Touhou Mario Kart.

There've been a lot of Touhou dojin games making it to the English-speaking world lately, and on proper game consoles, no less. Most recent one I've played is Gensou Skydrift, which is at its core Mario Kart but with Touhou girls replacing the characters as well as the vehicles.

It's cute and pretty great-looking for a game made by fans. Music is largely by SOUND HOLIC and StarDrops and they're fun arranges of mostly girls' themes from the games, occasionally stage themes. But you expect fun music in a Touhou dojin game.

I'm mostly writing this because an idea for a game that's been bouncing around my head as little more than a transient thought is a bit racing-related. It's not inspired by this, but I think I learned a bit about what I do and don't enjoy in a racing game that I want to take note of for future reference.

First off: Object collision is way off, and the paths of the tracks are extremely unforgiving, not allowing for flying off one end to cruise onto a different part of the level. If you fall off, you'll careen into space, regardless of how close the road is. That can be frustrating and it becomes an obstacle in how you play the game rather than an enhancement, feature, or challenge. If you run into the track's edge, you're likely to be repelled right off, meaning you have to aim to be ABOVE the track if you want to stay in the running. When your "vehicle" is a girl, it feels like she should be able to grab the edge and pull you up on it rather than get hit in the face and fall into the abyss. I mean, at least some of them would be that tenacious.

Though that's my wanting something more from a game made by fans. In terms of racing games in general, it made me realise that losing control, flying off an edge, and having to wait for a respawn to recover kinda really sucks. Especially if they're not even going to treat me to a unique animation whenever my characters fall into lava or water or space! It's like they didn't account for people being BAD at the game.

One level is extremely interesting, however: Former Hell. Unlike most of the others, there isn't really one set path, and there are several side streets you can take to varying degrees of success or ease of navigation. I love the variation in plowing through the streets, skirting through the sewers, and rocketing off of rooftops when it comes to surroundings. When it's almost all just… earth, such as in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, I think it becomes too grounded (heh) to really take advantage of the medium. The medium being video game. Fantasy. Not real. Have fun! Y'know?

Another interesting level was the Outside World, modeled after how it's seen in Urban Legend in Limbo. This means tall skyscrapers dotted with fluorescent and blinding blue lights, but now with Sonic Adventure or R-esque raised rollercoastery pavement crawling between them and the occasional ramp or ethereal blue path to drift on. It's quite fun to look at and not nearly as dark as the Scarlet Devil Mansion, with less tight turns and un-fun routes.

That's another thing: This may be a symptom of many racing games, however I haven't played many as of recent, so I can't be sure, but I'm really not a fan of tight corners. This cropped up quite a bit in Gensou Skydrift, as a lot of locations in Gensokyo are man-made (such as the aforementioned mansion, the nuclear reactor core, or Former Hell) and I've just found that edges and corners are not conducive to slippery, slidey, imprecise drifting. They have their place in racing games, of course! With how this one plays, though, I don't think it's it. Those corners call for intense drifting, which brings down the momentum significantly, especially when the wall's visibility is low and you end up colliding with it.

In my ideal racing game, there wouldn't be a complete lack of corners. There'd be a snappier, efficient way to quickly switch directions. Perhaps a bumper would be used to that end? It wouldn't make sense for some vehicles, such as cars, but I think it could work with a bike. Or with a girl, if you're flying on one of those. Touhous are required to be rather nimble, after all.

Another thing I value in racing games is certainly versatility of the paths you take. Nonlinear progression, I guess? There were times where I'd fly off the track and that'd be the end of that. Sometimes, though, by some fluke, I'd accidentally fall on an earlier part of the level, pushing me back without forcing the long respawn period. That sort of manoeuvre isn't new to racing games (or games in general, really, it was even in Mario 64's penguin race), but it rarely worked out quite that well in Gensou Skydrift. The path would sometimes overlap and loop over itself, but it's like they didn't account for anyone taking advantage of that. And, I mean, they already created something pretty incredible for a dojin game! So once again, I don't mean to shit on Skydrift, I merely mean to muse on what jives with me. Taking shortcuts and creating your own way are both elements I value in driving-oriented titles.

Drifting is a fun technique that I, admittedly, haven't really used that much. I'm a very SPEED ALL THE TIME person, so my technique in any game of this sort was to only ever accelerate. Gensou Skydrift's penalty for playing like that was steep enough that I HAD to adapt my playstyle if I wanted to beat the main campaign. I'm not sure how I feel about that, either. My original playstyle had very little in the way of technique, but it presented its own challenges and made movement fun to me. Completely quashing that sort of gameplay is a bit discouraging -- I feel like I get more hours out of a game playing how I want to rather than how I have to.

Drifting just slows you down, you know?! Sometimes you'd have to slow close to a stop to make the turns necessary around Gensokyo! When I think "racing," I think "competing speeds," so anything that impedes the speed is an obstacle to me. I'm not a fan of having to activate my own obstacle in order to effectively navigate.

One thing this game did have was "spellcards", which are effectively the items you'd pick up in any other kart racing game. Some (like the ribbon-maybe-gap and the tengu fan) seemed to have similar boosting effects, others functioning instead as means to inconvenience your opponents on the track. I don't have much of a feeling toward them one way or the other. One thing I DO prefer in racing games, however, is when there's an ability to collide/punch/otherwise interact with competing racers to throw them off and to gain the advantage. It's a double-edged sword, though, of course, as they're freely able to attack you in the same manner.

That's a level of violence that could easily work with Touhou, but isn't really present in Skydrift. I kinda get it -- some people prefer to put the focus of Touhou on the flight and danmaku rather than the brutal melee combat of the Twilight Frontier titles. It might have also been a bit unsettling, since the girls are already riding each other as vehicles.

So I guess my ideal racing title:

• Allows for a quick snap turn for hard corners, not contingent on braking and losing momentum
• Allows you to play recklessly without braking or very technically and effectively, with both having different pros and cons, but not one more represented than the other
• Allows for shortcuts or hopping around from certain parts of the track to others, requiring a different way of analysing maps that isn't just entirely linear "start here, end here"
• Has less of a penalty for falling off the road, merely putting you in a different place that you need to work your way out of. Slow respawns aren't only discouraging, but they're rather tedious, too
• Allows for simple, close-range melee combat with other vehicles

I dunno. It's a fun game! And I think it made me understand a lot of what I appreciate in what I play, so I value it for that.

Time for another word salad about my favourite game! Upon my friend finishing it, we got to talking about it, and I had even more thoughts about Live-A-Live and everything it does so very right.

It starts with Akira, who I pegged as being his favourite character (either I was right or my saying "you'll like him the most" just influenced him, who knows, who cares?) that he wanted to keep in his party, but traded out for the final chapter when against the final boss. But Akira is such a muscular and brave youth, right?! He must be strong!

He's not.

He's one of the weakest characters. His attacks take too many turns to really take effect and they're largely nonphysical, related to his ESP and often summoning a maternal angel-like figure to cast elemental damage on the enemy. He himself, though, is so weak. Where Sundown can one-shot a guy, Li can take a man down with advanced martial arts tactics, and Pogo can bludgeon some poor schlub with his club, Akira can… I dunno, cause a slight burn, if it hits?

My point is that in Live-A-Live, coolness of design doesn't equate to strength of character, and Akira is the finest example of that. It makes sense, too. Akira's special ability is mindreading, which any amount of consideration or just exploration in fiction reveals to be a pretty shitty (or at least extremely inconvenient and taxing) skill. Akira can train all he wants, but no amount of smacking a punching bag can heal the traumas he's suffered in seeing the murder of his father, or learning that that murder was committed by the man he looks up to. Learned not through communication, even, but by overhearing Matsu's shame-ridden remorse echoing through his brain in his last moments. Akira is involved in combat, but he isn't a fighter, which I think is justified, explained, and conveyed beautifully through his story arc.

