Data Hacker: Initiation

Game so I good I bought it after trying it pirated.

This JRPG features a unique idea – a singleplayer game that takes place inside an MMORPG. Your hero, a hacker named Jay, was just banned by admins of the “Online World” game (there’s a moral lesson in this – hacking online games will get you banned!), but of course that’s not going to stop him from creating a new identity and diving into the game again – and on his quest to gain more power, he soon gets involved in a mystery of players vanishing from the online world, and the real one too. Gameplay-wise, it could be considered as an above-average JRPG with typical combat system, multitude of skills and one non-typical mechanic: instead of defeating your opponents for experience, you can try to “hack” them and convert them to data to sell for good money instead (not to mention that you can add more characters to your team this way). There are diverse “dungeon-worlds” available to explore and purge; their difficulty varies, so you need to be careful to venture only in those that you can handle with your level, skills and equipment. This can get a bit grinding at times as you need to level up your characters to be able to survive in hard-difficulty environs, but then again, that’s what you often have to do in “real” online games, right? “Data Hacker: Initiation” is actually the first part of the Datastream saga (of three games in total), but even as a stand-alone it provides many hours of fun, and can be recommended to all fans of the JRPG genre.

Yah this game is not good..like at all. IS it better then other RPG maker games yes. Unlike Sheild Hero Relive the animation it does not cost 30 bucks. You can buy all 3 cames for under 20 dollars. For waht you pay it is not that bad. If you want a good story about hacking and MMO's please play the steam port of .hack//GU if you have a modern day PC.

The game is kind of long and longer then what your expect from a Steam RPG. YOu have lots of grinding and annoying fetch quests. The story is also tooken from .hack.

Data Hacker is a solid but at times tedious game I personally enjoyed most of my time with it but there was a point where it became very focused on needing to farm data cores to continue what is that well basically at the beginning of the game you get a skill called data hack that be used to get ether party members or cores but the problem with this is most of the time it won't work and instead place a random buff/debuff on ether you or the enemy I certainly couldn't find a way to improve my chances of getting a core but if there was one I'd probably be a lot happier with the game but as it stands I'm not going to continue with the series which is a shame because it looked like a promising one unfortunately the creator gets even heavier with the core idea in the sequel using it for everything so with a fair bit of sadness I'm giving this one a 4/10

I enjoyed this game mostly for the story and setting. It's kind of a sad game, even in the less down of its two possible endings, but not in a bad way. It was a good idea for the developer to let people get different endings on different playthroughs on the same save game, especially since one of the achievements requires one of them (for those that care about such things).

If you want to have a game that still have bugs in it, and no Quicksaves, well here it is. Spent my hours farming and grinding, game crashed and the after reloading the game, clicking "Continue" at the Menu. I loaded on the start of the game.

I just want to point out that, in the chicken race, since nobody posted this yet, if you go to the opposite side of the track and jump out above the wall, you'll be a chicken, and to turn back into your normal self. Just talk to NPC who manage the chicken race. Then race again. That's how "bugged" the game is. Or it's just the developers making some jokes.

Tags: Topdown - RPGMaker & Party RPG
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: Poorly implemented mechanic obfuscated by decent concept. Poor craftsmanship. Limited audience. Loses traction fast.

This RPGMaker game, I can surmise by the intro, has a concept in which an AI/Aliens/Beings from another dimension can actually wipe out humans from within some sort of VR MMO, erasing them from realities. You, as a MMO hacker, are the only hope... then the game starts taking itself seriously and gets boring.

The initial setup is great, there are quite a few references to MMO culture, the droprate of items, drunk with power MMO moderators, seasonal events... Unless you have played such games you are unlikely to get the references, and if you did play such games, then you have already experienced first hand how these things go and this game has little more to offer than a nod and a laugh. Which is good but hardly worth the time, HDD space, or library clutter.

