 Review By: Andrew Joy |
Developer: | CyberConnect2 |
| Publisher: | Namco Bandai | |
| Genre: | Action RPG | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Memory Card | |
| Buy Now: |   |
If you manage to get off a successive number of hits, your opponent should glow purple, and if you use a Skill Attack at that point, you will perform a powerful Rengeki Attack, which will also earn you extra experience points and build up your Morale Gauge. And, when your Moral Gauge is full, you can spend it to perform an Awakening, which are again broken into two types: Beast Awakening makes your entire party faster, stronger and immune to enemy attacks for a short time, and a Demon Awakening allows you to attack with strong incantations and use spells without draining your SP for a short time. There are a few other elements to the game, but they were unfortunately left unrealized. I’m assuming Avatar battles, steam bikes, and the Crimson VS. (which we never even got to try in Rebirth) will play a more important role G.U. Vol. 2.
Learning all those actions I mentioned is not a hard task, as most of the game’s functions are really tied to the X button. As anybody who has tried a PlayStation system knows, X is essentially the A button, and as such is used to confirm commands. But, you can also tap it to attack, tap it repeatedly to do a combo attack, and hold it down and release it for a charge attack. To use a Skill Attack or Rengeki, you tap the R1 trigger to open the skills menu and then one of the corresponding controller buttons (Triangle, Circle, X or Square). For an awakening, you press the Square button when your Morale Gauge is full. To block an enemy’s attack, press Circle, and if you need to use an item, just press Triangle to open the menu. Other than that, Dot Hack’s controls are fairly simple: Start opens your main menu, Select toggles your map, the left analog stick controls character movement, and the right analog stick moves your camera. The R2 and L2 can also be used to control the camera, putting it into first person and resetting it behind you, respectively.
Though I’m willing to admit I’m not as worldly as some when it comes to PS2 games, I have to say that this Dot Hack is certainly one of the better games out of what I have seen. Out of all of it, the levels are easily the most memorable part. Now, this isn’t a game with lots of platforming, so for the most part it just serves as scenery. Even still, they are often crisp and artistically well-done, and, even though they are sometimes lacking in detail, the influences that they draw from are often very apparent. The influences in design are also somewhat apparent outside the in-game game, with the websites and MBs and that sort of thing all having a familiar, yet futuristic look...something almost akin to an alternate universe’s version of Vista. With few exceptions, the character design is quite pleasing, from the very MMO-like to the very revealing, each style has something to like. As far as the unpleasant, well, take Haseo for one – I realize he is supposed to be this anti-hero PKK, but he looks like some sort of S&M and bondage fetish freak. Since your human opponents fall into one of those two categories above, the monsters you encounter are only the really thing left to talk about, and like the backgrounds, they often have great designs, though unfortunately lack in detail (which I realize could just be a restriction of last-gen technology).
In order to review the music, I honestly had to go back and check the game again, which should speak volumes about its quality. While it manages to suit the game and each area, it can get a bit repetitive and none of it is really memorable, so it certainly isn’t a game you’d run right out and buy the soundtrack for like some RPGs. The sound effects are rather basic, with lots of loud whooshes and crashes for attacks and that sort of thing, but again it serves its purpose. However, I was quite pleased with the amount of voice acting in the game, but even that has its downsides. While you won’t get it for every conversation you have, like you might in a game like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you do get it for the cut-scenes, but the quality of the voice work doesn’t quite stand-up to the level of the art. As one of the last games coming to the PS2, I don’t really think we could expect a whole lot from this game, as it also isn’t one of those series that garners lots of praise and has fans lurking around every corner. However, even though I wasn’t exactly impressed with the sound in this game, I wasn’t disappointed either.
As I’ve mentioned, the Dot Hack series hasn’t gone online yet (at least, not with the versions released stateside so far), and Rebirth is a single player game through and through. However, just because you’ll be playing solo and the story is fixed, that doesn’t mean the adventure is a short-lived one. Though you won’t spend endless hours roving around like World of Warcraft, a true online game, this game is a bit longer than average, as RPGs tend to be (though, compared to some other games in the genre, perhaps a bit wanting). One of the things that I really felt kept this game alive was the Book of 1000, a set of statistics from your gameplay that, once you reach certain milestones, give you all sorts of nifty rewards. It isn’t any sort of consolation for a true MMO of course, but you could still lose yourself for a few hours trying to meet all the requirements. Unfortunately, the card game Crimson VS. is talked about so much during the game and is staring you right in the face on your desktop, that never getting to play it comes as quite a disappointment; oh well, at least it gives me something to look forward to with the next game.
Bottom Line:
There’s no getting around it, this most recent entry in the Dot Hack series has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, a lot of what makes Rebirth good also makes it bad, a sentiment you should see echoed in the Pros and Cons section below. Like any RPG, Rebirth is a bit time-consuming, mostly because in addition to the typical genre activities (such as level-grinding), you’ll also be doing a lot of stuff that would be considered OOC, such as checking e-mails and message boards and the like. Also, while the game has a pretty lengthy story (also a staple of the genre), it can get pretty confusing at times, with lots of twists as well as lots of seemingly random characters, characters who are actually longtime Dot Hack members, getting thrown at you all the time to mixed results. Often times these important moments are done in some of Rebirth’s wonderfully detailed cut-scenes. But, those happen so often that you’ll hardly feel involved. In fact, it’s a lot less like playing a game, and more like watching a movie...especially in the beginning, when I felt like I should grab a bucket of popcorn and just sit back to enjoy it.
All in all, the game serves only to build on the series’ fantastic lore, and it should stand as another decent entry for fans of the series. However, newcomers will feel like just that: newcomers. So, the biggest piece of advice I can offer here is Caveat Emptor...buyer beware.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 7.0 |
Posted: 2007-03-24 10:06:26 PST