>>3986941 I tried this for a few hours and while I found it and the MMO setting charming, it wasn't really able to keep my interest. You're really saying this is better than the likes of FFX? Does it get better after a certain point or something?
I used to be a big .hack fan. Read the novels, watched the anime, played the games, watched the OVAs. It worked great as a multimedia package at the time. Each piece of media worked as a fragment (pun intended) of an overarching narrative.
These days that approach is fairly common albeit, unlike .hack, most times satelite media are merely cashgrabs and filler shit (to be fair .hack also had some of those like DUSK, Link and the like).
The games presented some interesting mechanics like the data drain infection side effects and plenty of fanservice for anyone invested in the whole project. Secret areas with secret weapons, data ghosts and the like. It was pretty well thought off and it could be challenging if one ventured to areas several levels above the player level to aggro some mobs. In that sense it was far more challenging than G.U. whose battles were more isolated and manageable.
All that said the original games could be kind of obtuse with no quick access to skills and other stuff like that that became unacceptable after KH came out.
>>3986941 I binged IMOQ and GU after the Zero announcement. It's not even close to being the best JRPG on the PS2 but I enjoyed my time with the games.
>>3993466 Not him but I stopped playing after the first game because I had figured out all of the optional content was really just the illusion of content. You have all these different party members who are barely different (the ones of the same class aren't different at all) and a bunch of optional dungeons there's no point in doing because you only ever get the same gear rewards.