Due to the hacker nature of the game. The developper did not bother really balancing or ffiguring out which classes have which skill tree, instead allowing you to purchase any skills you want. It works with the concept but comes across as incompetent and lazy. Especially since in the intro your friend who isnt a hacker also has menus for all kinds of skills he should not have access to as a knight. There are also real technical issues like the inability to summon the menu early game, which forced me to shut down the computer to exit.

Decent enough game. You can tell the dev (yes, only one person) spent a lot of effort making this.

I caught this on sale for $.59 and got at least that much entertainment out of it.
Though, balance is *waaaay* of in some places.

Example: This one map only has two enemies, both give the same xp. One is killed in one turn, the other takes 10 turns.
Another example, before you get to "dungeon 9" warehouse, I always felt extremely under powered with no way to improve, and at 139 xp per kill and needing 10,000+ to level, it just wasn't feesible to level. Esp considering leveling only gives +1 or 2 to each stat. Dungeon 8 mobs are a BEAST to kill and yielded 139 xp. Dungeon 9, warehouse, reasonable easy to kill, yielded 800+ xp. Ya, it just jumps that much AND is drastically easier. Prior to level in warehouse, there were quite a few mobs that could kill any member of my party in TWO hits. So, I had to rely on luck that the enemy died before that, as revive materials are *very* rare and are not purchasable.

It can be enjoyed if you find it on sale under $1. I *highly* recommend using the free guide the dev made (though it's severely lacking to be considered a full guide... it does have enough to help when you get lost.)

For a JRPG based on grinding, this game has an awful pacing. By the time you reach endgame locations with beefcake enemies you will find out that you are severely outlevelled. Like LVL50 instead of 70+. Then you find out that enemies here and 10 locations (and 20 levels) before give pretty much the same amount of XP, same low amount of it. Then you find out — in a guide — that you were supposed to revisit some locations to get a special type of character for an otherwise empty fourth slot, and now you have to level that character as well. Useful equipment is almost nonexistent, which doesn't help.
I can see a lot of work that devs put in the game, yet it's not enough to keep struggling with a playthrough.

Let me preface this review by saying, even though the main character in Data Hacker is named Jay, I have no connection to the game whatsoever. I'm also not blind to the problems this game has. I will say though if this game allowed me to name my own character, I would've used Jay anyway. So it did help with my immersion in a way, though I will say one thing imagination is what allowed me to have enjoyment in this game.

It's been a very long time since I visited this game, but the main story of the game is that your avatar is "banned" for hacking in an online game, where Jay decides to find out the meaning behind his wrongful ban. This time with the use of hacks, in an ironic way. Data Hacker Initation is a RPG Maker game, it's very obvious with the use of many textures and character potraits. If this will bother you, you should avoid this game and its sequel.

Data Hacker tries to create an atmosphere of an online environment using terms like logging in, for when certain players come into different areas. The characters (players) are well aware of the level that each player has. In fact there are allusions to like tutorials and events that this world once held. There's a card game within the game, which is like Triple Triad in Final Fantasy, I believe Data Hacker calls it Riorach. You can lose cards since you basically gamble them away just like Triple Triad does in FF. Your card collection could be sold for currency and you can buy some cards, but it'll take a while before you have the option of even getting the chance to. You can only battle certain players for each type of cards and Riorach is very different than Triple Triad - I would consider looking up a guide for it. It's very probablity based as well, though there is some strategy. The cards do transfer over through save files between this game and its sequel if you're concerned.

Getting onto the game's most focal point - hacking. Jay uses hacking to be able to speed up his progress as he befriends another hacker. There is a party system in play right? Just like in some online games you can create a party. However not everyone wants to join a party so freely, especially since there are some guilds and there are people already in parties. So you have the option to hack monsters when they get weak enough. Similar to catching a Pokemon, you can weaken a monster and you have the option to hack that monster (though keep it in mind there needs to be only one monster left within the battle). When you hack a monster there is a chance to have a teammate created, which you can control or otherwise through an auto-battle equip. Whether you choose to control this teammate directly or not they are given a class, which can be upgraded. You can upgrade them with a specific item that is difficult to find, and if you want to find that item you'd probably have to use the PDF guide that this game has. You probably have to use Google, but this game and its sequel. There are a lot of secrets in this game that actually are really really hard to find without a guide. I don't use it often but for one thing there are NO allusions to what class is being changed, what class there were, and what you need for a specific class. This is a really big negative for against the game. There are a lot of things where you would have no clue about if you didn't look up this guide, the game makes no hint towards them. There are a couple of sidequests where you don't have to do, but they are truly secret as they require a couple of conditions.

