jtduckman
1998
Perhaps I lack the proper context of snowboarding games pre-SSX/tony hawk renaissance but I couldn't grasp how this game controls. It always felt like the slightest thing knocked my character around and I couldn't really do anything to stop it. That being said the vibes are kinda on point so I didn't dislike my time with the game, and I'm sure if I spend a solid amount of time grasping the mechanics there's probably a fun snowboarding game in here.
2017
They aren't paying those actors enough. It's okay? Fun, I guess? For the one month of time between the switch's launch and Mario Kart releasing, this served its purpose as a funny joy-con tech demo for those not interested in BOTW like I was. But nowadays this has pretty much zero purpose. Nintendo still tryin to sell it for 50 bucks lmao
2003
Oh boy. To say this is an underwhelming payoff to three games worth of buildup is a bit of an understatement. This volume is .hack at its absolute grindiest with most of the game revolving around random virus core farming. Don't pay the absurd prices to play this physically, I assumed this was rare and expensive because it was amazing when in actuality it seemed like not a lot of copies were made for an extremely grindy game that basically requires 3 previous games worth of context to get any understanding out of. I don't think the .hack IMOQ series is absolutely horrible, but looking at this game on its own, yeesh what a way to go out.
2002
Disc 3 of the .hack IMOQ experience. It's the same as the previous two games, just with the story continuing to progress. The story itself is certainly interesting in a retrospective sense as it clearly shows a sort of uncertainty about the future of technology circa the early 2000s, but those kinds of tropes have long since become cliche in todays day and age. Still kinda interesting tho
2002
This was much less a sequel to part 1 and more like they took one four disc game and sold each disc individually. The game pretty much has all the same content as the previous part, with old sidequests even still being active and doable if you missed them in the last game. The core gameplay is still as grindy as ever, but if you made it this far, I don't think that would be an issue. There's no point trying to play this if you haven't played the first part though.
2002
As a standalone game it's kind of boneless for sure but as a first part of the .hack series, it serves its purpose. Expect lots of grinding, so if you aren't into that kind of thing, stay very far away. Protip for those interested in getting into the series: watch the anime tie-ins around the same time, this whole series is kind of designed around multimedia n whatnot.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I definitely like how they tried to do something a little different than the IMOQ series, focusing more on story and cutscenes over the unending grind of those games, but I do think the story that they are spending all these cutscenes to tell really hasn't been grasping me... Most of the characters feel like generic anime archetypes with not much going on with them both visually and characteristically. The actual game, when the game actually lets you play it, is a pretty standard and simple action RPG. It can feel trivially easy with how simple enemy stunlocks can be done, which certainly doesn't help my engagement with the game... Idk, maybe this game is slow so the other 2 volumes can pick up the pace, but considering my experience with IMOQ, I'm not really holding my breath.