I decided to check out this game because I can emulate it and don't have to spend money on Sony products to play it now remember liking the concept of .hack//SIGN when I watched it on Toonami back in the day.
Also, I never could get a hold of the ps2 games in this series. They looked pretty neat, but I have no idea that the gameplay experience was like.
an hour into this game tho...
Why does the intro look like that?
Doesn't match up with the character art for cut scenes...or how the anime looks...or the Link manga...or the models for the game... Kinda wish the game looked like that...but it doesn't...and the contrast is kinda weird because they could have pre-rendered stuff from the game engine, and used character portrait scenes to create a stylish intro that fit the game better.
Why is the hero just RandomAnimeNumbSkull No.533892?
Goku is a great character because he's useful, and means well. Most Goku-like characters just take the part where he tries to eat everything in town in one sitting, and can't follow simple directions that would help to forward the plot without everyone getting a massive migraine.
I'm skipping 90 % of these cut scenes, but I did catch the cliche stupid anime character who's very lovable guys, I swear! pose during one of those filler generation parts of the game(which is most of it, apparently).
I ran into Bear at(I think) a park somewhere in the game. He said if I needed help in the game, I should just ask...And that was the end of our interaction. 😆
That useless piece of dialogue doesn't deter me from thinking Bear would be a much better main fucking character for this game. The gimmick is about connecting the timelines of the series, right? Would have been cool to do that with the SIGN crew leading the way, instead of having me trying to woo Mimiru for better item drops.
Seeing her swing and toss Bear during their team up move would be hilarious.
Why are you drowning me in gameplay mechanics?
Enemies drop stuff? Aight, that's what I expect from a game like thi...
...There's a relationship system that rewards me for building a strong bond with my partners? I don't wanna dunk on lonely game developers, or the people who fiend for this sort of thing, but ser...
...There's also a mechanic that lets us bully an enemy after launching them in the air, turning the fight into a deadly game of hot potato? I initially thought this would get annoying after the first time, but it's really my favorite part of the game. 🔥🥔
Why can I skip individual cutscenes, but not everything that's grouped up?
I swear to whatever the god tier character of this series is, I had to skip over 10 cutscenes before being allowed to access the hub-world after the first mission in the game. I've never seen anything so egregious...Mostly because I don't fuck with modern games.
As of the post date above(or below, depending on what the site looks like when you read it), This PSP title came out 14 years ago, and would be considered retro to some...I was a grown ass man when this dropped exclusively in Japan, so It's not at all retro to me. The flow of this game reaks of modern game design. It's way too hand-holdy, and is loaded with way too many ideas that just wind up slowing things down for no reason.
I'm sure the crap we've gotta do is extremely important...Gotta get to Kite, or whomever else needs their butt kicked around the multiverse...But just shut up for a minute and let me hot potato in peace, bro!
🫴 🔥🥔 🫷
Why are weapons and character accessories locked behind rare drops I have to sell in a shop?
Only reason I played this instead of Phantasy Star Portable is because the mock MMO gimmick was fun, and I'm still kinda mad about the Dreamcast dying over Sony's bullshit hype machine, so I don't wanna play anything PSO related on a Sony system.
It's clear to me now(again, about an hour in) that while the small amount of hacking and slashing I've gotten a feel more is cool, I should just bite the bullet and play an action RPG that isn't too far up it's own story-dominated ass, to push the best aspects of this type of game in the dark and dank corners of a fucking shop, you'll forget exists by the time you get the crap required to buy anything.
I know i'm not being unfair, because I found GameFAQ questions about getting this stuff, and those people were already pretty far into the game. Even if they were playing the raw Japanese version without a fan translation, it stands to reason that repetition breads experience.
This game seems to be bloat based above all else. There's too many tuts at the start, there's too many filler-scenes, there's too many NPC's that would either be better characters to play as, or too useless to warrant talking to. Some of this is a long standing RPG problem, but most is about the 'more is more' mentality of game dev nowadays.
I'm going back to Gauntlet Legends on the Dreamcast. It's the only thing keeping me from ranting over the cell phone inspired email system in this game.
seeing that logo tilt sideways gave me Nokia N-Gage flashbacks, and I never even owned one of those. 🤣