So somewhere down the line you start recruit characters towards your goals. They are given their own portraits and they have very different views towards your hacking. It is here where I started giving them more backstory and personality than the game lets on. I found that by using the small lines that each character that is recruited to this base, I gave them more story and I was captured in my imagination beyond what their avatars would say. In fact I gave my characters - the ones that you can create from hacking monsters, I gave them their own backstory within the online community. I believe you can actually rename these entities and I was pleased that they carried over when you use the save file for the sequel.

What I was not ready for was the removal of their presence behind the main character. I found that having that line of characters helped me develop a connection, they were actually there for my journey. Even though they are just small sprites on an overworld they are there struggling all the way with me, which is why when I did class change a few of them, I kept their names (their portraits change with class), I also didn't change very often from my three characters that I created, except for a few occasions. I found the lack of them following behind me in the sequel actually jarring because it kinda shows that they're just data to Jay, and not NPCs/Characters/Avatars etc that struggle in any type of journey. However, this is really just my personal opinion as it should not be that big of deal , just a personal note I wanted to put in my review. The mobs in this game are in the overworld, so you contacting the enemy creates the confrontation, not a random enemy battle.

The combat is very standard for an RPG Maker game. If you've played or created an RPG Maker game it's the same combat system. I recognize some of the sprites in the RPG Maker engine and they have been used in this game. The music does seem very memorable to me, but it is there, the game isn't silent. There are a handful of things you can do, some sort of Tower that you can challenge in the midgame/lategame but requires hacking a guard. Hacking players, will get rid of them and changes some things, so hacking this NPC guard actually removes him. I wanted to get through the game with minimal hacking/interactions to the players that inhabit the gameworld, so hacking this guard was never on my mind UNTIL I read the guide. It's probably possible to hack out the entire population but you lose the sense of the living.

Some more thoughts, the way you go to other areas is the use of a portal. This is actually fine, you can travel to different dungeons as if it was in an online queue for a party system. I actually liked that between going towards cities and dungeons and it reminds of a true online game experience, but you may need some imagination for that as well.

One of my largest frustrations with this game is towards the endgame where you need a set of keys to unlock certain areas. To get these keys you need to hack a material from enemies and I had to look up where the last one dropped and it took way too long. The areas in this game feel pretty lackluster, especially since it looks rough around corners just a block. I understand that this is a restriction of the engine itself, RPG Maker can be very restrictive. The creator tried their hardest to make the glitch areas like a mess of graphics that are out of place and the regular dungeons to be their own biomes. I was not impressed with the areas, but I did have an image in my head that allowed me to get excited beyond what the game gives. I tried to envision what it was like in a first person view in some of these areas especially the ones in caves.

Did I enjoy this game? I did enjoy this game. There are a lot of faults with this game, especially requiring a guide for classes. There are a lot of restrictions from the RPG Maker engine. Personally I thought this game was more enjoyable than the second one, even though there were more improvements in map design, it lost the base building, recruiting. Since beating this game I've lost my save data, and I can confidently say I have no feelings of replaying this game. So it's replay value is lacking, unless you want certain items in NG+.

I will not recommend this game. RPGMaker or not, I had to stretch to fill in the gap, imagination, and many people may not like that. It's not bad, for RPGMaker, but hard to recomm

Starting up the first of the three episodes of Data Hacker I have,

theme of this RPGMaker is Refreshing,
quite unlike the standard RPGMaker game so far.
Roleplaying a Roleplayer in an online Roleplaying universe.
I could only be impressed by the plot.

