Combat
The amount of layers to create the illusion of two worlds is impressive and the changes to the combat system are almost as deep. Instead of taking clues from the older .hack games, .hack://G.U.’s action oriented combat system is built from scratch. There are no random encounters, you can see enemies from far away and surprise attack them by hitting X. This causes Haseo to dash in with a shoulder rush knocking enemies into an energy field that surrounds the battle area. The blue aura makes a barrier trapping the enemies and the party in it.
Since Haseo is a fighter character you’re going to get up close and personal with goblins and PKers (player killers). Pressing X makes Haseo do a flurry of sword slashes. You start out in the game as a “twin blade”, a fast slicing rogue class, but later on you will be given the opportunity to equip more kinds of weapons like a mammoth sized sword. If you hold down X, Haseo will quickly charge his attack to give an added amount of damage. Haseo’s real skill lies in using the skill trigger. If you press R1 all of the action in the game will briefly freeze and the skill trigger menu will pop up. You can select one of four pre-assigned techniques to attack with. At the beginning Haseo only has the Gale Blade technique, which does three wide attacks in a row. Later on you will be learn more skills and chain techniques in a row. When Haseo is fighting in a party he can synchronize his attacks with the AI controlled players. If he manages to complete a combo with a party member his name will flash in purple, that means you can activate rengeki, a finishing blow with one of your special moves. Using rengeki gives bonus damage, some additional experience points at the end of a match and most importantly a boost to the morale meter. On the top of the screen is the morale bar, which slowly fills up by performing rengeki attacks. When it’s full Haseo and the party can use an awakening. There are two awakenings in the beginning of the game: the beast awakening gives an attack boost and the demon awakening deals out magic damage.
Haseo does have one other secret skill… but since you can only use it during some fights we will have to save that for later.
Sometimes on the map Haseo will see fights already in progress indicated by a column of blue energy. Haseo can choose to dash in and save another player from being killed or avoid them all together. Besides rushing in to be altruistic Haseo can nab some extra items from the player he just saved.
Up next Guilds
