.hack//G.U. Last Recode

Awesome ending, if you are not worried about high fps game with good story then this is a good buy especially those who missed out on when they were young!

Played as a kid. As fun as i remember

My childhood memories

Good👍

The game is fun. The core gameplay loop is pretty simple but overall can be fun. The dungeons are randomly generated. However, the game is mostly story driven with a lot of text that builds the lore of the world, with the jist of the game that you are a person playing a VRMMORPG. As such, you spend time in the players computer answering emails, reading forums, browsing the news. It's all scripted of course, and the gameplay mostly for me offered a break in between long stretches of story. If you don't like story, the gameplay is not really going to make up for it, so play this game for the story.

It's a game that you can czech your emails in

hajime from arifureta 👍

Ugh, this game. Let me list the cons on my playthrough first, because though I'm feeling particularly generous, this isn't a 'good' game by most metrics.

The bad:
To say the gameplay loop is repetitive would be the understatement of the century.
The same 10 or so dungeon types are used without variation for your entire playthrough.
The story suffers from JRPG bloat on a massive scale. It's seriously the longest 91 hours I can remember playing. It just. Never. Ends.
The bosses are all relatively similar.
The anime melodrama is ridiculous, and Haseo is the definition of emo.
I only decided to play the (comparatively brief) 4th installment because I wanted my waifu of choice in a final cut scene, and whatever obscure thing I needed to do, I didn't, and I ended up engaged to the 'villain'. What the actual ****...
The combat...meh, nothing to write home about.
And the constant need to log in and log out to check email within the game was incredibly tedious and time-consuming.
Who the hell is this Tabby character that suddenly appears?
Oh and did I mention that for the first entire section our hero is a total jerk?

All of that said...
The good:
There's a nostalgic 2000's PS2 vibe here that's sort of undeniable. I enjoyed the attempt to make this feel like an early MMO, along with fan art and old school forums. The news and Online Jack anime segments helped to flesh out what was happening in the real world. And the characters despite the anime cliches are all basically winning (except for Haseo himself, but he improves over time), and the voice acting (on the Japanese side, I don't know about the English) is spot on. And its the rare game where I stuck with it to the end and maxed out my character, so that must say something.
The Sakubo character is actually pretty interesting from a psychological perspective (no spoilers).
The music goes pretty hard.
If you take a break, this game is good at hand-holding you back into the story. I never felt lost.
Oh, and on the lowest difficulty, it wasn't too hard.

The verdict:
This was a slog. There's no doubt about it. But in the end, I enjoyed finishing up my time in The World. If you're going to give it a shot, play it a couple quests at a time and take breaks. Savor it. Because trying to binge this will probably wreck you...

.hack..G.U. Last Recode is a fun and interesting game. The art style is nice and the game is rich in story. I enjoy the interactions with each characters and the MMO feel that this game brings. Even through this game is a single-player game, its world makes it feel like you are in a MMO in a since. The story is enjoyable and have some funny moments at times. The battles could be a little better but they are okay. Once you get later into the game you will be able to use more than one weapon but the combat is alright. Play the game for its story. It will take some time to beat but its fun to play.

For whatever reason this game has the worst fps stuttering I've encountered in a game. Apparently it has something to do with NVIDIA users and it not seeing it as a game. So, if you have that and want to play around with settings and whatever have fun. If your a normal person that doesn't have time to fuck around with that shit, pass on this game.

Loved this game when it was on PS, still love it

A little different than the PS2 orginal 3 piece. Pretty interesting so far.

Tried to give it a chance, but the protagonist is such an unlikable fuckwit that it utterly ruins the games.

He walks around, dressed like a preteen who's just discovered Chunni and wears so many belts you can hear Nomura breathing heavily in the distance.
People treat him kindly, he insults them, people help him out of the goodness of their heart, he mocks them for helping him. Hes a one dimensional, obnoxious twelve year olds idea of what cool is, and he never improves through the entire game, he doesn't grow, change or learn from his experiences and as a result hes completely insufferable from start to end.

His entire driving motivation is nebulous revenge on the people who wronged him, except nobody wronged him at all, hes just a loser.

