Dot Hack Review.. By Nathan Jones aka OutlawStarK2

Dot hack is the first offline online game ever made. You will never see a game like this anywhere else.  It has 4 Volumes, and I had the honor of playing the first.  The game was made by Bandai, which is a very popular company. Dot Hack or better known as .hack is an extremely worth while game and please enjoy reading my review on it.

Story

The story plays out very well by allowing you a little time to think about what is happening.  This is done with a few off story events and extra quest to go on during the game.  These extra quests allow you to gain exp and a few new faces to your party.  The game keeps you always wanting more and more.  You really can never get bored playing this game.  The story it self leaves many questions even to the end.  Such as: Why was I given this power and who is that strange girl?

 The game is titled Dot Hack, but the place you play in is called The World.  The World is a fantastic game where 20 million people log on and play.  The World is the world’s most popular game and sold more copies than any other game.  So you can meet other people from Italy, American, and Japan.  They all seem to speak English for some reason (Lol).  The company that released The World is title the CG Corporation. The CG Corporation is a powerful, but careless company.

You play as Kite, a Twin Blade Master.  You meet many friends like Mia, Black Rose, and Elk.  You can use spells that heal and damage and get tons of cool skills.  You are given the power to Data Drain, which is a powerful hacking skill.  Data Drain allows you to hack into a monster and change their status and form.  All though the game you are on a quest to find out why your friend Orca went into a coma while play the game.  Which just keeps you guessing what will happen over and over again.  In general the story was good and it kept you on to wanting to play the next volume.

Story: 9/10

Characters

The characters were one of the most outstanding parts of the game.  Kite was well designed and his Twin Blades made him look so cool.  All the characters had a cool look.  So you couldn’t say any character looked bad.  All together the characters where extremely well made.  The only way to find out for yourself is to see it for yourself.

Characters: 8/10

Battle System/Battling

This was a little downer for the game.  Sure it gave you all the pluses to Ever Quest.  You also get fast regaining SP witch allows you to use skills in every battle unlike Ever Quest.  It is a matter of life and death on this.  There are many monsters that can paralyze your whole party.  Which if your almost dead no one can revive you if you die nor can they heal you.  Also the lack of bosses was terrible.  And a lot of the bosses were the same.  You had to hit them hundreds of times before you could use your Data Drain on them.  The Final Boss was pretty hard if you didn’t supply or train, but I had little problems killing it.  How would I rate?  It wasn’t to bad seeing as it turned all the bad battle systems of an online RPG into good and easy battle system for an offline online game.  Yet it lacked bosses so I couldn’t say this game had great battles.  This may be the greatest real time RPG I have ever played, but not because of the battling but because of the story.

Battle System: 8/10

Battles: 4/10

Conclusion

This game was good, but the best?  Well that is up to you really.  I thought it played out well and I will get the other Dot Hack games.  I would want to see this game do well because it would make a great RPG Dreamer forum. But that will never happen.  This game would be fun to replay and you may enjoy playing all 4 in a row.  This game is not something to pass up and I would suggest it to any RPG fan to own it.  I give it a good review. 

Overall: 8/10

Difficulty: Easy

Favorite character: Kite

Best Attacker: Kite, or a Heavy Blade user

Hours it takes: 16-25 (Short)

Tips…

1)When you encounter a Budda Statue monster. Kill them first, because they will heal the other monsters.  If there are two of them use Data Drain on one, because if you don’t when it is dead the other one will revive it and it is annoying.  So use Data Drain to rewrite it into a weakling.

2) Use Data Drain a lot to gain Books. So you can get wallpapers and music to use on your Desktop.

3) Take out the magic casters first. They run around so use any spell. This will stop them and your buddies can run up and kill it.

4) Always have a full group of 3. You don’t lose exp for having a full group.