After setting it aside for a couple of weeks, I picked .Hack // Mutation back up today and something rather odd happened: I beat it. The first installment of this series was rather easy. Maybe even a little too easy. The second installment definately had its moments where things got a little touchy, and “ressurect” scrolls were being burned like Harry Potter books at a fundamentalist Christian bonfire. What turned out to be the final boss, Magus, was definately a thorn in my side. After trying unsuccessfully four or five times (and having to run through a rather large dungeon and cinematic sequence to restart the fight, no less), I had actually become frustrated enough with the fight to take a .Hack vacation for a little while. It turns out I just had to be cautious and patient, two virtues that were never simultaneously required elsewhere in the game. By diligently knocking down Magus’s spawn with Kite, while BlackRose chipped away at the big boss and Mistral hung back on healing duty (with the help of a Rig Geam spell effect), I was able to knock the bugger out without ever being seriously endangered by the bastard. Ok, I had to use a single ressurect scroll after I used Data Drain on the bugger, but my other two characters were in excellent condition at the time. As promised, the plotline has improved and is now genuinely intriguing (a big change for console RPGs), and I very much look forward to Outbreak, which should be on the shelves in early to mid September.