The game-play is very mediocre and is relying on the story to carry it, which it utterly fails at.

Only play it if you are wearing potent nostalgia goggles.

Still love these games, they've always been great. Same goes for the re codes.

For a remaster of a series of games for the PS2 it's pretty good!

This is probably the only real way you are going to be able to play any of the .Hack games outside of emulation.

It feels like a PS2 game (because it is) and there is some interesting immersion with how you interact with the game world and the character's PC.

I feel like it would "feel better" if you got to make more choices (and maybe that comes up more in the later games), but it was okay.

And you can usually get it for pretty cheap! At the time of writing it is $5. I'd say for $5 this is an EASY add to your library if you like paint-by-numbers JRPGs.

And it is a collection of 3 games, so keep that in mind.

So far I've completed the 1st game.

This... is *not* something I'd usually play *or* enjoy.
Bu I got it at a *homongous* discount.

But the lore runs deeper than the deepest ocean floor at the bottome of the Mariana Trench.
*If* you'll manage to take all of that in, the story is well worth it.
In fact, I would've bought this at full price should I've known what I've been missing all these years.

I'll probably edit this upon finishing eachof the volumes.

I have these on PS2 and this is a good port.

As somebody who only knows the .hack series at best as "that one show I watched a couple times on Toonami fifteen years ago" I can say this is a very good game. It is a learning curve, especially since it takes place kinda in the middle of the overarching series from what I've found, but I had a lot of fun with it. It definitely is a bit grindy but not too terribly, it's like an old school style of RPG in that side quests aren't required but they're definitely necessary in some respects to keep up on the levels. The different weapons all feel drastically different from each other, and even have different combos for them. That said this is definitely one of those "play it for the story" games where the gameplay can get pretty repetitive after a while but the story is where it shines.

Definitely worth a play, if you find it on sale I'd say pick it up.

I have been a fan of this franchise way before i even saw a single episode of SAO. And no they are not the same. You will find that the creative liberties for this series, story and overall vibe are much different. You are in a mmo and overall the story does slow burn but once you hit the point where it begins t ramp up, You will be in for the rest. There are 3 original volumes and 1 epilogue added in. A terminal disc to get lore and background of the quadrilogy before this trilogy. it is a very casual game, and overall nails a mmo settings very well.

I first played gu at vol 3 because i found it at a walmart and wondered why it was so expensive when ps2 games at the time were becoming super cheap since the ps3/360 was taking over. I picked it up, went home and sat there the entire time till completion beating it. I can honestly say, that this is a series i wish got more, but due to bandai namco owning SAO we will prob never see a new addition, But buying it alone shows a demand for it, Im doing my part, what about you?

This game has grabbed my attention and held it for a good while.

The most underrated game in history it's baffling how people never knew it's existence & I can see why. The combat system was a bit fleshed at a cost of having zero defense capabilities do you want to know how I understood this after you launch the enemy into the air you do a 2nd rush combo & cancelling it by holding the guard button then finish it off with Rengeki special moves & repeat this process you'll thank me later. For the story is that I wish they had more time for Haseo & Atoli to develop their relationship kinda of rushed to be honest. Definitely a 2006 classic from Hiroshi Matsuyama along with being the most stand out of it's originality in terms of anime & video games.

This game is as good as I remember it being. I never had access to all of the games on my Playstation 2, so it is great to have them all in one place. Highly recommend!

75% of my playtime is sitting in Town AFK waiting for Crimson VS matches its just like a real MMO. There is no windowed mode support for this game either which sucks but the game is great if you have nostalgia for it. Otherwise it's pretty dated and piss easy

As soon as I saw this game on the store, I knew I would like it, I totally recommend playing it!

i will always and forever be a fan of .hack and i cant wait til your next game ^^

Is forever my number 1 game

Glad we got a translated version of this beutiful game and complex franchise. I played it back on my PS2 fully in JP and ittook me a great deal to progrss the game. Now with the EN version the story makes way more sense and puts the player in several relatable situations with real life problems and dilemmas.

