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[Arsic]

I'm in the mood for a jrpg to play and saw these were $10 today on PSN.

I adored the original 4 games, and the fist anime. Never played these as I think I sold my ps2 by then.

How do these hold up by today's standards?

 

[Danjin44]

I personally LOVE G.U. But the gameplay is little bit dated and balancing is little out of whack.

I remember even if you were 2-3 level lower than boss you basically had no chance since they were one shot you but if you 2-3 level higher it's complete cackle walk.

Also the dungeon are repetitive as FUUUUCK, if people had issue with Tartarus in P3 then G.U's dungeons is 1000 times worse.

 

[Arsic]

I personally LOVE G.U. But the gameplay is little bit dated and balancing is little out of whack.

I remember even if you were 2-3 level lower than boss you basically had no chance since they were one shot you but if you 2-3 level higher it's complete cackle walk.

Also the dungeon are repetitive as FUUUUCK, if people had issue with Tartarus in P3 then G.U's dungeons is 1000 times worse.

Do the HD versions help in anyway? Are the games well paced? Multiple difficulties? Fully voiced or no? How's side quests?

 

[Danjin44]

Do the HD versions help in anyway? Are the games well paced? Multiple difficulties? Fully voiced or no? How's side quests?

The HD have extra volume (story) changes up gameplay but main game is mostly the same and quests are like MMO's since trying be similar to MMO back then. It's been while I don't remember this game difficulty or not.

To me as much as I love .hack series they are heavily flawed games.

 

[NanaMiku]

Do the HD versions help in anyway? Are the games well paced? Multiple difficulties? Fully voiced or no? How's side quests?

There's a lot of improvement for the HD. IIRC, you can speed up the exploration and battle. Fully voice is the same as before

 

[Arsic]

There's a lot of improvement for the HD. IIRC, you can speed up the exploration and battle. Fully voice is the same as before

Being able to speed up is key for old games.

It was either these games or maybe try tales of xillia. Graces f the lead character looks too whack.

I want a somewhat serious story.

 

[NanaMiku]

Being able to speed up is key for old games.

It was either these games or maybe try tales of xillia. Graces f the lead character looks too whack.

I want a somewhat serious story.

IIRC GU is kinda serious. Each character is dealing some kind of trauma.

That's why the title is GU = Jiyuu in Japanese = freedom

 

[Danjin44]

I want a somewhat serious story.

I actually really like the story G.U. This is big reason why enjoy the game despite some of the flaws it had.

 

[Zephyranthes]

I played the GU games when they first came out, and I went through the HD collection a couple years ago. I personally don't think they hold up very well, but I do think they're better than the original .hack games that you really liked (which I dropped mid-way through Volume 3), so you may still enjoy GU regardless. There's still a lot of time-wasting menu navigation that really hurts the pacing, and the general story structure of the three games is highly repetitive. Combat is fun (this is the biggest improvement over the original series imo), but it lacks depth, especially by the standards of more recent action JRPGs.

It's also worth noting that the fourth volume included with the HD collection is not a full game, but a 2-3 hour playable epilogue.