.hack//Fragment--Quick, Partial Review!

thedudewhosadude · Post by **thedudewhosadude** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 3:33 am

I FINALLY managed to get my hands on .hack//Fragment, and sadly, it lived up to its low expectations....at least, as far as I've gotten...

Once the game boots up, we are brought through the normal company names...CC2, Bandai...and a brand new one that I've never seen before. Then we are greeted with the familiar music and look of the previous .hack games. There, we are given three options:

ONLINE: I have no idea about this mode, as I don't have the equipment to go online. It appears that you use the same custom character for both Online and Offline Mode.

OFFLINE: When you start, you are presented with three empty character profiles. Choosing one allows you to create you own character. You start by picking a class (Twin-Blade, Blademaster, Heavy Blade, Heavy Axeman, Long Arm, or Wavemaster) Then you are given a choice of 10 'bodies' to choose from. I chose Blademaster, and the first few 'builds' were Balmung, (wings and all) Bear, Marlo, and Ginkan. There were more 'custom' characters, but these were the ones that really stood out.

Then you were allowed to choose a color scheme. There were very few availabe; I ended up using the first color scheme (kinda dark looking) with a Balmung build. Then you could change your characters height (Tall, Average, Short) I went with short. Note that nothing else is proportional; the sword I had was almost bigger than me!

Then you can choose your characters.....density. You were once again given three options (Large, Average, Painfully Anorexic) It seems that the last option, Painfully Anorexic, as I call it, is the only 'female'-looking build.

You must then name you character. I named by short, dark, plump Balmung after myself, through a strange phone-like input system. Lastly, you are brought to a screen with many bars, and one one top with '99'. You are permitted to distribute your points among your bars, a la "The Sims." After confirming your character, you were brought to the desktop. It only had three items, though. One was for mail, one was for logging into The World, and I've no idea what the third was. Might've been news.

After choosing "The World," we can see that quite a lot has changed. There are several more options, but I can't remember any of them for the life of me except Guild. Anyway, we log in, and then we find ourselves in Mac Anu. We've no time to think, as we are greeted by Bear and BT. From here on in, it basically repeats Orcas tutorial, except with an extra member. You are then transported to Delta Bursting Passed Over Aqua Field.

Once at the field, you are forced to go through the camera and battle tutorial. The dungeon follows the same concept, although Aura's absence is felt. After getting the chest from the bottom, you go back to town, where Bear and BT talk with you for a little bit. Mimiru logs in, chats with them, and then the three of them go away.

"Well, that was fun, I guess!" I said. I ran to the recorder to save my game and...nothing. He had one option, which I suppose was Talk. Apparantly, you have to save through the options menu (although the game does autosave at points) He was in his little stall, yet he wasn't on the map...odd. You then get a mail from Bear saying something.

It was at this point that I saved and turned it off. My friend wanted to try out FFXII, and I was using his PS2 to play //Fragment. You see, his PS2 was modded about a year before mine, and for some odd reason, can play most of the games that mine can't, just it loads significantly slower. One important thing to note is that there are NO voices in this game; not even from the A.I. like Bear and BT. The game itself is only 1.8 gigs, if I remember correctly.

AREA SERVER: Once again, due to lack of tools, I couldn't try out this mode.

All in all, Fragment, for the short time I played it, seems to be OK, but nothing fresh. I'm sure that online play might add a little bit of flavor to it, but I'm a bit afraid of seeing just how many "DaRk_BaLmUnG" players I see on there...

Brad_Evans · Post by **Brad_Evans** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:23 am

Lol, thats just like what we expected eh ^^;; I wonder if there will be extra stories at all..... maybe I should just wait for an American release Xb

Duskino · Post by **Duskino** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:47 pm

Bleeegh. I'm staying AWAY from Fragment.

Just no. I never liked the idea of .hack actually being online at ALL. I think that was the biggest mistake CyberConnect and Bandai have done.

you know...cheese soup · Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:58 am

No voices?! Ah well, everyone kinda knew this wouldn't be that good...I'll end up buying it because it's .hack. I never really wanted .hack to be online either... they would have made more money if they made the goggles come with it just for display. And there's going to be a bajillion character look-alikes.

