Being a 3-hour epilogue, this game doesn't really have the time to drag on like the previous G.U. games, so that definitely works in its favor. There's only like 5 dungeons here, you get a broken-ass new weapon that trivializes pretty much every enemy encounter, and it's basically all done to just get the whole gang back together for new interactions and one last adventure. Given that this is a bonus campaign included in the remasters of the first 3 games, I can't really hate it. It definitely would have gone way harder if I cared more about the characters, but sometimes that's just how things be.

also this game makes haseo x ovan gay marriage canon, that ALONE makes it the best volume in G.U.

This is pretty much going to be a review of the .hack G.U. series as a whole, seeing as I've given each game in this compilation its own review on their own game page, and yeah despite the ratings on each of those games being higher than this I can wholeheartedly say that G.U. is significantly less than the sum of its parts. I wasn't the biggest fan of .hack R1, but after playing through this saga I really didn't realize how good I had it.

My biggest qualms with the .hack R1 series was mostly its hands-off approach to its plot, as the games were mostly one part to a greater whole so things didn't have to be very story-heavy as the greater plot can be experienced through the supplementary content like the .hack Sign anime or the manga/light novels/probably some drama cds in there somewhere too. I rated IMOQ quite low for that given I had only been playing one part in a greater whole at that point, and doing things that way felt really underwhelming. Doing things that way at the very least meant that the focus of R1 was on the overall setting and worldbuilding, as the different tales all told in various ways through the different media forms all take place in the same concrete fictional MMO, essentially making the mysteries behind said world the real meat of the series. After watching .hack sign, I was able to see this bigger picture more clearly and retroactively look back on R1 much more fondly than I did when I had only just played the games. This all serves as important context as for what G.U. tries to differentiate and evolve from, and most importantly, how it sucks!

G.U. forsakes having the world be the focus to instead focus on the characters. Both the game series and the tie-in anime (which I learned from my past mistakes and decided to watch simultaneously with playing) focus around the same particular group of characters, namely the main protagonist, Haseo, and Ovan, the man most closely connected to the grander mysteries of the plot. Pretty much everything that happens in any form of G.U. media centers around one of these two characters, and their relationships with other players in The World. On the good side of things, the more condensed narrative focus makes the games much more story-driven, and the unification of all forms of .hack media onto one plot makes things more focused. On the bad side of things, they made a teensy tiny oopsie and forgot to write any of the characters well! Which is certainly a problem when they are your brand new main focus!!!

I'm not gonna sugarcoat things, I thought that the characters were written horribly and had a difficult time caring about any of them. Haseo is an edgy gamer man that erratically changes from brooding edgelord to anti-heroic dogooder back to brooding edgelord, all while the plot tries its hardest to constantly remind me "haseo grew as a person throughout all the trials and tribulations he went through" when I can clearly see from the characters actions that he didn't grow shit. I am convinced that the writers have very interesting things to say about women, because every female character in this game fails the goddamn bechdel test. Characters like Atoli or Youko are for some reason head-over-heels infactuated with haseo despite him being like the literal most unlikeable mfer in history. This guy basically spends his time being self-centered and focused on solely his own goals, yet for some reason everyone is attracted to him??? Then there's Ovan, who spends 90% of his screentime just being mysterious for the sake of being mysterious, only for his overall motives to be quite underwhelming once the game finally pulls the curtains for his greater plans. Pretty much every other party member feels dully one-note and tropey. The writing for the whole games plot is just messy and boring, focusing solely on characters that feel more like NPCs than the actual meta-NPCs in the fake MMO.

As for the actual act of playing the game, even that is a bit of a downgrade from IMOQ. The same keyword system is in place, but gone are the overworlds, as now everything is a dungeon consisting of the most boring repeated hallways to slowly run through. Combat is now much more action-y, but the large amount of hitstun on enemies makes it incredibly easy to perform infinites on certain enemies and once you figure that out things become braindead as every encounter ends with the same result of you pushing the X button and sometimes even the R1 button the exact same way with no deviance or variation. Another thing to note is just how absolutely streamlined and linear everything is; dungeons are hallways, and while there's nothing like the virus core grinding in IMOQ here, at least the item farming gave a reason to integrate actual player freedom and exploration with the keyword system to find their own dungeons to grind through. Here, the game constantly tells you exactly where to go to do exactly what you need with no time for any form of deviation. Characters will just email you saying random shit like "hey haseo, we gotta do the big chicken hunt quest! see ya there!" and then you have to do that quest with that particular party member to progress, only then once that's done a different character will be like "im underlevelled, lets go to Σ flattened ballsacks remorse to level up a bit!" and then you have to go there and so on and so forth. The lack of player freedom plus the hallway-ass dungeons and braindead combat just make this series incredibly boring to play through. Hours feel four times as long when playing G.U., and while there IS a few side-quests to do, what's honestly the point when they are no different than the main stuff the game is trying to railroad you down anyways??? Apparently one of the cyberconnect2 USA developers mentioned how Last Recode actually nerfs the balance in order to weaken enemies and give more EXP in combat compared to the original in order to make the pacing of the game smoother and less grindy, which on one hand definitely doesn't solve the underlying problems, but on the other I can't imagine having to also level grind on top of all that sensory deprivation.

Overall, yeah. Individually each game isn't the worst in the series, but as a whole it's really not something I could recommend to anyone. If you really want to play .hack, just try playing IMOQ or watching sign. If either of those filter you then don't bother continuing. I've sunk over 50 hours between all 3 games and the tie-in anime and I definitely would have had a better time playing any other JRPG methinks. I wouldn't say G.U. has zero redeeming qualities, but the good parts are so few and far between that it's not worth the time and sanity investment. I still think that .hack as a concept is cool, and R1 actually is a very unique and cool vibe, I'm just relieved that I am now free of the G.U.-lag.

This game looks incredible, has a lot of cool ideas, it's fun from start to finish and it is admittedly the most polished 2D Mario on consoles since Mario World 2 in many ways. However, I can't help but feel a little unsatisfied having 100%d this in roughly 10 hours. I can't say whether it's the small amount of content, too much linearity, soundtrack that is great but not quite memorable, or lack of much difficulty at all outside of the very final level, but I certainly wouldn't put it in the same tier as Mario 3 or either Mario World. Also, while it is neat in plaza levels, I think it was a missed opportunity to make the online functionality a pseudo easy mode.