I never got the chance to play this on PS2, I only had the original series which I loved. G.U. is a pretty decent series, especially since it's often on sale for $5.

great series would love to see a remaster of the first series

TLDR: The pinnacle of mediocrity. Perhaps it was great back in the PS2 days, but the gameplay has not aged well.

PROS:

✅Four games in one package
✅MMO mechanic concepts
✅Great direction, no guide needed unless trying to 100%

CONS:

➖Annoying and repetitive combat
➖Bland and boring game world
➖Constant logging out to check email
➖No cloud saves(!)
➖Excessive hand-holding

Note: This game contains FOUR games. I may refer to games by their volume as follows:
V1 = Rebirth
V2 = Reminisce
V3 = Redemption
V4 = Reconnection

Content (Game world/Narrative/Length) – [4/10]

Game World: .hack//G.U. Last Recode (.hack) imitates the concept of players within an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) RPG. Much of the concepts you’ll see in .hack are the same type of concepts that players familiar with MMO games deal with, for example, things like PKing are a core part of the plot and combat in .hack. I do really like the story setting of an MMO game, I feel this opens up a lot of creative possibilities.

.hack contains two main parts of the game world - the desktop and the game “The World” itself. The desktop is a simple menu containing basic information, like a community forum or your email, something that you’ll be checking a LOT. The World is where the MMO is taking place. This kind of reminds me of something like Final Fantasy XI from a high-level perspective. You visit different areas, kill monsters, and witness a ton of story cutscenes.

Overall, while I love the creativity, the game world itself is one of the most boring, bland, repetitive, and insufferable worlds I’ve ever trekked through. As of this review I have only finished V2 and still often visit level 90 zones that are the same exact look and feel of the level 10 zones. It's just so painful going to the repeat zones, with zero exciting things other than the usual monsters/chests over and over and over again.

Narrative: There is a heavy focus on the story for .hack games. It's a big part of the overall package. Again, the concepts of a story setting in an MMO sounds very intriguing to me - players that are killed in game are ending up in comas in real life! Unfortunately, I found articles in EVE Online that were more thrilling than anything .hack has.

I think a part of it is the repetition. In both V1 and V2, a core part of the story is the boring arena. When I learned I have to slog through the arena all over again, I rolled my eyes and audibly said no.
Another part of it is the exaggeration. I get that this is a universe where technology has advanced and the game is played with something more advanced than a monitor. But every time a character died, all I could think of is Randy dying in the World of Warcraft South Park episode with how serious .hack characters refer to PVP.

The last part is just the anime tropes. The early 2000s were a different era, and of course .hack is an anime and was before it was a game, but it really just feels like I’m playing an anime instead of a video game based on an anime. Like no real humans would act or talk in this way. Like one of those PR video game trailers where they include the live comms of multiplayer matches. Like you know players aren’t like that, if that makes sense.

Length: The entire package is very long. Expect to take ~20-25 hours on each of the 3 main title entries with much less for the 4th extra content. Even more so when you factor in side content, quests, and endgame min/maxing.

Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [4/10]

Mechanics: The core of the gameplay, and what you’ll spend the majority of the time doing when you’re not in a cutscene, is combat. I found the combat to be simple, repetitive, and boring, only barely picking up halfway into V2.

V1 you will literally mash the attack button 95% of the time, with the remaining time being the occasional block or the weapon skill for the Rengeki combo. There’s barely any sort of progression or customization with weapons or gear, you only have 3 slots to equip. You gain nothing on level up but I guess more HP/Attack/Defense. The few weapon skills you have are unexciting to use and just do damage but mainly serve as the only reason for your existence - Rengeki combos. And your AI companions are dumb as bricks and would die without you holding their hand through everything.

I will end by saying if all this isn’t bad enough, the combat is plain frustrating, especially in V2 as you progress. See, enemies will eventually start to CC you with things like sleep or paralyze, so you get the joy of watching your idiot companions attempt to kill things while you are CC’d for 15 seconds. OR enemies will hit you with an attack, knock you back, and constantly float you if you miss time a block. One of my most hated elements of any game is when you take control away from the player, and this game does it CONSTANTLY. It's so fun charging up your weapons attacks only for an enemy to sneeze on you and interrupt everything.

