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The exact same as the other games.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 19
Date: May 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the exact same game as the other games. There's a few new items, but nothing to celebrate. Sure it's a conclusion, but you just spent 200 bucks on 4 games that are all 12 hours(maximum) long. Way to go!

This is the way The World ends?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 22
Date: January 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

...not with a bang, but with a whimper. That's exactly how I felt after finishing this final chapter of .hack. A series that began full of promise has done little except disappoint me.
You all know about the series, so I'll forego the plot summary. A lot of people have played apologist for this series, answering the valid complaint of, "Why are ALL the games the same?" with a variety of sophistries, but the fact is, this game has little invention in it.
I was disappointed in part two because of the ridiculous length of the game (it took me about nine hours). Part three answered this problem, and also had some nice bonuses (such as searching for ghosts of the series characters and finding items for trading), and I was eagerly anticipating part four.
So what's the problem here? Not length; this game may be the longest of the bunch (although, it still only clocked in at about 23 hours; I like a little more meat on my RPG's). The gameplay is the same, but hey, that's what we've come to expect. No, the problem here is story, in that this game has little. Most of the questions you might have asked, most of the theories you might have postulated concerning The World won't be answered here. The end of the game (which, though I thought about it, I will not spoil here) is quite unsatisfactory (ho-hum is the best word I can use to describe it), and in the end, this whole series (which, if you purchased new, will run you around two hundred bucks) left me feeling like I was cheated out of one hundred and fifty dollars. Yeah, I confess; there is enough material here for one game, maybe one and a half, but Bandai has cheated us out of a lot of money, in my honest opinion. Still, I can look forward to Xenosaga 2.

JUNK

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 17
Date: August 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the most boring role-playing game I've experienced. The first 5 hours have a great plot, and then *nothing*. Just hack'n'slash and repetitive dungeons for the next 20 hours. I finished the game to see the story's end, but it WAS NOT WORTH THE TIME WASTED. Or the money wasted.

Nothing new and SHORT!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Nothing new here from the other games. It was very very short and left a rather empty ending. This game didn't even bother to have all your characters request your help in a dungeon which I enjoyed in the other games. You are pretty much stuck with Black rose in this game and I liked other characters much better. One good point about this game is once you have SAVED "The World" you do get to continue to play and get item completion with some side dungeon quests added in. The problem is I kind of lost interest as I was no longer playing to complete a story but just for fun. After 4 games of the same fighting, this doesn't add much interest to me.

.hack ... or .crap?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As a longtime enthusiast of the .hack multimedia franchise, I feel bad doing this, but as a gamer I cannot allow the fact I happened to like .hack//SIGN interfere with my judgement.

I basically started playing this long and, looking back on it, overpriced series because I was driven by most desire to find a conclusion to the anime drama, .hack//SIGN (which, despite some flaws, is one of the best stories I've ever had the pleasure of immersing my consciosness in and has some of the best music I've ever heard in an animated series). The anime ended on an uncertain note and, having learned that the story would only be concluded if I got to the fourth game, I undertook the lengthy (and as I would soon find out, tedious) task of beating the game series.

Because all of the games are basically the same in terms of concept, all I have to say for them all at once is:

PLOT: Wow. Boring and predictable. Just the opposite of .hack//SIGN. I have a hard time linking the two together. The worse thing about this plot is that it is so simple that a twelve-year old won't have much trouble deciphering what happens next. There are a few cases of borderline deus ex machina where you won't see something coming but these are few, far between and, in any case, deus ex machina is one of the first signs of a weak plot.

DIALOG: Owch. Aside from the voice actors sounding (as the Game Informer people pointed out) like none of them have hit puberty, the lines themselves are pretty hokey (even in the most dramatic moments - no wait! Especially in the most dramatic moments). There is no tension or intrigue to be gained through character interaction.

CHARACTERS: By far the most tragic thing about this series in my opinion. None of my favorites from .hack//SIGN (with the exception of some lame side-quest cameo appearances) made it into the game. After getting over that, I managed to actually like what little character the agents of the story had. In truth, I actually like Kite, BlackRose, Balmung, Gardenia, etc but I have to say they are incredibly shallow and more or less one - maybe two, in some cases - dimensional. They have none of the complexity and moral difficulties of the original heroes from .hack//SIGN and this makes them rather boring to watch. The mark of a bad character is one that will do at the end exactly what they would have done at the beginning of the series (as it signifies they didn't develop or change toward the better at all) and that unfortunate effect proliferates among the cast of the .hack video games. Having as I already said ended up liking many of these characters, I feel bad that the scriptwriters couldn't have drew them out more. They, like the story, had a lot of unused potential.

MUSIC: Perhaps the one redeeming quality of the series. Not as good as the original .hack//SIGN but it can be okay most of the time and sometimes excellent.

