breakdown//Infection
What's Hot? - It's good. The game is quite addictive, you can't stop playing once you are on a roll, and there's nothing negative at all about the whole experience. Yes, the game is short, and yes... I didn't like Grunty raising... but heck those two things are small considerations in comparison to the solid gaming experience you have here. And when you combine all four games together to form one massive playing experience you can see why the (dot)hack quadrilogy is well worth having in your collection.

Now I heard there's supposed to be an Online version coming of (dot)hack, which means it looks like BANDAI might be tinkering with creating a real "World" for players to enjoy. I don't know if that's true or not but it would be interesting... except for me since I don't play online. I'd just like it if they came out with another game that allows me to use my info from Quarantine and continue on where I left off.

What's Not? - Shorter than most RPGs it seems as if this game might be hindered by this, yet I don't see any problem with it being a tad short... except maybe in the pocketbook. Having to buy ALL FOUR GAMES in order to experience the whole world of "The World" might not be the most cost effective thing you ever heard of... but since it's been awhile and you can find the entire series for sale "previously played" at any good Blockbuster (or for a lower price online) you should be able to get the games at a more decent price now, which is good since the game is great and worth owning the entire series.

Now if BANDAI would only bundle a (dot)hack complete set and a (dot)hack//Liminality DVD then even more people will be able to experience this series in it's full and complete state!

Moments to Remember? - Now there's a long laundry list of things! The game has lots of life, energy, interesting moments and great characters. Unlike (dot)hack//DUSK (Legend of the Twilight) which tried to beat the joy out of itself with it's venture into the serious side, this game manages to keep quite abit of whimsy and fun along with the serious storyline which makes it memorable for all the right reasons. The right combination of fun with serious storytelling in this game is excellent, unlike what they did in (dot)hack//DUSK which just doesn't work for me.

What to Ignore? - How much for that Grunty in the server? What? You don't care? Me neither.
Grunty raising is the worse, especially since you need to locate LOTS and LOTS of food in order to raise a well rounded (and useful) Grunty which might be hard since you need to travel to the four corners of "The World" just to find these edible things, and do that often since you need to stock up on a lot of edibles since the game doesn't seem to believe in having a Grunty Food Mart available so you don't have to go through all the trouble of traveling from level to level just to find Oh No Melons or Golden Eggs!
By the time Grunty Racing came about I lost all interest in Grunties. They're a pain in the rear and not worth the time and effort to manage. Sheesh! Ignore! Ignore!

Overall? - The pros of this game vastly outnumber any few complaints, and even the Gruntys (who are as troublesome and a pain to raise as the Chocobos of Final Fantasy) can't dampen my spirits when it comes to this game. It's just plain good, and you should be playing this! A gaming tour-de-force worth owning, and a game series worth playing.

NOTE - In a week or two I'll have my review of (dot)hack//Mutation, the second chapter of the (dot)hack quadrilogy... once I finish playing it though. Stay tuned.

-- David Rasmussen 20th Mar 05

Playstation 2 Hack//Infection Images