Difficulty: Incredibly easy. The only time you’ll ever have any trouble is if you intentionally go to an area that is much higher level than you, but apparently the games EXP values have been adjusted to where grinding isn’t necessary anymore.

Graphics (Quality/Performance) – [4/10]

Quality: Kinda bad. Graphics look like a slightly more HD PS2 game. Reminds me of a less detailed Final Fantasy X. I’d say by far the worst part graphically of the game is the areas and all the copy pasted, low-res assets that just repeat endlessly.

Performance: Good, almost no issues at all with the game, I only experienced a single crash on V2. Otherwise, .hack kept a solid 60fps with no dips.
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD

Audio (Sound Effects/Music) – [5/10]

Sound Effects: Good enough. English voice acting is very good, apart from some characters like Endrance and his moaning whispery voice (Sorry Liam, much <3).

Music: Not bad, but largely forgettable, this is no Final Fantasy where the music is top notch.

Replay Factor (Longevity) – [2/10]

There is some good amount of side content to play through, and achievements, but I have no idea why you’d want to replay through the .hack games again other than nostalgia.

Final Verdict – [5/10]

.hack is one of the most easily mediocre games I’ve ever played. It's just so bland, so boring, and a trial in patience. I wish the single player MMO game actually felt like an MMO, which is one of my favorite genres.

The best part about buying .hack//G.U. Last Recode is the amount of content that you get. Even if I didn’t enjoy the games myself, you should consider a purchase when on sale due to having the most complete collection of .hack that is ever and might ever be on PC. I think I bought this game for ~$10 on sale and the amount of content you get for $10 is crazy, well over 60 hours, if you can stomach through the parts that didn’t age well.

For me, I’m going to take a break after V2 and take a long hard consideration before I start V3, if ever, so consider this my review for the game, otherwise, I’ll edit it in the future.

Recommend? [Y/N]

No

You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

gud

Boring combat system, repetitive gameplay, and on pc god does this port crash a lot. Im on my third crash and just a lot of progress on volume 3 and probably won’t pick this game up again for a while. The story is interesting i guess but if i had to choose between logging out of a game to check my emails just to advance something i rather do it irl. Im glad i got this game on sale honestly.

Fun, Original and Lengthy. I love games with good story and a great amount of game play. Great for whatever price you pay. If its your first time hearing about the series go on play it. Theres also .hack animes if you love the game you should check it out.

It really is a blast from the past playing this. The only downside is rapid attack weapons feel harder to use than on the PS2 due to the increase in fps

I'm here cuz Alkaid and storyline. Alkaid Best G* you can't change my mind...

One of my favorite RPGs along with the original 4 part games. I hope IMOQ gets the same treatment some day soon.

Does not support Steam Cloud so I cannot recommend for anyone wanting to play this on their Steam Deck.

The .hack//G.U. series is a great entry in the underrated .hack// multimedia franchise. It blends engaging storytelling with an innovative take on the MMORPG genre in a single-player format. Even though it was originally released years ago, this 2017 remake offers longtime fans and newcomers alike a chance to experience the complete G.U. saga in one package.

The collection includes all of the GU games, and it often goes on sale for ~$4.99 so I recommend picking it up during a price drop. Each game offers roughly 20 hours of gameplay if you explore everything, making it manageable for those who want a full experience without an overwhelming time investment.

What truly sets this series apart is its rich narrative, tackling themes of identity, technology, and human connection in the context of a fictional MMORPG called The World. It captures the intrigue of early-internet online gaming communities while weaving an emotional and thought-provoking story. I love that the game is a little "meta" since you have a desktop, emails, web forum, and the "game" itself to help build the story beyond what's happening in the MMORPG. It's also cool to read the "news" and see just how the developers in 2006-2007 hit the nail on the head with tech like this, in some ways.

This franchise deserves more recognition and a chance to shine with modern resources. Sadly I think it's been abandoned, but this entry is worth picking up during a sale.

so happy this game was remastered i have always loved playing them great playback to my childhood

for people who liked the PS2 version. and love these kinds of games, i recommend this game

It may be an old game, but it's one of the best RPGs, and for those of us who grew up with it, it's a wonderful trip down memory lane.