How does the final battle of Flow play out? Like the rest, where you face off against one of Odio's incarnations with the team you'd culled together? No. If he did that, he would undoubtedly be dead. Akira fights -- and gets curb-stomped -- all throughout his chapter, and the grand finale hinges on him using mental, not physical, power to defeat Odeo. Buriki Daioh isn't controlled by G Gundam-like sensors hooked to the body (ironically, since this chapter's illustrator worked on G Gundam), but by ESP. In the same chamber where Matsu falls -- due to his guilt and his attempt at atonement finally meeting in a climactic sequence where he sacrifices himself to save Akira -- Akira finds his strength. His body is still weak, his skills are still useless, but he can channel his mental capacity through the giant robot, which gives him enough power and clout to save the city.

But he couldn't take the giant robot with him to the other dimension in the final chapter. All he had was his own body. Compared to the speedy assassin in Oboro or the trained punchout artist in Masaru, he didn't have much going for him, offensively speaking. There's unique dungeons for every character, though, and Akira's of course takes advantage of his ESP. Because, remember, not all strength is physical, especially in the case of the hotblooded mecha pilot here.

But why would you have Akira in your party at all?

Well, because where fighting the Master and gaining respect for him gave Li strength and motivation, fighting was never Akira's primary talent. His chapter hinges on communication, be it through words, actions, or uniquely in his case, thoughts. Sure, you can level him up in battle, but he won't ever reach the same tier as the other characters.

That, I've found, is because he's not an offensive character. Everything about his attitude and design would lead you to believe he is, but that's just another clever subversion on Live-A-Live's part. Akira is best utilised as a healer.

I feel like typically in RPGs, healers are cute girls that just want to uwuwuwu help everyone!!! They're too scared to battle, but they'll back you up, because they want to be there for you!! This is how they can help save the world!!! or some shit. Akira, on the other hand, heals because he has felt visceral pain. Akira has already seen a world torn apart at its seams by violence and destruction, and he grew up as the only true guardian to his sister because he watched as his father succumbed to his gunshot wound. Akira has mercy killed a boy's father after his body had been deliquesced and injected into a combat robot. Akira did exactly what Matsu did, and he still goes home to Chibikko house, where he lives with the boy whose father he killed. It makes sense that Akira isn't the war-hardened soldier. That trauma is enough. The fact that he's also cursed with the "ability" to see into people's hearts, often sharing in their misery or otherwise pained by their cruel or simply overwhelming thoughts, only contributes more to what I believe would lead to emotional weakness. He feels and acts with his entire heart, which I love, especially considering how difficult that must be for him. In his soul and with the help of the memories of his loved ones, he finds the strength to heal others, becoming rather deft at restoring health when in a pinch.

Cube is still a better healer, though. Can't help that the robot was built for that purpose.

In terms of gameplay, Akira can be frustratingly weak, sometimes downright useless. But not in a controller-smashing way, so much as in a way that makes you want to work harder and push him further so that he can punch his way to the top. Akira is one instance where the top isn't where he wants to go, though. Unlike Masaru, Akira's goal isn't becoming the strongest; it's restoring and protecting the peace of the city. As long as he can lie around in the park and sell taiyaki at absurd and inconsistent prices, he's content. After all, if everyone is at peace, then there'll be less troubled minds to read, y'know?

Li found strength communicating through fists. Masaru found it challenging the greatest and learning from their techniques. Pogo found it from falling in love and gaining the urge to protect and save. Unlike them, Akira found mental fortitude, which was perfect for piloting a giant robot, but served a different purpose entirely when stripped of his metal armour.

I love Akira. He's spiky-haired and battle-scarred but he's not the warrior you want on the frontlines. His design is misleading, but not maliciously so -- because he's not useless, he just finds his use somewhere different from where you'd be led to believe.

live-a-live,s cool ;)

A friend of mine is playing Live-A-Live for the first time, and experiencing it vicariously is allowing me to think even more about what makes this game strong and why I love it.

The ninja chapter wasn't my favourite back when I played LAL, mostly because of the length and difficulty. It wasn't bad, nor did it have to be lengthy, but it came out that way because of the manner that I chose to play it in.

The ninja chapter gives you four options: you can storm the grounds and murder every person you see, spare everyone and hide from sight so as to not stir up trouble, to traverse the map normally and only kill those that impede your way, or to deny your duty and leave in dishonour.

The first element of this that I find quite intriguing is how there's only two endings to this. They don't differ based on whether you do or don't kill anyone. They only vary depending on whether you accept or deny your mission -- if you accept your mission and kill everyone, you receive the same ending as someone that spares the lives of everyone in the castle. The only difference is the reward, and you only get specially rewarded with specific items for beating the chapter in either of those two ways -- you're not rewarded for only killing those necessary but sparing everyone else. It's all or nothing.

But there is one other ending, and that's if, from the start, you decline your orders and abandon your mission by running away before the level begins. In doing so, you receive a game over, regardless of whether or not you beat the enemies you face while retreating.

That's just the start. The premise of the level itself forces you to make a decision and to commit yourself to either stick to it or stray from your path. What I like about it is how there's no preachy morality pontificating or any shit like that. You effectively have two choices (that is, if you want to finish and be rewarded with more than just a chapter clear), and you are not shamed for choosing to avoid battle or for opting to massacre a small village's worth of people. There's no cutscene telling you that you're a coward for not fighting or a murderer for killing. If you're thinking either of those things, it's because you came to that conclusion from your own actions.

You could say "it's not that deep," but Live-A-Live is a game with so much love put into it that I don't think it's possible to read too far. Even the running gags of some chapters have emotional weight in others (I'm thinking about the various untimely fates of Watanabe), so to think the ninja chapter accidentally stumbled upon a great exploration of morality in video games is silly to me.

What got me thinking was the one particular scene where there's an assassin surrounded by four men. If you do nothing, the assassin will sequentially kill each man until all of them have fallen. This becomes a problem depending on your approach to the chapter. If your goal is to kill everyone, then you've suddenly got competition: in the story so far, it's just been Oboro vs. all the people that are either trying to rid of the intruder or trying to protect themselves. As of this scene, it's Oboro vs. another man that is rapidly making corpses that are meant to fall by your blade.

It's an agitating scene because of how fast the assassin is. He's so quick that by the time you get in the room and kill one man, another of your targets has already been murdered, forcing you to either give up your entire kill streak (which, remember, is the only way to be rewarded if you've made it this far killing people), or to restart from your last save. It's not too much of a penalty -- at least if you save reasonably often -- but it's enough to be frustrating. What really struck me, though, was the timing of this scene and how it really made me feel.

By this point, if you're on a kill route, you're probably desensitized to the murder. Each sprite you face is just that -- some pixels, and later a number that you count on your quest to get a special item. Victims are people you seek out in order to raise your tally and become stronger.

With that scene, though, something changes without anything being explicitly stated. It's not you vs. your victims anymore. It's you versus someone just as capable as you -- if not more so -- in a race to defeat four people that might as well be pawns in your game.

Were it easy to beat the assassin to the kills, this wouldn't really be that big a deal, but it's the forced repetition of this scene -- a result of how difficult it is and how hard it is to complete on the first try, especially without a guide to let you know what's going down -- that made me look at what the game was having me do. Or, I could say that, but it was my choice to go for a complete kill run. I could let the assassin kill them and then kill the assassin if I weren't trying to take 100 lives before the end of the final boss fight, but because I had to reach that kill count, I had to kill all four of those men before the assassin did. And it was hard. It took many restarts, and it frustrated me whenever I'd kill one man only for the battle to end and only see two left standing.

