CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

.hack is a great game series. Repetitive at times, but the story makes all of that worth it. If your parents got you parts 1 and 3, definitely get 2 after you finish 1. Part 3 will make universes worth of more sense. I'm going to start playing Part 4 tomorrow. Just remember: Cubia is not your friend.

I'm very new here, so thanks for the welcome blueraven. Yeah, um basically, when you beat a .hack game, your memo card creates a Data Flag. This carries over to the next game if you upload the Data Flag to the following game. It's awesome because you can have all your items, weapons, experience, etc. Data Flag rules.

Some of the characters are kind of annoying...Mistral's voice is annoying and I want Mia to burst into a flame (just wait...). I can't wait to play Quarantine...

Yeah, I've only made it this far into it because I love .hack. Mistral isn't really the damsel in distress so much as the annoying character who dies..a lot.. she's awesome in the card game though. ^^; I love the CCG, .hack//ENEMY. It's great..

I only play the game in Japanese, so I don't have to listen to Bandai's dub voices.

If you mean the email where Mia asks him to come to that one field all alone, then I'd say around 15. That might be overkill, but I died on that field a LOT when I was at level 10. I'm level 81 now. Whee.

I don't care for Mistral, just that whole "damsel in distress" "I can't do anything for myself" thing, that may not be true but it seems like it thus far.

Wait till mutatation. And the end of infection. She can be very strong.

DUH! It's been a while since I've played Infection. Mistral can be good. Go Data Drain as many Phoenix Queens as you can later on, until you acquire Dark History. Try to get two Dark Histories, because you'll need one for Mistral and another for a certain Wavemaster that appears in Mutation/Outbreak...it's a pain but it's worth it.

As for the levelling up to 15, here's a tip. Go take a party of three characters and go fight in dungeons 3-4 levels higher than yourself. This sounds hard, but the trick is to abuse Elemental Critical. If you have lots of Dark skills on your characters, for instance, go to a Lightning field. Proceed to use your Dark skills on Lightning enemies. Smile mirthfully as the Lightning enemies die very, very easily. Gain lots of EXP. Rinse. Repeat. I think it's covered in the instruction manual, but basically Elemental Critical does double damage to an enemy of the opposing element of a move you perform. The E.C. chart looks something like this..
Dark <---> Lightning
Wood <---> Earth
Water <--->Fire

Then there are non-elemental monsters which basically entail bludgeoning them to death with as much firepower as you can dish out. Non-elemental monsters annoy me to no end. But basically, the E.C. chart works both ways. Dark hurts Lightning badly and Lightning hurts Dark badly and so on. Just find some weapons..examine the elements of their skills..find monsters of the opposite element..and rock on. You'll be level 15 in no time.

Hehe, leveling up is the ultimate form of tedium, but at least in .hack by going and picking on monsters bigger than you and abusing Elemental Critical, it goes a bit faster.

As for your question, yeah, just go to a Chaos Gate and set up random dungeons until you find one you're looking for.

I just got into the server with the pig things... what do I do now? I am wandering around levelling up but I want the plot to move. What should I do?

About levelling up, and the element critical thing, are there any other ways to get elemental hits without using magic scrolls?

Server with the Grunties? I think that's Theta server. Basically just go start completing missions at the Chaos Gate. That should take care of advancing the plot. If there aren't any missions left in Theta, go back to Delta and see if you passed anything over.

As for Elemental Critical, yeah, there is. Use Skills/magic that have elements of the opposite element of your opponent. That'll take care of it. Like, say you're fighting a Thunder/Lightning element enemy, use Swirling Dark. You should score an Elemental Critical, which will do double damage. Conversely, if you're fighting a Dark monster, have one of your characters use a Rai skill. Hope that helps..

What is the magic content of the .hack games? They sound pretty good, but that is one thing that concerns me. That and they have to wait until I get a PS2 again.

The magical content in .hack isn't all that bad, considering I place it like blueraven: it's purely fantasy. I mean, characters do have "magical" powers but considering the powers (in the game, no less) are programmed in because of the game, I don't see it as that big of a deal. Of course, that just leads into a circle of my not seeing it as that bad in the first place...but either way. There is also talk of a prophecy foretold in the Epitaph of Twilight, but considering this is a game within a game, the "prophecy" was probably just programmed into The World (except for the [spoiler]Phases ravaging the real world. ::evil grin::)[/spoiler]. It's really just a matter of preference, I guess.

I finally got to play the first one and it is great! I love it! Can't wait to play the others. ^_^

Man, these games are frustrating... I think over the 40+ hours I've spent on the first one, I've lost 20+ due to being ambushed after an hour or half hours worth of work and dying without saving... i'll get poisoned and have to use expensive healing stuff, I'll get put to sleep and watch my character die slowly because the only way to wake up is to have another character use healing medicine or to wait about 5 minutes, being unable to do anything and getting pummeled and eventually killed in the process, I'll get in a close room with multiple enemies and never see the one off to the side, therefore meaning I can't attack (I mean, I know about it, I just can't turn to it before I die)

Whoever designed the camera in this should be shot... Seriously... I'm sorry, but "control your own camera" is a bad idea, particularly when the camera takes a long time to turn. There's also the glitchy nature of it, when you're against a wall and it zooms in, your characters blocking 80% of your view.

Speaking of that, I hate the inane things that they say over and over again that also, yup, block the view. I can't tell where the monsters are or how much energy they have because they keep saying "oh, there's a monster here" and "Darn, I got hit" and "Why are you letting me die?"

I mean, the story is very interesting, but I don't know if it is worth the frustration to go through all four games, considering it actually gets HARDER in subsequent games... I was a fan of the story before I knew there were games.

Yeah, I agree. They're good games and the story is awesome, but is the frustrating game play worth it? I played through the first but, I mean, I quit playing the 4th game. When it sent me on yet ANOTHER Virus Core quest, I just sat there looking at my screen for a second, and then I decided I've got better things to do with my time. So. They're good if you've got the patience for the tedium. I don't.