.Hack//Infection has been going nicely for me now, and I am pleased to say that after a weekend of play it holds up nicely.
Transitions between dungeons, fields, towns, the message boards, and email make for a nice staggered pace for gameplay.
Combats have been sufficiently unpredictable to maintain an air of controlled panic. When approaching a magic portal, you don’t know if you’ll be facing four mimics, a pair of hobgobs and a swordsmanoid, or what. This prompts rapid, reactive decisionmaking, which I’ve always found enjoyable for video games in general.
If there’s anything that I have a serious problem with it is the lack of custom keyword combinations that aren’t plot-related in the message boards. You can be assured that (with the exception of Goblin Tag, which hasn’t connected to the overarching plot in a way I can recognize) any premade keyword combo will have a plot element to it. After eight hours of play (not counting time spent after saving, then dying) I’ve come to rely on being able to exhaust my list of premade keywords, then return to my mail and the message board to get a new crop that pushes the story along.
Just one or two red herrings amongst them, resulting in no discernable plot point, would serve to increase the illusion of a non-linear plotline. Of course, an interesting, truely non-linear plotline is somewhat of a Holy Grail amongst game makers, so I shouldn’t hold my hopes out too far.
On a side note, the option to have the original Japanese voice actors instead of the English version is very handy for atmosphere reasons. I always play RPGs with the subtitles on (so I can turn the volume off if need be), and having English subtitles for English dialogue has always seemed… odd to me. Thanks for the choice, Bandai.
Overall Grade so far:
A
I have yet to watch .Hack//Liminality Ep1, as my viewing of .Hack//Sign is not yet complete. My Hong Kong translation of Sign is quite poor (they call Tsukasa “Zea” and Subaru “Une” and Ginkan “Enhan” for reasons passing human understanding, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg). At least they were able to get the names “BT,” “Mimiru,” and “Bear” correct. A review of .Hack//Sign should be upcoming.