It's because I had become so desensitised to the murder in this chapter that this really hit me with a sobering slap. I was getting frustrated at not being able to kill everyone. I got mad at someone else because he took those bodies that were meant to be mine. I would quit, restart, quit, restart, and repeat until I'd beaten all of them before killing the assassin myself. And that's fucked.

It's fucked because that groundhog day-like reiteration made me realise how determined I was to have Oboro end these lives. I couldn't let myself continue the chapter without taking out every last person in the castle. Even when it became more of a challenge to kill than to spare, I felt as if I had no choice and needed to continue on my path. The game had me killing men of varying degrees of criminality up until now -- hell, none of them were even criminals like Oboro, they were just doing their job to protect the grounds. The morality is what varied in the victims, I guess. Some were totally innocent and some were assholes. As of that scene against the assassin, I realised just how blurred the line had become between the blameless and the deserving. It didn't matter if I was killing someone who deserved it or not. What mattered is that my body count reach 100.

It's the frustration that scene instills in the player that forces them to sit back and think about what they're doing and if it's worth the agitation the game is causing. It's not a character saying, "Oh, you horrible person! You've killed so many people! Why would you do that, you fiend, you reprehensible cur?!" No, it's you looking at the position the game has put you in and questioning your motives that you probably started the chapter very firmly with.

I love that about Live-A-Live. It doesn't tell you how to feel. It doesn't tell you that you're horrible for killing a bunch of people. What it does is give every single person in the castle -- all 100 -- unique names. It gives them sprites that convey their readiness and willingness for battle. When you fight the elderly or the women, you do so seeing them cowering, with their attacks often amounting to throwing money at you in an attempt to buy your mercy. That's what hurts. It's not the game saying "murder is bad!" It's you still choosing to kill the people in the castle even when faced with the very slight human characteristics they all share. It's the clench in your stomach upon realising that these are depictions of fear, and those people fear you, the hero. It made me feel guilty without telling me to feel bad. That, I think, is what makes Live-A-Live an excellent game.

Between the possible endings (see: either you win or you lose, and both murder and mercy end in wins) and the battles themselves along with certain scenes like that with the assassin, I think the ninja chapter of Live-A-Live does a fantastic job of pushing the player to their limit and using gameplay, not story, to evoke a discussion of morality with the player. It doesn't infantilise you or command you to feel a certain way, but it still challenges you personally from the beginning to the end of the chapter using its mechanics and the limits of your patience.

I just think it's neat

Holy SHIT, I've been meaning to get around to this. And YO THIS GAME FUCKING OWNS. I started with the Prehistoric chapter (I'm going in order of chronology, although I'm not sure which comes first, sci-fi or mecha, LOL)

Contact: The Caveman Pogo

• I wasn't big on this one. It follows a lot of RPG conventions (encounter enemies, fight them, raise levels, grind) but it was still unique enough on its own. The smelling mechanics and lack of any concrete terms for actions (or events!) made things interesting.
• The humour was hit-or-miss, maybe funnier if I were a kid when playing this. Oh man, as a kid, this game'd blow my MIND...
• Bel is cute, and I love that she gets the most MASSIVELY POWERFUL ATTACK of that chapter. She was my introduction to the girls in this game being Very Good.

Inheritance: The Master of Xin Shan Quan

• Now THIS. This is when this game totally fucking won me over. I'm already weak to kung fu movies so that the game played out like one got me right in the gut. The whole game is very cinematic, I've found, and so the lighthearted comedy and slapstick of the caveman chapter is justified, really.
• Li Kuugo. The first pupil I encountered was a girl, and not just that, but a bandit trying to mug the Master -- oh man, I was so fucking IN, now. I love her character design, I love her rash attitude and way of speaking, and I love her story of finding direction in martial arts where she was originally a criminal and an outcast.
• Yuan and Sammo were great, too. Sammo in particular impressed me. He's the fat kid, so naturally he's almost always depicted eating or wanting to eat (sigh), but there was an underlying current of the Master trying to teach him that he isn't lesser because of his weight -- he is agile and capable with his build. I'm not used to this sort of fat-... What's the opposite of fat-shaming? Fat-praising? I'm not used to that! It warmed my gay old heart when the Master comforted the boy about something he was very self conscious of.
• THAT BEING SAID I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY FUCKING DIED. I honestly thought they were just gravely injured, and Master and Li were going to save them! But I guess this does play out as a kung fu movie, so naturally there was that scene of loss and the following quest for vengeance and justice. The dread I felt when I saw Li on the ground was palpable, and I felt relief when I saw Yuan and Sammo, because I thought they'd make it... I don't know how this game got me so attached to them so fast. It must have to do with the presentation, because it's all done so superbly.
• The way Master seemed to get weaker as the story went on, from the practice stages with his pupils to the later parts of Odi Wang Lee's castle, really got me. I thought he'd make it until the end, but this game followed the conventions of a movie, not of a game -- Li taking on the part of the final battle while he fought off the lower mobsters was amazing. Him passing on all that he'd taught her about the martial arts... The fact that she lost those she learned it with and he she learned it from is sad, but she's such a fucking strong person by the end, it still feels rewarding to see her sparring alone, paying respects to the three tombstones on Mount Da Zhi.
• OH MAN, and that final blow from Li that knocks Odi Wang Lee through his throne and then dramatically into a gong, which resounds, signifying the end of the battle? That was so fucking awesome, I was grinning the whole time. I didn't see it coming but it was so damn corny and just YES ugh idk man I can't even talk, I just love this shit
• So yeah, as of this chapter? Totally fucking sold. Love this game. Wasn't sure if it could get better than that.

Secret Orders: The Ninja Oboro-maru

• Well I'm just as big a weeb as the next guy so I fucking love ninjas so I was already so fucking into this, and the stealth elements were fuckin' cool! I chose the path of killing all 100 people for the sake of the EXP (I don't know what the endgame is like, but I assume I'll be playing as Oboro again at some point, and levelling up on dead spirits could get old fast). It was stressful and it hurt to kill innocent people as well as criminals, but it was all in the name of his ninja duty. I'd like to do a no-kill run sometime, though that level-grinding isn't very appealing...
• THAT ONE SCENE. When I say "stressful," I mean that scene where the masked man is flanked by four warriors and you have to run around him and defeat them before he does, even though he picks them off, one by one, at this fuckin' HYPERLIGHT speed. I don't like using savestates, but I had to break one out for this part. I'm not agile enough for the quick movements that required, but it was still cool that it was a thing at all.
• By which I mean, it's cool that this became a stealth game as well as an RPG, and in that moment, it felt like a horror RPG to me, too. Of course there isn't blood everywhere and jumpscares, but being chased and running against the clock and keeping track of the peoples' passwords all reminded me of 00s era rpgmaker horror games, but in a good way. Having to race around and kill before he killed brought it together for me -- it was stressful. Even in this game where I was playing the aggressor, not going the peaceful, no-kill route, this game managed to make me panic a bit and get frustrated and feel like I had to work to succeed. It made me question my goals, too: is a strong-ass sword really worth slaughtering all these people? Does Oboro benefit from me murdering those men before they'd be murdered anyway by the masked fellow? I don't know. This chapter definitely had me question my morals.
• Picking up Sakamoto Ryoma after I'd just played .hack and learned who he was was pretty cool, LOL. (I need to study more Japanese history)
• Oh man this chapter is a MAZE, though. Semi-ashamed to admit that I used a walkthrough because it was so convoluted and my sense of direction is so poor. That didn't at all impede on my enjoyment, though.