Elk · Post by **Elk** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 4:26 am

Figured that they'd screw up something.. plus, the character building doesn't sound that fun.

thedudewhosadude · Post by **thedudewhosadude** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:14 am

Elk wrote:...plus, the character building doesn't sound that fun.

Yeah...they basically took the PSO system, and bashed it down like crazy, so that there are only 2,592 possible creations. (Each character has a total of 8 'body modes' [yeah, I checked that again today; I was wrong last time], 6 color schemes, 3 heights, and 3 widths. So, each class has 432 that can be made in that class. Multiply that by 6 classes, and we get 2,592) Sounds like a lot, eh? Well, it really isn't...I think that's about the size of the population of the school I attend...mind you, its a high school!

Elk · Post by **Elk** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:34 am

thedudewhosadude wrote:
Elk wrote:...plus, the character building doesn't sound that fun.
Yeah...they basically took the PSO system, and bashed it down like crazy, so that there are only 2,592 possible creations. (Each character has a total of 8 'body modes' [yeah, I checked that again today; I was wrong last time], 6 color schemes, 3 heights, and 3 widths. So, each class has 432 that can be made in that class. Multiply that by 6 classes, and we get 2,592) Sounds like a lot, eh? Well, it really isn't...I think that's about the size of the population of the school I attend...mind you, its a high school!

I'm pretty sure that PSO has more...

As for Character customization, can you change certain things like face markings, hats, or hair?

thedudewhosadude · Post by **thedudewhosadude** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 9:31 pm

Nope....you can only change the character class, "type" (for example, in blademaster was a Balmung Type, a Ginkan Type, a Marlo type, and several others), color scheme (and even then, its not like you can choose individual things to change; everything changes based on the scheme's...well, scheme) height, and weight. The # I calculated was referring to the //Fragment system, not the PSO one, as that one is VASTLY larger.

Oh, and I discovered 'another nail' for this coffin. For all the previous .hack games, there had been a Grunty as the data icon in the memory card menu. There was the Wild grunty (infection), Bony grunty (mutation, I think), Milky grunty (Outbreak, I think), and Rocker grunty (Quarantine). The choice for //Fragment?

Everyones Mon Ami: The Nobel Grunty.

EDIT: Hm...I'm going to try to get this working online, through borrowed equipment and hopefully an online patch. As you know, Tommorow is Pluto's Kiss...I imagine that there would be a special event online.

EDIT2: Whoops...looks like I'm a little bit rusty on my .hack History. Pluto's Kiss is TODAY, not tommorow.

Kurai-Chin · Post by **Kurai-Chin** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:54 am

The whole idea of having a color scheme rather than individual color choices is LAME. Nothing like what it describes in //AI Buster :x

And from what I've heard the online option sucks too; You can't see anyone else playing until they're in your party.

peppermint · Post by **peppermint** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:25 pm

that's just wack......

....not coolz...T.T

bed_head_ · Post by **bed_head_** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:30 am

what a let down

kiruku · Post by **kiruku** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:20 pm

meh, i expected better..........well i guess it is O.K.

Shino01 · Post by **Shino01** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:35 am

Duskino wrote:Bleeegh. I'm staying AWAY from Fragment.

Just no. I never liked the idea of .hack actually being online at ALL. I think that was the biggest mistake CyberConnect and Bandai have done.

*GASP*! how dare u?! online is heaven! it was the best addition they made!

Shino01 · Post by **Shino01** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:36 am

Elk wrote:Figured that they'd screw up something.. plus, the character building doesn't sound that fun.

Well, u r right about that...

Shino01 · Post by **Shino01** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:40 am

Kurai-Chin wrote:The whole idea of having a color scheme rather than individual color choices is LAME. Nothing like what it describes in //AI Buster

And from what I've heard the online option sucks too; You can't see anyone else playing until they're in your party.

MAJOR sucky alert! and how can u get member adress then? that's just retarded and stupid!

.hack//INFO

.hack//Fragment--Quick, Partial Review!

.hack//Fragment--Quick, Partial Review!

OH...

:-/