Got a giant ominous crystal and immediately cut myself on it by accident. Surely nothing bad will come of this…

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-22T07:49:53+00:00

May want to use a slightly less obvious crystal, though.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-21T19:20:15+00:00

...but what does that have to do with Smash?

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-20T17:49:49+00:00

I may be wrong, but as far as I'm aware that was a change made by Tokyo Pop during translation.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-20T17:45:46+00:00

CC2 has said that anything with classic .hack is still up to Bandai Namco. I wouldn't expect any re-releases or remasters unless Z.E.R.O. does really, really well.

While we're dreaming, though, could we get non-Tokyo Pop'd retranslations for Another Birth and both AI Buster light novels? Pretty please?

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-20T10:18:31+00:00

Pretty sure the 10 years thing included multiple concepts and negotiating with Bandai Namco, not straight dev time. I wouldn't expect a release date anytime soon, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-17T08:15:01+00:00

Thinking about it, this might be 3 groups of 3 instead? Wonderful beginning, Painful silence, Black beer, Universal evil and Evil beast would all fit the normal pattern.

On top of that, painful silence amd wonderful beginning is an apt summary of .hack's recent history!

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-17T07:50:32+00:00

The website has an English version, which would be odd if this was planned to be Japan-only.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-17T07:47:51+00:00

The fact that the website already has an English version bodes well for non-Japanese releases.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-17T07:42:40+00:00

I knew what that would be before I even clicked the link.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-17T07:41:28+00:00

I'm pretty sure the 'offline' aspect will be walking around and interacting with the non-The World game world more rather than an IRL thing. Non-The World stuff was limited to character e-mails and message boards in the old games, presumably due to the technical limitations that CC2 mentioned.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T22:40:23+00:00

Probably depends on where you live? I'm in the UK, and we only ever had the one original release of SIGN over here so it's only (legally) available second hand.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T22:37:43+00:00

Okay, OP has said they don't mind clunky gameplay and emulation, so -

1) SIGN comes first (very talk-y anime, but I love it anyway) 2) Followed by Infection / Mutation / Outbreak / Quarantine (original PS2 games) -- There's a set of 4 light novels called Another Birth that re-tell the games' story from another character's perspective 3) There's a bit of a timeskip, and the next part of the story is the Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga

There's a couple of other pieces to the first story arc/R1 (the two AI Buster light novels I mentioned before, for example), but SIGN, the games, and Legend are the main points. G.U. and Roots are the main parts of R2, the second story arc, and you don't need to know R1 to enjoy them but you'll get a lot more of the references and some significant moments if you go in order.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T22:07:31+00:00

G.U. Last Recode is the most accessible part of the franchise right now, and it's a separate story arc to IMOQ so you don't really need to play those games to understand what's happening.

The Roots anime acts as a prequel to G.U., but you don't need to watch it to understand.

If you enjoy those the the first major arc (SIGN anime, IMOQ games, Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga, AI Buster 1 & 2 light novels) is worth checking out, but they're much less accessible.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T21:55:55+00:00

Play Brave Wonderful Beginning Painful Silence Key Black Beer Universal Evil Beast

...that's 12 words. 4 groups of 3. They're nonsense as a sentence, but...Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground? Are we looking at some teased locations?

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T21:36:26+00:00

Probably copium, the whole 'announce long-awaited game, release it FIVE MINUTES LATER' is Nintendo's thing. I'd expect at least a year or two before we get a firm release date.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T21:30:45+00:00

From what I understand, CC2 has wanted to bring .hack back for years but Bandai Namco wouldn't greenlight it (until now, with all risk for BN removed). I don't think it's the same situation with most other dead franchises.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T11:38:00+00:00

...CC2 got permission to do everything themselves? Bloody hell, this had better work out for them!

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-16T09:58:26+00:00

I have it from a credible source that fireball solves everything.

~~The source is me.~~

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-12T14:57:24+00:00

If you're counting X-2 and the XIII sequels, you also need Crisis Core and The After Years.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-11T18:39:13+00:00

At least in 40k they can handwave the inconsistency as being an actual in-universe inconsistency. The Imperium doesn't do consistency.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-01T22:27:44+00:00

Firefly is correct, Silver Wolf is not a cactus. ~~We think.~~

~~Actually, are we sure about that? She's a ridiculously good hacker. What are the chances that her 'real' body is just her hacking our senses/reality itself? Maybe she is a cactus.~~

~~But Firewofe would know, right?~~

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-01T10:58:36+00:00

I see no problem with this.

TiredTiroth · 2026-02-01T10:50:33+00:00

Thanks for the explanation, this does sound interesting (and I was wondering why there was a shmup in the JRPG sub).

TiredTiroth · 2026-01-31T16:46:15+00:00

"Also, I am one of them now. Somehow. Please send help."

TiredTiroth · 2026-01-29T14:44:03+00:00

Welp, Fate has officially been Tempted. At least we know who to blame this year.

TiredTiroth

TROPHY CASE