Wanderer: The Cowboy Sundown

• Okay, now THIS. If a game can make me love a fuckin' Wild West chapter then it can do anything. The palette of Sundown's story is the sort I'm not fond of right off the bat -- the washed out beiges and tuscan sand only occasionally interrupted by dark green cacti -- so I felt like I'd lose interest immediately, but the game sucked me in.
• Alright I'm a gigantic fujoshit and Sundown/Mad Dog? That's good shit. Like listen here, I've only seen that "No one else can kill you. We'll work together, because only I am allowed to kill you," shit in samurai stories and whatnot. Seeing it with cowboys was a new take I'd never been introduced to and it gripped me, not just because That's Good Gay Shit but because it felt particularly unique. I like how Sundown is one of the more quiet protagonists, too -- Mad Dog acts as his haughty and impulsive voice, but Sundown himself only mutters a word or an order or two.
• Even the townsfolk grew on me. Of course they didn't have particularly deep plots, but racing around town against the clock (again), collecting items, figuring what could be used as traps, trying to find time to make molotovs, etc... Especially at night and with every passing hour indicated by a long chime of the bell, it felt tense. But everyone working together was fucking excellent. That some of the townsfolk were slower than the others at their traps also worried me -- but even the slowest, Gibson, managed to pull his shit together before the final bell. And I felt proud of him. Proud of this dude with hardly any personality. This game actually made me feel like this was a town of people working together to outwit and defeat the bandits.
• Sundown refuses to kill Mad Dog because he has feelings for Mad Dog, this is apparent in how willingly he will kill anyone else, and Mad Dog doesn't understand because he's an idiot and a fool. But that they're always running into each other, time and time again, trying to kill one another, is the sort of fucked up but weirdly warm romance I've come to expect from the aforementioned samurai stories, but never this.
• The side story of the sheriff being a coward and learning from Sundown was great, too. When he let Sundown keep his badge I got A Feel.

The Strongest: The Wrestler Takahara Masaru

• When I saw that this was the "modern day" story, I was sitting back, expecting something a bit less hammy. I forgot that this game TOTALLY came in the midst of some of the hammiest fucking shit of all time. It opens like an 80s martial arts movie with a training montage. I was so immediately won over.
• That being said, the whole plot fell a biiit flat with this one -- you can fill in the blanks (he's learning the techniques from his opponents, so his enemies are his closest allies in defeating the sinister Odie Oldbright) but without any scenes speaking to them after the battle, communicating their wins or losses, their being slaughtered by Odie and Masaru's avenging them feels a bit, well, forced.
• Certainly still an excellent chapter, though. I like the Mega Man approach to choosing which enemies to destroy and gain the abilities of first and progressing based on the tactics you receive. This could get fairly challenging since, like with Sundown's chapter, there were no opportunities to level grind, and it was all left up to skill and luck.

Flow: The Psychic Mecha Pilot Tadokoro Akira

• Alright what the fuck this chapter was a roller coaster. I expected a hotblooded mecha anime and instead got the existential crises of a Gundam or some shit. The violence in this chapter reached a new level for this game, too.
• This story had a particular focus on familial ties, and so Akira's relationship with his sister and his late father, all the kids of Chibikko House and Taeko, and Akira's relationship with Matsu (and Matsu's with Akira's father) all tied together quite nicely. I'm impressed by this game because each story is short and there's not a lot of room for character development, but the story is still compelling and driven. I'm not sure if that's because of the writing, the atmosphere, the execution, or what, but it's very much so a success.
• What the FUCK with the whole liquefying humans into robot blood thing! What the fuck? What the fuck! I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the concept morbidly cool, though. This game also seems to have predicted the 100% fatal brain upload that humankind developed recently, only instead of of downloading a brain, it's just straight-up juicing people.
• Watanabe wondering where his dad went only for you to find out that he was one of the subjects to get liquefied and crammed into a robot was heartbreaking. You have no choice but to fight the robot containing what's left of that child's father, and you have to just stand there as he manages to cry out for his son before shutting down permanently. This was so incredibly dark, but it oddly mirrored Akira's story, too: he also had a father that was killed by someone he saw as a friend, if not as a mentor. Akira was forced to become what Matsu was to his dad, and it's bleak as hell, but a fascinating story nonetheless.
• Kaori slowly getting weaker until she asked for Toei to kill her and make her into Buriki Daioh's blood was fucked. I love how Akira refused to let her make that sacrifice, though, and Matsu took it on instead -- since he had debts to repay and actions he wanted to avenge.
• The MUSIC in this chapter is SO GOOD, Shimomura Yoko has all my love and respect. Buriki Daioh actually having a theme song with lyrics was adorable and good.
• I love how the encounters were visible when playing as Akira, but when you board Buriki Daioh, they become random encounters. It makes sense -- Buriki Daioh is fuckin' huge, so of course mere tanks or jet planes wouldn't be particularly visible from his vantage point.
• The liquefied humans in the lake absorbing the people that abused them was fucking wild. What was this chapter?
• The unique gameplay element of this chapter was mind reading, which was certainly interesting, although not particularly cool. I mean, most of the minds you could read didn't really add to the setting or the story, and sometimes people shared rather bland thoughts (like everyone in the bar just thinking about how much they love them some Matango), and you really only got the opportunity to read the minds of people, which I think limited the scope of this skill's potential. Reading the mind of the liquefied humans was cool as fuck even though they were also all the same (simply crying for help despite being beyond repair), though, and that's probably as "out-there" as the mechanic gets. Oh! Learning about Akira's father's passing through Matsu's begrudging memories was pretty neat, too. Sad, but neat.

Mechanical Heart: Worker Robot Cube

• This chapter starts off on such a cute note, with a meek, bespectacled engineer bringing a spherical little robot to life, full of hope for its future. I immediately got attached to the engineer, Kato, and then everything went to shit. The fuck.
• This chapter was so tense even without combat! The fucking atmosphere was so suffocating and nerve-wrecking! Only being able to sit back as everyone falls apart and turns on each other while they're all isolated in their own malfunctioning space coffin is excruciating! But the story was so engrossing, and so freaky, and so well-done. I'm amazed at the sort of story-telling that can get done in 16 bits. A particular detail I liked was how crew members would pick up and place Cube on the seat when they're at the table in the break room -- it's a very small detail, and usually your sprite would just be able to hover over the background art, but they were obstacles in this chapter just so you could receive help. Being able to tell what someone was doing when they looked at Cube and lifted him was really sweet -- it just reminded me of everything this game manages to get across with so little.
• The plot of this chapter was particularly heart-rending. The robot was built to help others, and he did! But the human inclination to distrust and fear the unknown led to everyone turning on one another and getting plucked off, one by one, in the claustrophobic confines of a ship in the void of space. Rachel's meltdown hitting a climax with her stealing the corpse of a man she thought was wrongly killed by a lover she jilted was just fuckin' weird and harsh. Darth's softening toward Cube was incredibly sweet, though, especially considering how he was the first one to write off Cube as an enemy.
• The arcade cabinet built into the ship becoming the interface with which you battle the mother computer controlling everything was awesome. I was wondering how they'd manage a final battle in a chapter with no combat, but that worked, and it worked well.

