Engaging, immersive fun. Requires tenacity. If you're easily bored, rent it first.

User Rating: 7.5 | .hack//Infection Part 1 PS2
Being a huge fan of the Anime series, I jumped on the chance to play the title character. I wasn't disappointed, at first. The character models and fight sequences were very engaging, but the repetitiveness to build up ALL of your characters (not just Kite) required a level of patience that I have, but didn't want to invest at the time, so I set it aside for a while. I've been back to it since, and I'm rather enjoying it more, the second time around.

The problem with Leveling up in this game is the inconsistency of the realms you go to. If you don't pick the right combination of words you either end up fighting (yet again!) a slew of low-level creatures that give you zero gain and lots of goodies, or you end up in a realm that hands you your head just for saying Hi... Which can be very annoying. Yet you have to repeat these harsher realms again and again until you start kicking some tails (literally). And you have no choice but to do this if you have any hope of transferring Kite to the next game: "Mutation".

The Strategy Guide tells you you have to be conquering certain levels of beasties before you can transfer to the sequel. I haven't gotten there, yet, but I will...

I'm looking forward to eventually starting "Mutation" sometime this year, and I'll let you know what I think of that one when I get to it.