Standard skills, tp and mp system,
thoughtful to accumulate tp after battle, unlike some RPGMaker which resets after each battle.
Extra Card game similar to Tetra Master,
not too hard, a test of prediction and counters of Attack/Defence of cards,
additional grind for cards for achievements.

An Arsenal of loot items, weapon, cards and skill types.

Hacking of enemies, turning them into companion or items. Unique.
Many campanions to choose from and decide to put in action.


Only issue so far is,
the graphic looks stuttering while movement around.
Walking speed is rather slow, preferably faster speed walk by default.
Occassional losing menu access in the chicken runs, do make regular saves to prevent losses.



So Far, I am impressed with the game plot,
although too repetitatives,
a huge grinder of time and effort for achievements in preparation to import over to Corruption.
Some may like it, some may not.


Could try.

Data Hacker Trilogy included in the Reality Studio package.

I have played a few RPG maker games in the past(working on one of my own as well) I have to say this one is one of my favorites. I guess it reminded me of dot hack. You can hack characters(and kill them) Also your actions can effect how the game plays out in the future. I would suggest this game to anyone who loves dot hack and or RPG maker games.

Well I love this game. I've always been a fan of RPG maker games but this one stood out to me. Every time I felt like I couldnt keep playing and I would take a break, I'd be drawn back a couple hours later. Although it took me most of the game to figure out growth ribbons, and the story line was a bit hard to follow some times, I'm still going to buy the next one immediately.

This game is quite repetative in a battle sense and rather long and boring. The story is somewhat interesting, but the grinding and limited spells / skills make it quite boring.

A fairly interesting RPG Maker VX Ace game.

Pros:
- Interesting storyline with decent writing. I've played a lot of mmos, so having a single player game that sort of makes fun of them and ties in to a lot of their ropes is up my alley.
- Decent tilesets. Mostly RTP stuff, but with no annoying chibi! So yea lotsa bonus points for that. No original stuff but uses some good non default sets too.
- Decent rpg mechanics. Not really very challenging and sadly lacking in any difficulty settings. But there is a huge amount of characters to recruit. Tho 99% of them are just generic "hacked" versions, they have no dialog and just serve to make the battles more interesting. The games rather unbalanced in terms of whats effective tho - use magic and win pretty much. Melee is extremely underpowered. Mainly due to the fact most every monster has a elemental weakness you can exploit, but melee weapons with elemental types are ultra rare, basically non existent.
- The game has a random loot system. Its pretty simple, but fun - adds some extra replay value as you can just save/load and reloot the chests a while to try to get the rare good stuff.
- Decent length 15-20 hours , and a ton more if you want to get all the achievements like I did. (requires multiple playthroughs - game has NG+)
- Great music. One track is especially good - kind of it's main theme.

Cons:
-Extremely poor default performance, with a flat out broken fullscreen mode. I reported this weeks ago and even posted the fix (check discussions) yet the author still hasn't fixed it. He is actually really responsive and quick about updating to fix bugs, so not sure why he didn't address this rather massive one.
- Stuttering in the major cities, even after my fix. Not too bad, but for a rpg maker game, it really shouldn't happen.
- Lots of bugs remain, though the authors still working on fixing them.
- The game has a sort of good/bad ending depending your actions. Getting the "good" ending is unneccesarily difficult due to it being poorly set up. If you hack a single wrong player or even certain npcs, you can fail.

What a rough start to a franchise.

EDIT, 8 HOURS IN: What a grindy, miserable, venomous start to a franchise.

Buy this if:

-you want to support the poverty dev rpgmaker scene.

-you really, really loved .hack and cannot be bothered to rom/emulate/yard-sale-dive copies of those games for your ps2.

-you enjoy bargain-bin slumming it when it comes to your gaming.