King of Demons: Oersted

• I love how the final chapter begins with the most generic plot that the game had avoided for so long... it's like, here's where the game BEGINS, the game you thought this'd be, and yet the game this probably isn't going to be...
• And BOY HOWDY how it subverts expectations! You play as you gather together a team of comrades, old and new, to rescue the princess, only to slowly lose them to untimely death and betrayal and sacrifice -- until you're left by yourself to save the princess, the last person that put her faith in you. The story makes a point of emphasizing how as long as one person still believes in you, it's worth fighting on. So of course, Oersted has the princess -- until Straybow steals her away. Then Oersted has no one.
• And rather than the usual hero story where the protagonist overcomes all difficulty and adversity, Oersted succumbs to despair, and becomes the final boss you've been fighting incarnations of all along. The final chapter seeming so typical but turning out to be the origin story of your greatest, most consistent enemy? Fucking BADASS!!!
• I feel like the moral of the story is to believe in yourself and not hinge your self worth on someone else. It's interesting how Oersted was silently able to go on, and didn't utter a word until the princess took her own life. He had stayed strong up until that point, with her memory in mind, but once he lost the one thing Hash and Uranus told him to keep fighting for? He was fucked. That's when he finally spoke up and said his first words of the chapter -- his first and final declaration. Fucking fantastic.

The Final Chapter

• To the ones who still embrace their delusions of humanity.
• Pogo: You, who gained the illusion of love.
• Xin Shan Quan Master: You, who gained motivation.
• Oboro: You, who seek to shape the path of history.
• Sundown: You, who gained fame as a hero.
• Masaru: You, who gained the title of the world's strongest fighter.
• Akira: You, who gained bravery from your anger.
• Cube: You, who gained a human heart.
• I had to restart the final chapter from every character's POV just because of how all their stories of being summoned were different. This was worthwhile just to see the different ways that Oersted despised the protagonists -- they all accomplished something he could not, from love, to being a hero, to being a human. All of them took something from him, something he couldn't get on his own, or in any other incarnation. It's so cool realising that these stories that you played and cheered for were all the motivations behind the final boss, who is so full of fury and hatred that the mere success of others tears him down.
• I'd love to play the final scenario from every character's POV, but for now I'm doing Li's, since she's my obvious favourite. Her recap before she gets summoned even felt more emotional than the others; granted, Cube's was somber and Masaru's win was fleeting. Li's has her reflecting on her time as a pupil and her new role as the new Xin Shan Quan master. Li's story has her praying to her late pupils and master to have them watch over her as she fights on in their memory. This is hard-hitting shit, man! I love her!
• Li's scenario is great. She's not particularly eloquent, and when confronted by the evil demon lord about her compassion and motivation stemming from someone she didn't even know well, her response was just "So what?" Like, yeah, attagirl. I love you.
• The gameplay of the final route was not my favourite since it was heavy on random encounters. However, I did like how every character is recruited slightly differently, and how their presence in the party shakes up what can be done as a group -- Oboro runs fastest if he leads, Pogo has his smelling mechanism, Akira can read the consciousnesses leftover after what seems like a frozen apocalypse, Li can destroy parts of the environment (LOL), etc. The last route maintained what made each route unique, including in the dungeons: Cube's had only puzzles, no battles; Sundown's dungeon was a race against time with the ultimate consequence of getting attacked by a ferocious enemy; Li's dungeon lets you murder a lecherous creep -- really, this game has it all!
• What really got me about this game was the juggling of themes. Pogo's story is love and joy and human contact; Li's is of motivation and tradition and benevolence; Oboro's story is about honour and mercy (or lack thereof); Cube's story is one of trust, distrust, and fear; Sundown's is cooperation and community and isolation; Masaru's is challenging the concept of "strength" and discipline; Akira's is about a desire to protect and persevere and having the capacity to forgive; Oersted's is about hope and despair and inherent cruelty of humankind. Oersted's contrasts with everyone else's stories because where everyone manages to find peace and solace in someone, Oersted does not -- he loses everything, so even compared to Cube, who watched humans betray one another and die as a result, or Oboro, who has the option to slaughter or save innocent lives, he has the most tragic background and outcome (i.e., Cube still has Kato and the Corporal and the Earth on the horizon; Oboro still has his honour and his companion in Sakamoto Ryoma, as well as the rising sun of a country with a future). I like how the demon kind wasn't just someone that existed because Hell exists, but rather was a result of someone yielding to the pain and suffering that other humans inflicted on him. The demon originated in human hearts, so it's no question how different variations of Odio found themselves in different times throughout history -- as long as humans are present, so can be the darkness.
• Now, when you play as one of the main characters, you can get the best end, and the outcome is different if you play the final scenario as Oersted. Both are fascinating, really.
• Good: The good ending had me emotional, just watching Cube leap back into Kato's open arms, Akira catching Toei back up to his old antics, Masaru packing it in for the night, Sundown running into his old friend, and Li TRAINING A NEW GENERATION OF XIN SHAN QUAN PUPILS had me choking up. And then! And then the end credits, which had little scenes where Li trained in the bamboo forest at twilight, Masaru kicked on a rooftop as the sun set over the city, Sundown watching the sun go down, Cube on the deck as the sun began to fall over the Cogito Ergosum... It pulled everything together wonderfully. Seeing all their silhouettes running against the same sun, interspersed with those scenes of them at their own times, yet all lit by the glow of the same sun... it got me, man. It got me.
• Bad: But then there's the "Sad End." I must say, it lives up to its name. When you play as Oersted, there's really no good option -- the only way to save Oersted is to save him with someone else. Oersted can only be saved by being shown compassion in the Good end (you can also kill him, although he's weak and it accomplishes nothing), where he'll be able to die and move on from the evil that gripped him, although he warns of the pain that can pervade any time and any heart. In Oersted's final route, however, there's two endings: there's the Sad End, and Apocalypse.
• Here's something I loved: OK, first of all, I've never played a game where, yeah, there's the crazy final boss and then the boss rush, but then a fucking reverse boss rush where you kill all the protagonists. Perhaps that's been done before but I've never seen it and definitely never played it. What I liked was not only how this managed to put you deeper into Oersted's shoes by being able to control Odio's every incarnation, but how it gave you the option to be cruel and to let evil win. Not by losing, mind you, but by winning the game with the right person. At some point, if you let the protagonists hurt you (as you'll curbstomp them unless you don't fight back), the option to "Run" will be replaced by "Apocalypse." Which is basically, well, a very nuclear option. You can either die, or you can die and take everyone with you. Apocalypse forces you to watch as everyone is wiped away -- it reminded me of the ending of Hotline Miami (or was it Hotline Miami 2?), but to think that this obviously came many years earlier is jarring.
• Of course, you can defeat everyone. You can rewrite history to let the evil win. The result is a husk of a planet that Oersted explores in silence and solitary, occasionally reminiscing about what he had (or almost had). The visits every spot in Lucretia where the heroes are transported: every location is empty, save for him. It's a very somber ending, but I love that it exists. Just... when it was all over, you didn't get to play from Lavos's point of view in Chrono Trigger. The games aren't that similar, and that's an unfair comparison to make, I just found it fascinating.

So yeah. Live A Live is a story about a lot of things, but one that is ultimately the battle between love and hatred. Every hero fights with a different form of love in their heart (for example, Pogo's is romantic love, Li's is respect and admiration for her Master, Akira's is his platonic guardian instinct toward his sister and loved ones, Cube's is toward his creator and those that reflect love back) except for Oersted, who is robbed of the love. Oersted's story is ultimately different in how rather than love in his heart, he put his faith in Alicia's unknown love that others assured him of, and fell into despair when Alicia didn't actually harbour this one key to his livelihood. I like how the game goes about all of these themes, and I'm so damn impressed by all it managed to get done with 16-bit sounds and graphics -- like, shit, man, this game was incredibly cinematic, and not just in scenes like Masaru's opening or ending scenes that actually have a slightly different art style. Every chapter felt like a different genre of film or animation and it was fantastic and fuck, man, I love this game.