It's SAO but actually good

Haven't played .hack//G.U. since the PS2 days and the nostalgia trip has been great. Leveling up feels easier than it was before and most leveling can be done through story missions. I was really hoping they'd make a keyboard controller setup built in but you'll have to remap keys if you want to play on PC. Highly recommend using an xbox or steam controller, it'll save your hands and wrists from carpal tunnel :)

ITS TRIGGER THE NOSTALGIC FEELINGS!!!
And also have a nice touch for the ending installment

Most of my time was spent watching barely animated typical, trope-laden anime characters talking about an uninteresting story that moved at glacial pace. While the gameplay seemed to be at least somewhat improved from the original quartet of .hack games, only two (at most) of my six hours must have been spent actually controlling a character. The same sense of immersion from the first games was there, and I enjoyed reading through fictional forum posts, news stories, and even an entire website for the in-game MMO the story takes place in, but those all proved far more interesting than anything any character had to say. But in the end, the most unforgivable part of this is that basically every conversation can only go at the speed of voiced dialogue. If I had been offered the option to read the subs as I pleased and advance to the next line at my discretion, my play time would easily be half of what it is for the same amount of progress and I could have put up with the story and enjoyed the relatively shallow yet enjoyable gameplay.

I recently tried to replay .hack//Infection for the first time in 20 years, and I dropped it pretty quickly due to how little it had to offer. After briefly looking at the synopses provided in this collection for those games, and seeing how badly this game balances barely passable action with bland events and storytelling, I think I'd rather go give that another shot. I'll happily take minorly cruder gameplay to be served what seems to be a far more compelling narrative.

Would recommend with a disclaimer or two.
(First JRPG I got really into, played it originally on PS2.)

3 Notes for the Remaster:
-Remaster is mostly hd retextures without touching the core models and the combat system is identical to what it was in the 2002 release, from what I can remember, which means combat feels a bit dated and slow at times.
-Cutscenes got massive overhauls and redraws, pretty much updated to match modern graphics.
-English voice-acting wasn't changed is on-par with similar games from early-2000's released in North America, main character comes across very edge-lordy at times. Voices can be a bit cringy, but nothing worse than the average voice-acting for english dubs in anime, if you normally play JRPG's in english, this game won't be anything too diff or out of the ordinary from that.

For those that didn't play the original 2002-3 games:
-.Hack//G.U. is a game that you play as a top MMO player, the game includes both in-game MMO playtime as well as time where you log out and can access the MC's desktop, where there is a side TCG minigame based around the MMO's universe, an entire news app that updates to show in-world new broadcasts like youtube-videos, in-universe forums where you can download "fanart" (art that is part of the game shown as fanart), etc, to use as desktops or in-game avatars, icons, etc, and other unnecesarily detailed side aspects that you rarely are forced to interact with but exists on the side as added detail and lore
-The in-game MMO has a supposed 'random-gen' system where there is a couple of tilesets that you input generation seed's into to generate the area. There are 2-4ish tilesets per each game (Recode includes all 4 of the original games), so some ppl may find these tilesets get redudant or boring.
-There is several collection-type of side minigames and professions, including a guild shop you can have npc's sell items for you in and guild housing, ultimately meaning there is an almost disgusting amount of side content that you will be shown exists through the main story but never forced to play anything more than the surface of.
-The story itself was something that defined MMO's that break into reality and .hack was a universe that ultimately inspired later works like SAO with showing consequences of video games impacting reality, although .Hack//G.U. is a much different story from SAO. (And much older, not sure why I've seen anyone online say its a ripoff of SAO when SAO was published years after.)
-The game is long. As of writing this, I was casually playing and not focusing on completion, I was nearing the end of maybe 2/3 of the 1st game of 4, so itll probably be atleast 100 hrs for me to get through all of it.

One of the most immersive games I've ever played with insane amounts of detail put into the story and universe. Rough around the edges but worth it if you can look past some of the aged and rugged parts.

Didn't care for it... I wanted it to be like the original but it's not.

That's my favorite saga since PS1/PS2, thanks Bandai for keep making it, and waiting for more and the PS1 version. Super recommendation <3

one of my top 10 games