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Project .Hack. I’m sure all of you know of it by now, as one of
the most ambitious titles released thus far. And likely the most
original, I mean come on, an anime that takes place in a game! The
North America market as already seen the release of the
PlayStation 2 game, .Hack // INFECTION which comes with the first
part of the OVA .Hack // LUMANATILY. Now comes the part everyone
is waiting for, .Hack // SIGN.
The
story of the first release of .Hack // SIGN, takes place before
the PS2 game .Hack // INFECTION. With our main character, Tsukasa
who has a bit of a problem -- He cannot log out from the game. To
make things worse, he has been seen with a Hacked cat like
character. For that, he’s wanted for questioning by the Crimson
Knights. A group of people that run about the game making sure
everything runs fine.
Two
people Tsukasa runs into, Bear and Mimiru, become concerned about
Tsukasa. When they discover that, he has been logged on for 10
days straight with no stop. How can someone play a game for so
long? The story from there gets really interesting, so much, I
wouldn’t want to spoil you anymore than I already have.
As
much as I loved every bit of the story telling and mysteries in
this -- This series is not for everyone. Mostly for those that
never played the PS2 game. I remember watching this a year ago
when it was airing on Japanese TV. I didn’t really care for what
was going on, nor did I fully understand what was going on.
However, after playing and finishing .Hack // INFECTION, and going
back and watching these 5 episodes, I have much more respect of
this series. I have no question marks over my head, and I found
things pretty exciting. Although, this takes place before the
game, I really would suggest you play the game before watching
this.
Visually, this disc is almost flawless, with the exception of a
few aliasing (not much.) its great video. The audio is pretty nice
as well, with 5.1 sound. It is not the greatest 5.1 audio we have
heard, mostly on the English track -- But its still great. The
Japanese track seems to play more clearer and sounded better. Well
at least the English dub was not that bad. A few characters did
sound a bit off and not right. I even saw a few parts were the
lip-sync was off. But one thing players of the game will find a
bit interesting is that, the Tsukasa and Mimiru are voiced by the
same people that voiced Kite and BlackRose. Those people being
Amanda Win Lee (Mimiru and BlackRose) and the other… well I forgot
the name. (And I’m far too lazy to check the credits on the disk)
Like it, or hate it, its interesting how they brought elements
from the game into this anime.
The
menu design is simple; it has easy access to things with the Chaos
Gate spinning in the background. However, that’s the only nice
looking part. The other menus are still and simple. The extras are
not the greatest but not the worst. Most of it consisted of the
usual stuff like promos and texless openings. I suppose the budget
for the extras went into the special limited edition. Which some
of us don’t have since… well it was limited. Having never been
able to get my hands on that, I cannot comment on it.
However despite all of the above, .Hack // SIGN overall is off to
a great start. And has no doubt earned a permanent spot on my
every growing DVD rack. I certainly cannot wait to see more of
this exciting series. |
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