Just Fuck Me Up

Story

• Gaspard getting PK'd in town after the new parameters were set and player killing became legal everywhere was heart-wrenching already because, fuck, man, he's just a kid that wants to have fun playing this game and now he can't even safely navigate root towns without feeling weak and threatened. This pissing Haseo off warmed my heart -- he really fucking loves Gaspard and Silabus by this point. Him thinking "I can't forgive anybody who'd take their joy away." actually made me want to burst into tears. He's come so far from finding them annoying to wanting to make them happy, to keep them safe and smiling! Haseo, my darling, how I love you and how glad I am that you love your friends, too, finally. Silabus getting angry also got to me, just because he and Gaspard are usually quick to get discouraged... but now he and Haseo both are furious and ready to fight back against Sakaki's tyranny. UGH, I LOVE THEM
• The incentive to winning the tournaments in this one, instead of ingame items, is... "Net Money"...? Is this Bitcoin? Did .hack predict motherfuckin' Bitcoin?
• The whole Sakubo reveal was... interesting. I was prepared for Saku to get redeemed, not for her to turn out to be All In Bo's Head. I agree with a friend of mine who said it was the only thing in //G.U. that felt cheap -- using "HE WAS MENTALLY ILL THE WHOLE TIIIIME" as a Shocking Reveal, I mean. That being said, it did explain a lot and made me feel for Bo more: did he fabricate Saku to justify his gay crush on Endrance? Was he in love with Endrance or was it just that in Endrance he saw someone who flourished in isolation rather than crumbled like Bo himself did? I dunno, it allows for a lot of interesting thoughts even though it was handled poorly.
• It also put me in one of the most morally awkward situations I've ever been in in a video game -- it gives you the chance to encourage Saku or to support Bo letting her go. The healthy option would be to be there for Bo and to help him overcome his reliance on an alternate personality, but it didn't feel like that was right in the game. Saku is his coping mechanism and Haseo isn't a therapist, so it sort of only made sense to try and keep Saku around. I still feel for Bo and hope he can become independent in the future, though.
• Every time Haseo refers to Silabus and Gaspard as his "friends" I cry a little
• Once Pi dropped the quiet bomb that Yata was a .hacker, theorising about who he was became so exciting. My first guess was Wiseman, since he was also an information broker in the R:1 days, but I also thought he could be Balmung, since that was someone who was deeply affected by the game and cared about its progress. If he were Balmung, then Pi could be Rena, which would explain her obsession. However, my first thought was right! And it made the most sense -- Yata goes into an emo depression after he feels betrayed by CC Corp. I mean, he's only, what, 17? He's still a kid, so it's natural that he'd be so personally offended by being pushed away and unappreciated.
• Kuhn inviting Haseo on a date after he got dumped by two different girls was hilarious. I'm glad to know Kuhn has a backup, disappointed to know it's Haseo.
• ALKAID'S RETURN!!! THE FIRST SIGN THAT HASEO IS MAKING AN ACTUAL DIFFERENCE AND PROGRESS!! Sirius returning from his coma didn't mean as much because he didn't have an attachment to Haseo, but with Alkaid, he finally saved a friend. I think that marks the turning point from when Haseo is doing this despite thinking it can be fruitless to truly believing that he can save everyone. I gasped when Alkaid appeared on the scene to rescue him, and gasped even harder when Haseo brought her into a thoughtful hug. GOOD SHIT, I WANT TO HUG HER TOO
• "As long as guys like you are around... I won't let 'The World' die!!" Haseo said this about Silabus and Gaspard (and not anyone else) and this made me want to bust out crying. They're his reasons to play... he wants to keep them safe and protect their smiles... Haseo is such a good boy
• What is it about this game that the stakes are higher than the original core games, but it doesn't feel as deeply affected? It's hopefully just nostalgic attachment on my part, but the first four games didn't have the threat of nuclear meltdowns (that I recall?) following The World and the internet's collapse. But I felt more invested in that, more rushed to get to the end to save everyone. Haseo's Orca is Shino, but for some reason, even with all the backdrop, his story doesn't feel any more emotional to me than Kite's. I wonder why that is? I hope I can pin it down sometime.
• Ohhh my GOD the reveal of Aura/Aina! The Azure Boys being Aura's knights! Something about my fucked up glitchy boys being her servants and doing what they do for her changes everything. .hack has a tendency of making out the Big Bad to be someone that it isn't -- like Skeith was, originally, at the end of //SIGN and //Infection, like Tri-Edge and AIDA in Vol. 1 of G.U. and then Sakaki in Vol. 2, now Ovan (comatose) and AIDA in Vol. 3 -- and it did so superbly with this game, too. It didn't feel unnatural. The shift from "Ovan is fucking insane" to "Ovan has a motivation and he risked his life for it" (and Haseo's feeling of betrayal, more on that later because that was good shit) and from "Tri-Edge is AIDA!" to "Tri-Edge isn't AIDA?" to "Tri-Edge is still bad! Defeat!" to "Tri-Edge was doing his job, but defeat." Him passing on the legendary Empty Skies -- his eponymous three-bladed swords -- was incredibly moving. Haseo finally overcame him, and Azure Kite passed on the torch to save Aura.

Gameplay

• Oh FUCK yeah with the Avatar Awakenings! It's odd to just trash the Divine Awakenings altogether, but this is more effective and less effort-intensive anyway. It's nice to be able to finally Data Drain, although the effect isn't as hilarious and charming as it was in the original games (where Data Draining regressed an enemy into a simpler and weaker form, at the expense of the EXP you'd gain after the battle).
• Fidchell felt WAY more difficult than any other Avatar Battle so far. It was frustrating, but I liked it.
• I'm glad they FINALLY updated the Hangeki shout to actually say "Hangeki" and not "Rengeki." They've changed how "Rengeki" has been said with each volume, and it does not sound that badass in this volume, admittedly.
• The addition of dashing changes everything and makes battling a bit more nuanced and fun. I like it.
• The battle with Azure Kite And The Boys was surprisingly challenging considering how overleveled I was. And none of it could have been done without Atoli (seriously, they definitely planned to only offer one effective healer until postgame so that Atoli wasn't just plot-relevant, but essential to succeeding in-game, too).
• The Cubia Gomoras seemed almost underwhelmingly weak, but that may just be because I grinded the fuck out of my party for Azure Kite. This is good, too, because it only takes Haseo a few shots to take them down and you can level grind with Alkaid! I wonnnder if that was intentional or if I am just too strong.
• Remember how I complained about budgeting items and space in Vol. 2? Well, Vol. 3 brings on the UNLIMITED USE restoring and revealing tools. FEELS GOOD

