[ DRAWN & QUARTERED ]
Graphic Arts As Literature
The topic du jour in technology circles these days is convergence. From refrigerators that call for grocery delivery when supplies are running low to TV-top boxes that record favorite shows and allow viewers to play interactive games while voting in opinion polls and ordering pizza, companies are racing to cram more features into a single package. Conflict and mystery
meet in world of ‘.hack’By Jason S. Yadao
jyadao@starbulletin.comIt wouldn't be too much of a stretch to call Bandai's latest franchise, ".hack" (pronounced "dot hack"), a product of convergence. When it was released in Japan, an animated series, video game and manga comic series all combined to create a cohesive world.
Here in America, only the anime and video game have been released; there are no plans for a translated manga as yet. But that doesn't make the remaining parts any less compelling.
The premise is simple. In a nod to "Everquest" and other real-life massive multi-player online role-playing games, one game in the future has taken the world by storm. Players everywhere are flocking to the fantasy world of -- get ready for this, because it probably took the series creators hours to think up this name -- "The World."
The anime, called ".hack//SIGN," introduces Tsukasa, a protagonist cut from the grand anime tradition of depressing, borderline suicidal loner protagonists. He shuns all attempts by other players to befriend him. His only companions are a cat creature, a glowing girl who floats above a bed and a creature that I like to refer to as the Golden Hovering Barbell of Death for its appearance and its tendency to skewer other players.
Tsukasa has a good reason for feeling disconnected from the World -- he's disconnected from the world, as in the world proper, as in life as flesh and blood. He's not dead, but trapped in the game world, unable to log out.
Mimiru, a spunky, sword-wielding girl, and Bear, a self-described "old man" who likes to help other players, want to help Tsukasa escape from his predicament. The Crimson Knights, representing the system administrators, want Tsukasa deleted.
There are other characters whose intentions are equally unclear, which include self-centered Sora; BT, a player who forms alliances that benefit her; current Crimson Knight leader Subaru; and past leader Crim. The characters all seek the sole hidden item in the World, the Key of the Twilight, which gives the person who possesses it the power to transcend the World's boundaries.
PEOPLE who enjoy mysteries that unfold slowly and meticulously will love this show -- at the end of the first five-episode DVD, we're no closer to learning the true intentions of Tsukasa and most of the other characters than we are at the beginning. It's going to take at least two or three more volumes for the story to flesh itself out, and I believe it will be worth the wait.
There are two flavors of the first DVD: the traditional disc-only release and a special limited-edition boxed set with the DVD, a soundtrack CD, a T-shirt, some postcards, a cute little plush toy and a demo disc of the PlayStation 2 video game, .hack//INFECTION. Anyone who can afford to splurge would be best served buying the special edition, as the soundtrack, flavored with New Age and Celtic influences, is worth having.
Less recommended is the full-length .hack//INFECTION game, sold separately. In it, players experience the World through the virtual shoes of Kite, who is trying to find out why his friend fell into a real-life coma when a glitchy monster attacked his character. The game and the anime work independently -- it's not required to experience one to understand the other, although playing the game first does help clarify some of the events and terms in the anime.
The mystery won't be solved at the end of this game -- it's only episode one in the series, with three more to come -- but I'd suggest the coma came on because the game is rather dull.
The plot isn't to blame -- it's certainly compelling enough. It's just that the journey to get there involves fighting battle after battle against the same enemies, over several floors of randomly generated, bland-looking dungeons, for very little reward. I actually caught myself falling asleep while fighting through the dungeons several times -- never a good thing for a game that fancies itself as an action/role-playing game.
Getting to the actual battles themselves also is a chore. Many of the game events are triggered by reading in-game e-mails and bulletin board postings, or by meeting up with the right characters in towns.
Problem is, it takes quite a while to figure out which e-mails are relevant to the task at hand, and finding the right characters in a world populated with them -- the ratio's at least eight or nine "filler" characters for every one "right" character" -- is also difficult.
To add to all this .hack-ing, there's another anime DVD included with the video game. Titled ".hack//LIMINALITY," this differs from the other two elements in that it actually focuses on player Mai Minase in the "real" world, not the game world. Her mission is similar to Kite's mission: find out what happened to her friend, who fell into a coma while playing the game. This 45-minute feature also includes clues that are designed to be used in .hack//INFECTION.
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