For a first nasu experience, it was really something

This game is really good in a lot of points ; its dark atmosphere, the characters that will make you doubt and question everything. and also ARCUEID.
The CG are mostly wonderful, reinforced with a masterpiece soundtrack, which give atmosphere to many scenes, dialogues and combat.

still this game and it's characters absolutely terrified me
and some awful scenes still haven't managed to get out of my mind.

so go on and play it arcueid's waiting

This game is messy but really cool. Just download a cheat engine table because it's really not worth dealing with how weird damage gets in the lategame and how you start to fall off the exp curve.

Blisteringly fast-paced and pathologically unable to let its characters have a moment of rest, it balances the consistently-dire stakes with goofy skits that let the cast worm their way into your head. Balances an earnest, potent, and overtly queer and anticapitalist message with a cool lil sci-fi plot that has some neat worldbuilding when they're not directly quoting from Hebrew scripture. I think there's a few points where it cribs a little too heavily from Yoko Taro in terms of how it delivers its punches, but it has a decidedly unique flavor and construction of its own, and I'm an absolute sucker for one of the late-game twists about Eve. Reconciliation is not always an option, and nothing is more pure than killing for the people you love - except for misquoting Tampopo to your crush to seem cool before hyperfixating on shoyu tonkotsu ramen and undoing that coolness factor instantly.

It's like they spent a long time making a nice-looking world map and then quickly and awkwardly laid a game on top of it. The actual content is stretched so thin it's mildly insulting.

I will never forget the terrible sinking feeling I had about a quarter of the way through the (embarrassing, weightless, cliched) story when I realized, oh God, I've seen everything this game has to offer haven't I? I have all the items. I've seen the ONE dungeon type. There aren't going to be ANY other interiors. And these ten or so enemies are really gonna be it for the whole thing.

Bad experience. Not a Zelda game.

.hack//Infection stood apart as one of the more unique JRPGs of the 6th generation. The idea was simple: Take the 'game within a game' format, apply to it the fashionable trend of MMORPGs, and inject it with doses of self-parody and meta horror. Its world building is enhanced by 'fake' players interacting in both worlds and an overwhelming sense of mystery. The looming threat of higher powers within the game paint a terrible, bleak existence that is both harrowing and fantastic. Outside 'The World' and into the 'desktop', the clever implementation of faux internet E-mail, webpages and forums with in-game mechanics (side quests, secrets, unlockables, etc.) greatly facilitate the sense of immersion in a manner similar to Front Mission 3's own network system.

Mechanically, the game manages to replicate the densely repetitive but oddly captivating and addictive combat of MMOs, further improved by its loot and trading system in a circular way. Rarely does one ever feel bored in combat, despite the uninteresting dungeon design and tedious mechanics like Data Drain.

I think its pretty neat how this game managed to recreate an offline mmo on PS2, the main menu being the computer screen is cool, and so is being able to browse the game forums and read e-mails.

The characters are also likeable enough and the plot seems interesting (although I can't comment much because this is a trilogy and I only played the first game), but sadly it falls apart on the gameplay part.

I honestly don't know if I'll ever truly seriously get into this franchise as it is a pretty daunting task, but at the very least I can say that this game has some pretty interesting concepts.

ive been a fan of .hack//SIGN since i was around 12 but i never played the games because i didn't really expect it to be much like it, plus i had heard a lot of criticism of these games as not really using the mmo conceit for any real purposeful ends. id definitely say those criticisms were unfounded at least to me, the desktop-login-game-and-back loop really makes use of the conceit on really interesting narrative structural levels, which is really helped by how pickup/putdown the core loop is, dungeons are 10-20 minutes long and I never had to grind save once before the last dungeon because the level spike was huge but not unmanageable. aesthetics are gorgeous, the music is good and makes sense for both the in-game and desktop ambiances but it's definitely not on the level of SIGN which is Yuki Kajiura's best work imo, but that's fine, this is going for a different texture, less introspective and more social, which is really reflected in how different Kite is from Tsukasa as protagonists, both work in terms of what the texts are doing. it's good. makes a strong case for the three further games.