Characters

• Oh man, this cast. THIS CAST. I understand what everyone meant by "G.U. has better character building than //IMOQ." I didn't want to believe it because I loved //IMOQ, but they may just be right. That being said, no one has come close to dethroning Mistral as my best girl.
• That being said, Haseo comes THIIIS CLOSE to being best girl. Like holy shit I am proud of this boy and I am fond of him and I want for him to live a happy life. Haseo's progression from the violent shitlord he was in //Roots to the pissbaby he was in Vol. 1 all the way to here, where he's actually pretty soft and kind and considerate even though he would deny all of those things, it's been such a fantastic ride. //4koma has Pi making a joke about how Haseo runs the gamut of "angsty teen" and he really does. I wonder what it says about me for loving him so, so much. Fuck? He might actually be my fave of //G.U., which is wild. Kite was precious but he was also someone without a fuckton of personality -- he didn't even necessarily have to be named "Kite." I feel like with Haseo, there's so much more there, with his history and motivations and what makes him tick, as well as what ticks him off.
• Atoli: I can't believe Atoli was actually so bad off that she almost committed suicide before she found respite in Sakaki. That was a shocking reveal (to me, at least), and yet it wasn't used as a plot contrivance like Sakubo's -- you find out through emails where she mentions in passing how she met Sakaki, and where. Location being "suicide forums." I'm so glad that the time comes when you can promise to be there for her and, while she still feels anxious and like something will go away, she has Haseo. That being said, I think I prefer Shino, in terms of characters. Where Atoli has crippling (and relatable) anxiety, Shino has an alluring confidence. More on her later! But it's also what makes them different that makes their surface comparisons so much more interesting.
• Kuhn: I didn't think I'd like Kuhn (he's ugly and the sort of womanising type that I tend to hate in media/real life) but I love him, too. I think I love everyone in this game. Kuhn's great because early on his diligence is showcased by how he challenged and fought Haseo with his Avatar, but never actually threatened him physically, because his was the only Avatar battle that never ended with Data Drain attempts on the part of the opponent. He's a sleaze, but he does truly care about what he's responsible for, and that includes Haseo.
• Pi: Pi mentioning "Jun" IMMEDIATELY made all my receptors go off for ALERT, ALERT, WHO IS THIS, HAVE I SEEN A JUN BEFORE IN THIS STORY, THINK THINK THINK, and it was COOL. I don't have the Terminal Disc (it only came with limited edition copies of Vol. 1, but it does come with all versions of Last Recode, which made it possible to watch online), but I finally got to experience it and piece together a bit of Pi's history. That's what I fucking adore about .hack. I love putting together the puzzle of a bunch of different media and understanding the whole better. The explanation behind why Pi was linked with Tarvos was cool, too. I feel like there wasn't as much context behind why Tarvos was Pi, unlike Haseo-Skeith, Yata-Fidchell, Endrance-Macha, or Kuhn-Magus. This totally pulled it together.
• Motherfuckin' Kaede: Like Holy Shit Bro. Let's just start with how I've never even played a dating sim where you can court and marry a divorcee! Everything is possible in .hack! Their Promise event was so moving, too. You learn a lot about Kaede through emails with her -- she dotes on Zelkova because she lost her child and she projects her maternal care on him, she married young (at Haseo's age!) and divorced soon after losing her child due to her own irresponsibility, etc. Her past is loaded and being able to make Haseo pledge his time to her is so moving. I found his Promise end with Kaede to be more moving than a lot of the others, probably because of the "I'll make you happy" line. That warmed my heart so much. Haseo is young and stupid but that there's a route where he can try to bring security and trust back into a woman's life is so sweet.
• Zelkova: I'm still confused about just what Zelkova is, like, he's somehow confined to the internet like Midori, but how he came to be is a mystery to me, as he doesn't seem to be associated with the other AI...? Regardless, he's such a sweetheart, and I'm glad Kaede found him. Since AI doesn't age, she'll always have a sweet little life(?) to dote on. Zelkova is adorable as fuck too, I love how he phrases his interest in Haseo: "By the way, what do you like about me?

Your heart, your PC, everything about you interests me. I think it's wonderful." What an angel.

• Shino: SHINO'S BACK, BITCH, and I love her. Her voice, for one, is much more pleasing than Atoli's, at least in the dub. Her disposition, too, is quite endearing. She has this fundamental confidence in her words that make her so different from Atoli. Haseo only ever gushes over her in emails and she owns all of it. She knows he's in love with her and she doesn't take advantage of it, she just accepts it and reciprocates with pride.
• Tabby: Ohhh, Tabby, I love her so dearly. It's wonderful how even after Shino is cured and Tabby's immediate "reason" for becoming a nurse is gone, she doesn't give up on that dream. Shino helped her realise what she wanted to do, and Shino getting better is just a step forward in Shino's life, not a step back in Tabby's plans.

Finally finished the sixth .hack game after so many years. It still remains one of my favourite series, and I figure since this website has a blog feature I thought I'd take advantage of it to note what I liked/disliked about a game. Not really a review so much as a "I have a clinically bad memory and maybe this way I won't forget things as much: Video Game Edition."

Notes

• I played the PS2 version. Do not have Last Recode yet. REALLY WANT LAST RECODE.
• Following a friend's recommendation, I saved watching //Roots until after this volume, since //Roots spoils Vol. 2's big twist.

What I Liked

Okay, .hack// isn't my favourite game series for no good reason. the first four made a huge-ass impact on my life that I'll always remember as a gamer and as a creator, and even though I'm experiencing G.U. much later (at a time that I'd consider quite a bit less formative), it's still managing to make a big impact on me in terms of just how fuckin' good it is.

Story

• The story owns, obviously. The first volume and this one did enough to get me incredibly attached to Alkaid before ripping her from Haseo's arms -- another loss Haseo isn't quick to recover from. By this point he's been doing everything for Shino only to realise that his blind aggression failed to save her or anyone else. He melts down at this point in the game, but tries to get strong again for her sake... before everything falls apart again at the end of Vol. 2.
• The Big Reveal of Ovan being a puppetmaster of sorts was also fucking fantastic, especially after //Roots set the foundation for Haseo's trust in and admiration for Ovan. It came crashing down with what felt like a betrayal even though it was just Haseo not putting two and two together -- and almost losing Pi and Atoli drove him to the edge with the more haunting words I've seen a video game end with: "I've failed. I haven't saved anyone. I'm tired... I'm done." because FUCK if that isn't some real-ass depression shit.
• One thing I just love about .hack in general is how the story is told through several different media in-game, that is, the story doesn't just progress through dialog in "The World," but is also furthered by your own reading of forum entries or news stories. Alkaid's becoming a Lost One was particularly effective because, after watching her fall victim to attack in the game, Haseo can log out and... read the news, with a story about a girl who was found unconscious in her home. That sort of thing is so sobering to me because it feels real. If this shit actually happened, that's how you'd find out about your friend's condition -- through something as cold and impersonal as the news.
• THE ONE SIN. I didn't think I'd ever actually get to face The One Sin in the game! CC2's been leading up to that since //IMOQ! Since //AI Buster!! Since the beginning!! It was SO AWESOME getting to face off against the event that gave Balmung and Orca their names, and it was pretty challenging even after having hit the level cap at the postgame. I love shows that set up for jokes well in advance, and you know what? The same goes for shit like this. I love stories that set up for climaxes several years ahead that you can't even begin to pick up on. I mean, someone probably read //AI Buster and thought "Oh, The One Sin is going to come back in the game and we're going to get to play against it like the Descendants of Fianna" but I WAS NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE SO IT WAS FUN TO ME.