Do not buy this if:

-generic rpgmaker tilesets, sprites, features etc hurt your eyes and brain.

-you have any familiarity with computers, hacking, etc.

-endless grinding and poorly documented mechanics in a ramshackle world that thinks it's an mmo is your personal notion of one of the circles of hell.

Honestly it's just another retro styled rpg game. It's not great but it's not bad. I bought all 3 on sell and I have played this one a good amount but i haven't touched the other two and I sadly don't think I will be because I just lost interest in this one.

I'm not sure why I lost interest but I think it has something to do with the amount of grinding here. I personally think it's a very large amount but others could disagree. Either way I think this game will appeal to plenty of other people who like retro styled rpg's but this one just wasn't really for me.

5/10

Edit: Steam lies. I imported my save file from the DRM-free version. My actual playtime is a hair under 28 and a half hours.

I will preface this by saying I am a child of the 8 and 16-bit console eras, so I have always had a fondness for RPG Maker games.

I got this game originally through a free game bundle, along with the second game in the series, Corruption. To be perfectly honest, my favorite game by that creator is Fantasyche: Mike, which the creator is now giving away for free. It's more of a standard fantasy RPG, but I'm a sucker for the kind of plot it has.

Pros:
+ The music is delightful. I paid backer rewards for Reboot to get the soundtrack, but even the version in the game files themselves are quite nice, and a number of tracks are going right on my music player.

+ The atmosphere is well-developed. The game is quite successful in evoking that MMOJRPG feeling.

+ The story gripped me.

+ Trioarch is fun.

Cons

- Grinding. It is not quite as bad as other games, if one uses, say, the Arena, but data hacking can initially get kind of tedious. That said, it''s worlds better than, say, Final Fantasy VIII's "draw" system.

- Skill cost seems a bit high early- and mid-(?) game. I've taken to grinding the Trioarch tournament repeatedly so I don't have to worry about it.

- The random item mechanic can be both a positive and a negative, but it is listed as a negative here because most people are not obsessive save-scummers - that is to say, people that save and reloads until they get the outcome they want. The only constant items seem to be the key items, certain quest rewards, and the items given to you by in-game trades.

- The variety of enemy "mobs" in the in-game dungeons could be increased, and I was disappointed there weren't as many people to trade with. Given the scale of the game and the sheer number of NPCs, I suppose this one can be forgiven.

Final thoughts:

For US$5, it is totally worth it, if you enjoy RPGs or the story grabs you. The developer has been nothing but pleasant and even kind to me, and he's been more than receptive to bug reports I have filed, though I've only counted two as of this steam release, and given the massive update that was rolled out, I'd say that's quite something, especially given that one bug is a minor annoyance you have to look for and the other one is a lovely exploit.

This is a lovely game that would be made even better by an in-game bestiary, hint hint cute pony eyes.

As far as RPG Maker games go, this one is pretty top-tier.

The story is coherent, there are multiple (two) endings that affect the story of the sequel, there is quite a bit of customization in party composition, and there are a fair number of side-quests. There is also a New Game+ mode that changes up quite a few loot drops, and adds a few new encounters and bosses.

The developer is also prompt with addressing reported bugs and issues.

All of that said, there are some drawbacks. Around half way through the story can turn into a grind-fest for items needed to unlock essential dungeons, if you haven't been hacking and stockpiling these items beforehand. There are also a number of fights where the difficulty curve goes fairly insane without much warning - this is especially true of some fo the optional content of NG+. It is also very easy to fall into the "hacker" ending through sidequesting, without really realizing it until the end.

I would recommend it on story alone; it is reminiscent of the .hack series, but taken quite a bit further in the sequel. The combat is decent, fairly standard RPG fare that is spiced up a bit with a decent number of classes for your AI companions. With two endings, and a number of items and companions that cross over between playthroughs - and some that are only available in the second playthrough - it has a bit of replay value.

