Seeing as the .Hack games seem to be quite popular around these forums, I decided to get my hands on a copy and give it a go. The way you guys talk about it, it sounds like game of the century. Boy was I mistaken.

I've played for 30 minutes, maybe an hour total (that includes reading time), and i'm ready to go back to Midnight Club 2. What i'm looking for is someone who actually enjoyed the game to give me 2 good reasons why I should continue playing, other than "To find out what happens".
I havn't played for long, so i'm thinking that maybe the game gets a virus half way through and re-codes itself completely to somehow become something good (that's a reference to the game's plot by the way). So far the story sounds intruiging, but there's just so much boring inbetween plot bits that i've lost interest in what happens.

My general gripes that I just have to get out:
(I'll start small)
- 'Player Name' - Why? This guy never leaves his desktop - NERD!

- Party Members - Why can't the guy following you just follow. Why does he insist on continually saying "Isn't 'The World' Fun?" - If it were a real online game, i'd be telling the guy to shut up already, and probably would have 'player killed' the annoying prick by now.

- "Wow, you look nothing like you do in the real world" (or a quote similar to that) - Ok, we're getting close to 'Put yourself in the game' technology, but 'The World' is a friggen fantasy game, of course your friend isn't going to look like he does in real life. Idiot. (Unless in real life he's 'Fighter' class with a proficiency in Heavy weapons and carries around a large sword. In which case, my apologies)

- Randomly Generated Areas - Nice idea, really it is, but it would be nice to have some sort of indication of just how big the area is. I mean, how long do you think i'm going to run across large lifeless plains, seeing nothing but the same buildings and whatnot over and over again? Why not just throw me into the middle of a 3 million hectare corn-field? (Forget that, I don't want to start giving them ideas for the next game <_< )

- Graphics - They've done a reasonable job on the character models, while not exactly ground-breaking, they look pretty good. Too bad they decided not to bother making anything else look reasonable.

- Gameplay - Visit 'The World', Talk to someone, Exit 'The World', New Email/News/Message - Read, Visit 'The World', Repeat. - I come here to read 'Help me' posts, I don't need them in my games as well.
It was nice of them to try to make something different with the battle system, unfortunately, it stinks. I know they want to get away from the standard 'FF' battle system but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's good.
Since they obviously put all thier efforts into a revolutionary battle system, they threw together a crappy camera system so that it's your fault when you get a bad angle, not thiers. Nice handball *makes handball gesture*

Ok, so I just want some confirmation that it does get better, otherwise i'll invest my precious time in some CS 1.6 beta. If i'm not mistaken, there's an anime of this. The game's story is intruiging, does the anime go by the same story but without the crappy RPG?

I do agree with you on some points, but i think the main reason why i like it is because im a big fan of the series. I do believe they are planning on making an 'actual' online version of the game and i believe that would be much better, but still i am planning on buying the last two once they come out because i really like the story line. I dont really care as much for game play when it comes to RPGs, because i play them mostrly for the story line. There has only been one RPG i have turned my back on because of its game play, and that was Orphan; if you have ever thought of playing this game DON'T!