Let me be upfront: the “.hack” (sic) games for Playstation 2 are not MMORPGs. They are a series of story-driven, single-player RPGs about a fictional MMORPG.
Throughout the four-volume “.hack” series, the player controls a Japanese child who is playing an MMORPG called “The World”. All of the plot events that happen outside of the “The World” are explained through news clips, email exchanges and monologues from the main character, who you never actually see. The player experiences “The World” through the eyes of the protagonists’ character, a boy with blue hair named Kite. At the start of “.hack” Kite’s friend, whose online persona is a large ogre named Orca, shows Kite how to play the game. The opening serves as a tutorial.
While exploring a dungeon, Orca and Kite meet a young girl character being chased by a monster that is unfamiliar to Orca. Orca engages in battle with the monster, but it performs a powerful attack on him, killing his character, causing the game to crash and, we soon find out, putting the real player into a coma. Kite meets other players who know people who have fallen into coma while playing the game, and he sets on a mission to solve the mysteries of “The World” and, hopefully, save his friend.
Like a real MMORPG, the player can trade money and items with other “users” (who are actually non-playable characters). When exploring dungeons and and battling monsters, the player controls only Kite, but he can recruit two other characters (who are controlled by A.I.) to go with him. While engaged in battle, the player can press a button to do a standard weapon attack against enemies or open the menu to use an item or special skill. Kite can also issue specific or general commands to other party members, like telling them to stay on the offensive or focus on healing. This feature could be seen as a precursor to Final Fantasy XIII”s paradigm system.
The series’ story explores issues within the real-life MMORPG community. The biggest theme is that of the dangers of anonymity, as the main character is unsure who to trust. Some of the other characters are actually hackers or employees of the company that made “The World”, and some are even computer viruses!
If you complete a volume, you can can save your game file and transfer all your data to the next volume. You can also start a new game in any volume, but the plot wouldn’t make much sense and your character would not be strong enough to survive. If you missed out on the .hack series, there’s no excuse to not pick them up and play them in order.