G.U. is the newest .Hack vidoe game in the series, but is it worth your time?
The gameplay is easy to pick up and play, but it does get repetitive after a while. Half way through the game you'll be given an "upgrade" allowing you access to a new weapon type but essentially what this does is add four more skills to your character. The battles are fast paced and fun. The "Battle Area" is a welcome addition over the previous way you did battles in the first series. You start off with one skill and have to level up your weapon to unlock more. Then there is the epitaph battles. You need them for the story but they aren't very well done. You'll find yourself dodgeing attacks and trying to stun the enemy so that you'll be able to attack. It does bring a change to the game but it isn't well utilized...yet?
Graphics:
The game uses cel shaded graphics for the game. A welcome change over the previous seris, which gives the character a lot of different facial expressions and give it more of an anime feel to it. The cutscenes though look fantastic and are noticably higher quality then the game graphics. The root towns are vast and pretty impressive, however the fields are repetitive and boring. You'll be running around in either a cave, an old japanese style building, or a field for the entire game. Durring the game, I loved running through the areas because I love to level up and get items, but now that I'm at the highest level and just PK hunting, I hate running through the fields because there isn't anything new to look at (maybe this should go in the gameplay section!).
Sound:
The voices and music for the game are great . The rest of the sounds are pretty good but are also re-used from the old game, but this isn't so bad considering that they take place in the same game.
Value:
I'm going off of the SE edition of the game (the only edition that should be bought IMO). Along with the game you get a pretty good action figure of Haseo and an extra disc that covers what went on in the previous series and gives us more insight on the events heading up to the beginning of this series. More content on the disc will be unlocked when the other games are released.
Last Word:
This game is increadibly fun and has a great story and fans of the series won't be disappointed. Fans of the ARPG genre might be disappointed on the gameplay but will find a interesting story.