Characters

• Haseo has already shown so many elements of depression to begin with but it really hit its head in this volume. He was an emo piece of shit to begin with in //Roots before he went off the rails after the loss of Shino, and then he just became belligerent, cruel, and distant by Vol. 1 of the games... seeing him bounce back in Vol. 3 will absolutely be a treat if he manages it.
• Atoli: ohh, Atoli, my darling! She came across as a weird sort of harem-protagonist sort of girl in the beginning; she was unnaturally attracted to Haseo to the point that she badgered him incessantly and got on his nerves and she sought nothing other than his approval and attention. This even annoyed me until further in when she became more detached and the story revealed that she's completely fucking broken at home from never receiving apt love or recognition from her family or peers. She latched onto Haseo because he was also vulnerable and in need of someone, but he didn't recognise that he needed that, so they ended up hurting each other. This game is heartbreaking because Haseo isn't the only one to have everything torn from him -- Atoli loses her grounding, too, with the collapse of Moon Tree and the total asshole reveal of Sakaki, the leader she'd followed loyally since the beginning, since he gave her purpose in the game and in her life.
• Sakaki: Sakaki even made an interesting villain despite how over-the-top his personality and plans are. The world of .hack is just interwoven enough with the internet that the thought of someone controlling the world by abusing artificial intelligence online doesn't seem that weird. He's so broken in-game that him falling off a ledge with an invisible wall didn't seem too odd. He's already glitched the parameters, after all.
• Alkaid: Alkaid is just My Type so it was no surprise that I immediately got very attached to her -- headstrong, tomboyish, a bit tsundere, stubborn, and to top it all off, a twin blade?! JUST TAKE MY HEART, WHY DON'T YOU. Her falling for Haseo didn't even really bother me despite usually being Repulsed By Het. It felt natural that she'd gain an interest in someone so goofily mysterious and powerful. And I love relationships where there's a sense of mutual respect for one another's skill, which is absolutely present in the Haseo/Alkaid dynamic. It's also present in the Alkaid/Me dynamic, since she owned my ass the first time I fought her.
• Silabus: I wish I had started making these blog entries sooner, because there was an event early on with Silabus that I don't even remember now that I'm sure is important and moving were I to experience it again. I love Silabus so much, man. Gaspard is an angel (despite his rather unpleasant dub voice) but Silabus has this warm chemistry with Haseo that I really adore. Haseo is almost determined to be sad and angry and bitter but Silabus is the opposite: this game is for fun and he wants to see Haseo smile, too. He's like an older brother to Gaspard but he's something else to Haseo entirely. I think he's just that weird sort of friend that weasles their way into your life and doesn't let you be grumpy as long as they're around. I love him dearly, him and Gaspard both.
• Endrance: Endrance's dub voice makes him into a creepy mess, but his character is one I actually feel for a lot. I really love how he and Tsukasa are two sides of the same coin -- although their situations are different, their feelings and the solutions to their predicaments are similar. Elk and Tsukasa both were isolated and desperate and needed some form of love. Tsukasa found that in Subaru and other friends, Elk found it in a clump of deviant data in an online game. It's only natural that Tsukasa grows up more naturally and becomes more well-adjusted while Elk just became more detached, lonely, and hopeless. Seeing him lose Mia a second time as Endrance was heartbreaking, and his subsequent over-reliance on Haseo is almost humorously excessive and extreme, but it all strikes me as understandable. Haseo was the first living being to save him from his own seclusion and not abandon him after that -- Kite was still Elk's friend, but Haseo became an intrinsic part of Endrance's life. Even though Endrance should have found camaraderie in the other Epitaph Users but instead he just sort of latched onto Haseo, it's still moving. It's like he finally found his begrudging, emo Subaru. I sincerely hope things get better for him with Vol. 3 and beyond.
• Sakubo: Bo is so darling and I love him and I want Haseo to protect him. That is all. Saku is good too, but I have a feeling her development doesn't come until Vol. 3, since she still ends Vol. 2 as the "You're OKAY but you're no Master En, Haseo!!!" asshole.
• Gaspard: I love Gaspard and I want to protect him. It's so, so, SO fucking sweet how Haseo can warm up to him and even invite him to hang out if he ever comes to Tokyo. I'm so damn weak to Haseo actually becoming Gaspard's cool big brother!! And learning about how he's got self esteem issues since he's not particularly cool or athletic but he found his passion in card games because he could be good at them! For a character that seems obnoxious at first, I'm amazed by how much I love and care for him now. I want him to succeed... Good luck, li'l guy...
• Matsu: What a fucking dumbass. But I'd be lying if I said he and Haseo didn't fit the exact Spicy Gay Rivalry dynamic I'm a sucker for. He's pretty fun, too -- I can see him and Silabus both being just as good at making Haseo grin. And there is nothing I seek more in life right now than that pissbaby's smile.
• ωRICE & Kaki Leader: How the FUCK did I end up so genuinely invested in background yaoi? These two fuckers are adorable and getting to actually see them in-game was such a treat. The fact that they only talk about each other in-game is cute as fuck, too. Always fighting on the forums but being honest when you meet them separately... I love them.
• Kazubolo/Salvador Aihara & Blue Eye Samurai: Similarly, they're gay. They're in a gay relationship. Blue Eye Samurai even gets called Blue Eye Tsun. They're fucking gay. They're embarrassing and gay. Salvador Aihara is probably bi if anything but his relationship with Blue Eye Samurai is nothing less than homoerotic.

Gameplay

• I'm so fucking glad the others can kick Chims too, now. I just let them handle the Lucky Animals as well. It has saved me so much time and quite a few headaches.

Etc.

• The voice acting is back and forth in the dub, with both good (Haseo! Ovan!) and bad (Atoli! Gaspard!) performances. Haseo, however, is fucking excellent in this volume. How profoundly bereft he is after losing Alkaid and then how even more empty and shattered he is by the end are both breathtaking. I already felt for the dumb shit, but his voice did make everything sting more.

What I did not care for

Gameplay

• It's pretty annoying how you have to decide whether or not you'll switch an item out of your inventory without knowing what the items does. What the fuck.
• Raising weapon levels is not very fun. I love Rengekis as much as the next guy but grinding for levels up in the arena when you've already hit level 100 is just a bit tedious, especially when you're itching to move forward with the story.
• I hate inventory limitations. This isn't unique to .hack or anything, I'm just terrible at budgeting storage space and it does get frustrating in G.U.

Story

• This is less something I dislike and more something that I'm just not as big a fan of, but the difference in the plots of //IMOQ and //G.U. are interesting. I feel like the core games were about a mythology as manufactured by a mysterious man based on the musings of a lost poet, but //G.U. focuses more on the actual game itself. It's like //IMOQ was about the creation of The World, and //G.U. is about its propagation. Project .hack// followed the birth and growth of Aura, Lycoris, Zefie, and Morganna, but //G.U. hinges more on what developed as a result of those vagrant AIs -- and the capacity the advanced technology has for potential abuse by humankind.
• So it's more of a matter of personal taste and less of a "this one is better, this one is worse!" thing. I love the mystique of Harald's visions getting out of hand and deluded as more of his story was uncovered with the progress of the .hackers. It felt more like a mystery coming slowly unraveled, whereas there isn't really a mystery in //G.U. It's more of an adventure story. You even have a damsel in distress, in a way, with Shino -- although she's really in peace at the moment, and Haseo is the one distressing and getting put into more danger. ...Haseo's the actual the damsel in distress, isn't he?

Etc.

• The game had many instances of "then" used in place of "than." It was pretty distracting. I could write it off as "well, not everyone online knows proper grammar," buuut it's hard to let it pass when it happens in news articles, too. I wonder how this went under the radar of the localisation team.
• I also didn't care much for Crimson VS. even though it's so fun seeing the cards and characters and various artists' work. I just... bleh, I'm not into card games. I do find it funny how .hack// predicted that online card games would absolutely be a huge thing by 2017, too. I ended up concocting a deck that got Haseo to #1 anyway even though I wasn't totally sure of what I was doing. So it didn't bring the game down, it was just something that didn't feel perfectly integrated -- or maybe it did, I'm just not a card game person. After all, I could never get into other digital card games either.

All in All

Just fuck me up, I love this game