Rating: 4.7/5
.hack G.U. - Rebirth takes place in the not so distant future of wide scale innovations in technology, specifically in relation to virtual reality MMORPGs ('Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game', a genre of gaming). The most popular game of this genre, titled "The World", captures the focus and attention of Ryou Misaki, a sophomore in high school that is recommended by his friend to try the game out. Subsequently, he buys the game and signs up under the player alias "Haseo." As Ryou continues to make progress into "The World", many strange incidents begin to occur within the game that begin to affect players outside of the game. One such player that was affected by The World, Shino Nanao (a close friend of Ryou), falls into a long coma after being killed in-game by the infamous, enigmatic player-killer "Tri-Edge." Upon hearing this, Haseo swears that he will avenge Shino and begins to relentlessly pursue Tri-Edge in-game in hopes of bringing Shino back from her comatose state. .hack G.U. - Rebirth's central focus is the story of Ryou Misaki and his player alias "Haseo" as he interacts within the confines of the game "The World." As the player, you will be controlling Ryou/Haseo as he goes about his conquest of discovering the secrets of The World alongside the mysteries behind Shino's coma and Tri-Edge. The game is fantastically well done; be it the voice acting, the music, the graphics, the plot, or anything in-between, just about everything with respect to the game is incredible. Arguably, the game is somewhat repetitive in that you must kill monsters to level up (which means grinding is sometimes necessary), but I personally didn't mind it very much since I never found myself too prolonged with fighting monsters whenever I wanted to progress the story line. This game is definitely a must for anyone who enjoys JRPGs like Persona or the Final Fantasy series.
You also need an emulator to run this game. To grab one quickly, please check out our PS2 emulators section.