Finally finished, so I can give my conclusive thoughts

This tetralogy is something you have to enjoy the vibe of. The gameplay isn't really amazing and the difficulty can get to be bullshit. However, I love it. It's easily one of the most soulful hidden gems I've ever played

The story is pretty solid. As someone who played G.U. first, I already knew what to expect. Players of The World go into comas because of a mysterious force. Kite goes along to befriend other players, a hacker, and an administrator to discover what went wrong after his own friend gets into a coma. The conclusion in Quarantine is epic, which made playing through a lot of the slow parts prior to this worth it

The gameplay - compared to G.U. (which is all I can really compare it to), I like it a lot more. This game is more about having the right equipment and items. You go into word generated fields. You enter dungeons and typically need to get to the bottom floor to advance the story or grab an item. Fighting enemies can get pretty annoying because you are locked into rooms when fighting them, so you can't run away. The best way to play these games is make Kite a spellcaster healer and just make sure your party is always buffed. Or just make sure you have a shit ton of healing and revival items stocked lol. Overall it's pretty enjoyable, it's definitely a more strategical action RPG which is most similar to the Mana games imo. Only bad thing I'll mention is the virus core grind which can get annoying sometimes

Now for the music - genuinely just peak. Chikayo Fukuda is too good. Not only are there really memorable town themes, all the area themes also have great tunes - and all of the regular area music dynamically transitions into a faster tempo battle version. A lot of them are perfect to sleep to. Can't complain at all here, and I already played G.U. so I knew how good the OST would be

Going to also mention that the art and sound design are right up my alley. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (who also did Evangelion art) worked on this. The character art is just perfect to me. The sound design is top notch, like all the menu and attack sounds, I just love it. If you're gonna make an RPG where I have to menu more than half the time, it better have good sound effects

I don't really have anything else to say. I'd pipe BlackRose. I'd pipe Gardenia. I'd pipe Mistral. I'd pipe Terajima Ryoko. I'd pipe Helba

Peak. Kite is the GOAT