Simulating an Online world, but playing with "other Players" is almost nonexistent. (Even if you find someone - they dont really matter. And they won't even care if you hack the whole game while they are in your party)
And that's only one of the minor points which could be better.
While the game is pretty good, there is much potential wasted in simulating the "Online world"

The story itself is uniqe, and not in a bad way.
The characters are likeable, well maybe the dept of the characters are sometimes a bit shallow.

The battles are repetive. Usually a map has 2 different enemies. Welcome to the slaugther.
The hacking is kept simple. I think the whole "hacking" idea is much improveable in the game. Hacking other People doesn't really give you anything. (some exp, some gold, horray. If you go hunting monsters you'll get the same or more exp in the same time). Hacking Monsters it is then (and Town Guards -I like those guys)

The bosses are good and hard. This is not one of the games which you can breeze through easily.

Good and plenty of sidequests, which tell own stories in the online world. Liked them.

the card game in the game suxx - a big no go for me. Maybe because i don't really know how to play and always lose...
But then there never was any explanation how to play this silly little gimmick.

Sometimes i miss explanations in the game, like the card game or the grow ribbon and how it works.
Also you get a quest journal so you can read up on active quests. I didn't know until i found it in my inventory... :p


Would i recommend the game ? Yes. This is despite some flaws a pretty good RPG. For 5 Euros a definitive buy.

=Full disclosure=

I'm an original backer of this way back during the first campaign and I've already put well over 20 hours into the backer version before it hit Steam, thus my low playtime count as I've only just activated this today.

That being said; this is one of the rare few RPG Maker titles that I genuinely wanted to drop money on. It's fun and engaging and harkens back to the PS2 legendary series Dot Hack. I've had a blast playing this in the past and I'm looking forward to a replay once Reboot Initiative is ready to go, the new art style and enhanced atmosphere and mapping look great, and I know Ross - the main developer - has been busting his ass on the trilogy so far :) I do have to question the two negative reviews below, however, as they seem highly unfair. Games have bugs and issues, that's just what happens in development, but when it comes to indie devs they actually LISTEN to your feedback; so if you have any troubles, such as rare showstoppers or even just an impassable tile in some random dungeon, please.. take to the forum and report it! Leaving negative feedback on the game, especially on LAUNCH DAY, is really harsh and does more harm than good.

As a backer of the Kickstarter, I've been privileged to watch the game grow through the development process and it's been really enjoyable. You can really feel that a lot of love and attention to detail went into this project and while there's a fair amount of RTP present, it has been put to great use. The scenario of "Online World" is great, with an engrossing plot and an enormous amount of areas to explore and do battle in. Character customisation is extensive and the ability of Jay, the main pro(an)tagonist, to hack his own avatar and generate his own customised class is unique and enjoyable. What sets this game apart from others is the inclusion of the Hack ability, which allows you overwrite the code of enemies, granting you bonuses against them - or debuffs against your party if the hack fails, and even new and unique items as rewards.

Being able to hack enemies and gain Cores for use as currency, or even combinations to access new areas, is extremely satisfying - especially against tough foes. You can even use the Hack ability to hack other play characters, which you can do to acquire new members for your party, or even just massive amounts of experience points/cash for bolstering your existing one.

Audio and Visual wise, it's mostly standard RPG Maker, but NRG have put great attention to detail and the use of both custom and standard visuals in order to create the Online World. I have to say though, not once did I feel like the visuals were a detriment to the game, RTP or not, and the atmosphere itself was brilliant. Far better than a lot of other cut'n'paste - expensive - commercial RM titles, that's for sure. The custom soundtrack is especially enjoyable though.

All in all, I really have had a blast playing this and I'm eagerly awaiting the followups now. Good luck New Reality Games!

The showstopping bug has since been fixed (same day as release! Like I said; indie devs listen!) so having negative reviews up just harms public opinion of what is a truly great RM title. It's indepth, has an enormous world - worlds, for those familiar with Dot Hack - to explore and with the overhaul coming it's only going to get better. Good luck to everyone playing and I'll see you in Online World \o/