GAMEPLAY: By far the most damning attribute the series posseses. I can finally understand why so many people who play 'The World' fall into comas. No, its not because of Morganna Mode Gone or anything like that. It's because the gameplay is so horribly repetitive their brains shut down in order to escape it. Really, I thought that was going to be my fate. I think found myself praying the game would be over soon sometime during .hack//MUTATION (that's the second game of four). It's basically a unexciting hack-and-slash masquerading as a sort of role-playing game. The gameplay of this series can be summed up as 'slash, slash, slash, heal, ressurect, slash, slash, slash, heal, ressurect, etc etc etc ...' the bosses are boring. Everything is dull. Nothing gets exciting.

I've heard that there is a manga adaption of this video game series called .hack//XXXX. On the off chance it ever gets translated into English, I would love to buy it. It would most likely hone in on the problems of plot and character and fix them right up in addition to delivering some decent manga-style artwork of some of some greatly improved characters (like Kite, BlackRose, Balmung, etc) from the game.

But as for this game - if you've come this far, well, I wouldn't expect you to stop now. If not, don't start. Just wander off and dream about how the story started in .hack//SIGN might end and pray that .hack//XXXX is (1) good and (2) translated into English.

I got this to complete a collection of VGs...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: August 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am an hour into the first game. so to give any ratings for the last one is ridiculous. I'm giving it a generic 3 because the dang listings demand input. good luck in finding another copy to buy since amazingly enough, this last one was a B!tch to locate.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This review isn't just specificallyabout Vol4, but about the whole series...
I have enjoyed the Hack series of games quite a bit, and though I think the cost should have better reflected the fact that there were 4 short games rather than 1 (or 2) longer games, that the overall experience was ok.
I would recommend picking up the series (preferably used to help with the cost) for the experience of playing the whole series, and hope that a true Multiplayer sequel is in the works, as that would be an interesting game as well.

Riding Off Into The Virtual Sunset

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 25
Date: March 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For dedicated dot hackers, the easiest way to describe the fourth and last chapter of this game is 'more or the same.' Once more Kite adventures into the many fields and dungeons of 'The World' seeking loot, experience, and trying to safe the world (the real world) from a virus gone out of control. This time, though, all the loose threads are drawn together, answers are provided, and the glow of a new day restores the shine to the gaming world.

If you are new to the game, you are likely to find Quarantine a bit difficult to play and confusing to understand. While it can be done, I think a very large part of the series' charm is the slow, game-by-game, building of character and story. With the earlier games now available at discounted prices the best strategy is to start at the beginning and work forward. Do not, however, try to play the games one right after another. Spread out, their similarity doesn't interfere with enjoyment. Taken all at once, it is quite possible to overdose on grunties.

If you have been following the series than expect no great surprises. Well, there are one or two, but for the most part everything is a natural progression from the previous games. While the plot undertakes some interesting twists, gameplay is pretty much a matter of bigger and badder. If you have been religiously leveling up in prior episodes then Quarantine will feel a bit too easy. If you have been getting through by the skin of your teeth then there will be some tough fights ahead.

I felt that Quarantine was a little too short, and not as spectacular as I expected. There is provision for playing after the game is complete, including an item challenge, and some familiar characters will suddenly become available. Unfortunately quarantine features a smaller set of monsters. Most often data bug variations of ones you have already seen. There is a little voice in my head that keeps telling me that Bandai would have been better off packaging this game in three episodes rather than four.

Of course, that means they would have had to find another way to deliver the Liminality OVAs. This last episode is excellent, providing a lot of information on the nature of the.hack world as well as an exciting conclusion. We see both the outside and the inside of The World in one tidy package. In retrospect, the game is the weakest link in the entire marketing package (I'm not completely sure about the manga either), simply because Bandai chose to leave it unchanged for four episodes. However, many of the concepts behind the .hack package are quite novel, even if a bit overplayed. This, it is an entertaining (if somewhat expense) way to spend a lot of hours with your Playstation 2.

An awsome game for people who like very deep games.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: February 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you've played the first 3 (and I recamend that you do because if you don't u won't stand a chance)you'll love this one. An intense game for all you .hack lovers, seen the TV show or not. . No offense. The .Hack games are for people who get like totaly into a game and try to figure out everything. It's just a game that can't be taken lightly at all. If you wanna stand a chance at all you must be really into the game just like I am and u have to have played the other 3 games. In this game u can have adventures in dungeons and form a party, but don't expect to have the same characters all the time, they aren't on all the time. You can have fun just exploring the dungeons for fun, or you can get items to trade. It is a very fun game for all those gamers out there.I hope that you like this game as much as I do. It is one of the best RPG games that there'll ever be.

ITS IN THE MIDDLE

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 24
Date: February 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

this game is goood and bad .it is bad because you have ta face imortal monster.they take a long time to beat unless yiu got good swords and magic.the good part is that you can log off anytime without losing any data and look at a email.oh did i mantioin email. you do missions and you can also read the news. not reall news. the team mebers are from hack part 3 i ont got this game but i know all the thuing s like data drain.they are GARDENIA BLACKROSE BALMUNG MOONSTONE TERIJIMA RYOKO PIROS MIA

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