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Editor's note: For the
full review to .Hack // INFECTION for PlayStation 2, head over to
our friends at
Gaming
Media.
Likely going to be one of
the lesser known OVAs out there, mostly because it can only be
found with a PlayStation 2 game. And its big brother .Hack // SIGN
is grabbing much more attention in the anime world. .Hack //
LIMINALITY, seems to be an interesting short 45 minute OVA that
adds more mystery and story to the whole .Hack saga.
Our story starts with Mai,
who has just recovered from a coma after playing the game called
“The World” Her boy friend however like the 6
other people that suffered comas, hasn’t recovered, oddly
enough, Mai has. Which gets a former employee of CC Corp looking
for her to find some answers. However, just like in an episode of
X-Files, questions are answered with many more questions and
mysteries.
That is all there really
is to this, just 45 minutes of getting to know the characters and
an introduction to what is going on. Then it ends… the next
episodes will be released with the next installments of the .Hack
// INFECTION PS2 games. I hope that things will pick up in those,
because things really seem a bit slow paced in this. It is not
until the end of this where much of the action starts picking up.
Not that it is a bad episode or anything; I just was expecting a
bit more.
The video transfer is
fairly clean with no problems at all. And the nice thing about
this is that it is presented to us in widescreen. Same can be said
for the audio, we have a decent 2.0 stereo mix. The sounds mostly
play from all speakers, with it changing back and forth when
people talk for both the English dub tracks and the Japanese
audio. The English dub was somewhat good, but I felt it was
lacking a few areas, practically for some of the male characters.
The menu designs was done
rather nicely. It uses the exact same main menu from the game,
having selections placed on the left side; it even uses the same
sounds! Everything has great access as well. When you go to select
a scene, or the extras, you can still access other parts of the
disk directly, without having to use the “main menu” option… those
it is there anyways.
An excellent job was done
with the extras as well somewhat. They all for the most part
reflect around the game rather than this OVA. We get character
designs, interviews with the producers of this regarding the whole
project and the game… mostly the game. Information about the
production team, DVD credits, and a textless opening to .Hack //
SIGN. No Bandai promos hear at all, I figured they were going to
toss a few in. Even one for .Hack // SIGN, I suppose that is what
the opening is for. A textless opening for the OVA would have been
nice; then again, the opening only consists of scenes taken right
from the PS2 game.
.Hack // LIMINALITY seems
to be a so-so release here, its short providing some story to the
series. However, in order to see this you must by the game, which
is about $49.99…unless you have a PlayStation 2, and has some
interest in playing the game. Paying that much money just to see
one episode isn’t worth the effort… but on the other hand, in
order to understand everything in .Hack including .Hack .// SIGN,
you have to play the game. My suggestion to them? Get a
PlayStation 2. |
Version 2.0
