.hack//Infection: Part 1

The Good
What did I like about this game? A better question is "What would anyone not like about this game?". A well thought out storyline combined with great characters, cool items and weapons, and addictive game play, monster fights, and dungeons makes for the greatest RPG of all time. Move aside, Final Fantasy. You have a new rival, and it's going to win. Let that much be assured.

The Bad
What's not to like? Seriously, how can you not like a game with so many great features and surprises everywhere in it?

The Bottom Line
Hmm, this is a hard one. I have no way to describe this game in an easy way, you would just have to play it. I'm still finding out things about it.

The Good
The best thing about this game will be apparent to anyone who plays it...the story. It is the foundation of the game, and a strong foundation it is. I love the story. The game is a simulated MMORPG called "The World", and incorporates the characteristics of an MMORPG very well. You control Kite, and you must play through "The World", solving the complex mysteries hidden behind it in order to save your friend Orca, who fell into a coma while playing the game. Along the way you meet many other "players" who join you in your quest, some for their own reasons, some just for the fun of playing. There are lots of weapons, armor, items, and magical scrolls for you to trade, buy, and sell. Characters themselves are not elemental, but the enemies are, and the weapons and armor you equip can raise or lower certain elemetal tolerance. This adds to the strategic basis of the game, while battles are more action based. The entire thing is a game inside a game, and to add to that feeling, there is even a simulated computer desktop where you can read E-mail from other players, and check up on the "news". And as if this wasn't enough, each game will feature an anime DVD, that is not only entertaining, but offers clues to rare items that can be found in the game.

The Bad
The concept of the game is incredible, but unfortunately it lacks in gameplay. For instance, the story is very linear. There is never really any investigating on your part, the game pretty much always tells you what to do. Not to mention that it is repetitive. From the "server" you choose a keyword and are transported to a field. Each field has a dungeon. And the dungeons are where everything takes place. All the dungeons are generally all the same, granted each dungeon is a different element, so they all look according to their specified element, but other than that they are the same. Although I have to say in the game's defense, even after I beat the game, I spent hours playing through dungeons, collecting treasure and leveling up (you can transfer data from the first game to the second and so on).

The Bottom Line
I'd like to make this simple and say that this game would pretty much only be appealing to fans of RPG's who would be interested in the story. But unfortunately it isn't that simple. Nothing has ever been done like this before. It is such a unique concept that I don't think you can group the type of people that would enjoy it. All I can say is that if it sounds interesting, definitely try it out, because if you are interested now, I'm almost positive you won't be dissapointed, because this really is a great game

The Good
+ Soundtrack is lit, probably the only memorable thing from my experience with this game// + Customizable desktop, email and the forum sections all adds to the immersion// + Big variety of monsters to slay forces you to utilize many different strategies// + Battles using menus ain't that bad, I'd say combat is a good thing in this game, although many players will surely not like it//

The Bad
- Already mentioned emails are written in such an awkward way that makes me think if the writers had any social interactions before contributing to the game (all dialogues in this game are freakin' awkward, not only emails)// - This leads us to the main plot, which takes about 10% of the entire game? I mean, there was some story at the beginning, a little bit in the middle of the game, and some of it at the end - the rest of the story feels like it's made of filler episodes// - Most of our party members are annoying and AWKWARD - there are like 2 or 3 characters I can consider interesting// - The field exploring made me want to give up this game - it's just so repetitive and boring// - Want to know what's also repetitive and boring? Dungeons. There are few types of these, but their layouts are too similar to be enjoyable to explore// - There are too many things that will only make sense after a research or using a guide - such as Grunty and food system, trading, using keywords to create a dungeon in which you want to find certain particular things (all is "explained" in the game, but as a beginner to the series it didn't do much to me, maybe I'm dumb though)// - Game pauses after obtaining EVERY. SINGLE. ITEM. (you'll get a loooooot of them during your playthrough)//

The Bottom Line
The only thing that made me want to try out next installments in this series is the ending, which gave me some hope that the plot is going to get interesting. That doesn't change the fact that this was by far the most boring JRPG experience I had, sorry to say. And I really wish the characters would be much better written, because at first glance a lot of them seems interesting.. but then their flat personalities show up.