.hack//G.U. Last Recode

Gameplay's a little on the weaker side but the story's pretty great once it gets going

Gameplay still boring even with the damage buff. Random dungeons that feel quite pointless. Look at some other reviews. It really loves hyping up certain systems to be important and then undermining them in the next episode; if you spent a lot of time unlocking the unique weapons for each character then *man* are you going to be disappointed. I guess I should talk about the story. Aesthetically .hack//G.U. has that really particular Lain/GiTS/Digimon kinda turn-of-the-millenium chatroom paranoia vibe although on the cheerful side, which is good if you're into that. The near-future setting feels very plausible and is fleshed out by a generous quantity of supplementary lore. Haseo and Atoli are very well-conceived characters driven by certain neuroses. The issue is the plot and pacing. It has a lot of cool and memorable moments which I guess is what got me through it as a kid. Unfortunately "filler episodes" were still a thing when .hack//G.U. came out; there are three (3) tournament arcs and I dreaded each one; a lot of the time I literally felt 'could this conversation have been an email'; a lot of the filler quests concern some less-prominent character but fail to do anything but circumscribe their established traits (I already know Kuhn is a slut ffs). There is a point quite late in the plot (you'll know it when you see it) when the writers basically give up on making the plot dovetail w/ the characters' arcs in favor of an 'epic' conclusion. Like it's not like it 0% works but it's not good. It just comes out of left field, really. As for the new episode, it's kind of like a warm weighted blanket for people who enjoyed the original G.U. trilogy. It feels a lot like those Digimon specials actually. The gang gets together to solve one last problem in The World. I'm not sure you *really* need to replay the original trilogy to enjoy it, but it helps to know what happened. I thought it was pretty good, to the point where it's worth the cost of admission by itself.