Dot Hack
Outbreak Part 3

Reviewer Chi Phan	Story	7/10
	Characters	6/10
	Graphics	7/10
	Music	7/10
	Gameplay	7/10
	Extras	9/10
	Final Score	7.2/10

Not much to be said here. Outbreak is the third installment of the four part Dot Hack series. By now fans of the game should know what this series is about. New gamers should be playing Dot Hack Infection and Mutation first before looking into this game. So let's get on with the review.

I don't feel good. Together against all! Naturally part 3 start off where part 2 left off. This time around, the story arc is base on the spread of the infection. Hence the title Outbreak. At this point, the infection is no longer confined to the game, The World. The infection has now begun to infect real life computers and networks outside of The World. The corporation behind The World have made a decision to destroy the infected servers that housed the game in hopes of stopping the infection. With this latest move, Kite and his friends came up with an idea to bring together Helba, the hacker, and Lios, the Administrator as a team. Hopefully with Helba and Lios working together, the two can come up with an idea on how to stop the outbreak and quarantine the virus infection in The World before the corporation destroy the game servers. Hence the main plot of the story. In terms of part 3, I found this chapter to be a little bit of a let down. The progression of the story seem to slow down at this point. About 40% of the story in this game is base not on the actual progression of the storyline but more to do with helping out your friends on sidequests. This doesn't leave much time left dealing with the actual storyline. But in terms of the actual storyline, you do get a little bit more info on the world of Dot Hack. As stated before, the story main focus is getting Helba and Lios to come together, but on the side, you have some revelations for the first time of the actual timeline and connection between Dot Hack and Hack Sign, the animated series. I think it's really nice that the game has connected the storyline with the Hack animated storyline so there's progression here. But outside of that, I don't think the story move forward too much. And there weren't too many interesting developements. The ending wasn't much of a cliffhanger as well. This chapter wasn't as interesting compare to the previous two chapters.

We're ready for anything. In terms of characters, only one new character was introduce this time. Ryoko Terajima. That brings the total to about 20 characters. I think 20 characters is enough. Still by this point in the game you pretty much know who the main characters are. Kite, BlackRose, Balmung, Helba, Mia, Elk, and Lios. Everyone else seem to be just tag along fighters to help you on the side quest and missions. There's not much further developement on who these players are. Although we do know more about BlackRose's situation. You can pretty much expect the same in terms of character presentation and developement as the previous Hack games. A final note is that while Mia, Elk, and Mistrel made appearances, they aren't playable characters in this chapter.

What the? Cubia!!!! Not much has changed in the graphics. It's the same old graphics that you would see in the two previous games. Not that you would expect the graphics to change seeing as this is the third installment of an entire game. The design of the town on the new server isn't impressive. Dungeon designs are the same as before. The colors used in this game are the same as before. Dull and dark is the best to describe it. The character gameplay designs are a little too simple as before. Not enough detail put into them or their faces. They look like wooden 3-D figures with paint on them. The CG movies during the story cut scenes are the only major strong point in the game in terms of graphic presentation. The character designs in the CG are done nicely with the anime style look. And add in the voice acting to it and it's pretty good. Although the movie scenes themselves don't seem to be breath taking. There isn't really anything else to be said that hasn't been said before in previous reviews of the Hack games. Just the same kind of graphics.

It all began here... The same basic tunes are available in this game that was presented in previous games. The game does introduce a few new tunes too. But by this point, most of the music doesn't seem to be too noticeable and only serve as a backdrop to the gameplay. It's not like music is an intricate part of the storyline at all. However I would like to point out that some of the main character music themes are now starting to stand out and connect to the gamers. Or maybe it's just this gamer that is noticing it. By this point, Lios's theme, Helba's theme, and BlackRose's theme are starting to become my favorite themes in the series. I do wish that the music could be a bigger part of the story more.

My desktop wallpaper. Meow Attack! Game Information    Genre: Action Rpg    Publisher: Bandai    Disc: 1 DVD Disc    Memory: 682 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Vibration: Yes    Dual Analog: Yes    Digital Control: No    Rating: Teen    Release: September 2003 After three games into the series, you should be quite familiar with the gameplay. Nothing have change so gamers can just jump right in and start playing the game. The basic stuff are all here. Call your party members to join you, Kite, on a quest to explore a dungeon. Defeat the dungeon boss and progress the storyline. Here's a quick recap on the key features of this game. Desktop: Your virtual desktop is back. Here you can check your e-mails from party members, access news on what's happening around the world outside of "The World", access all the extras you have unlocked, and of course save your game. Your desktop is also where you can log into "The World" and check the message board of "The World". Basic stuff for fans of the Dot Hack games. Data Drain: Inorder to defeat infected data bugs, Kite will need to data drain them to a lower level. By now gamers are familiar with the process. Data Drain and Drain Arc are both present. However one new data drain have been added. 2128 Data Drain. Basically 2128 is a higher version of the regular Data Drain. 2128 requires more SP and raises the Infection level of Kite more frequently than regular Data Drain. That's the bad part of using 2128. The good part of using 2128 is that it gives you a higher or greater chance of receiving a rare items from the monster that you are draining. But you can't get virus cores from 2128 though. I didn't find too much use for 2128. The risk of raising Kite's Infection level isn't worth it. Plus regular Data Drain can net you rare items too and virus cores. Keywords: With a new server to explore comes new keywords. For the progression of the storyline, keyword lists will be provided for you from e-mails, message boards, and party members. However to explore all the areas of the new server, you'll need to input your own keywords at the Chaos Gate. Gate Hacking: Now inorder to get access to restricted areas, you'll need to gate hack as before. However there's a difference this time around. In previous games, Gate Hacking was easy due to the fact that virus cores were provided for you during the regular game quest. This time around, certain key virus cores will not be provided for you. This means that you need to go out and search for virus cores inorder to complete the keys needed to Gate Hack. The problem I found is that trying to find the monsters that contain the virus cores that you need to Gate Hack is pretty hard. I had it easy cause I had a strategy guide telling me what monsters contain what virus cores and where to find them. Imagine someone playing this game without the help of a guide. They would be stuck trying to find out where to look for certain cores. That's the downside. Trading: Just like before, trading items with CPUs moving around in the server is the key to getting new and good equipment. By now you should have a strong understanding of how to trade equipments with CPUs and which CPUs carry the really good stuff. To round it up, nothing new to the gameplay. There is however a slight difference to the gameplay in it's direction and difficulty that made the enjoyment a little bit less than that of the previous games. The game is a bit more difficult to play this time around. Monsters are a lot more harder to defeat. Plus you now have Data Bug monsters as regular monsters in dungeon. This means that you have to Data Drain quite a bit to the point where you actually have to worry about Kite's Infection rating. There's been a few times where I had Kite's Infection rating in the red. And that's not very fun. Lastly, if you look at the overall gameplay, I would say that only 60% of that is dedicated to the gameplay of the actual storylines while the rest is focus on sidequests and extras. I prefer more focus put on gameplay of the actual storyline then toward doing the sidequests. Still it's not too much of a problem. If you enjoy the two previous Hack games then it's most likely you will enjoy this game again.

Score: 7/10

A secret boss? There's been quite a bit of improvement when it comes to the extras. You still have the basic usual stuff that you have gotten in the past two games but now you have even a little bit more to do. The 7 books of Ryu have returned for you to finish out. Grunty raising has also made a come back. And with that, Flag Racing makes a return too. This time it's much harder than any previous Flag Racing games. Then there's quite a lot of extra dungeons to explore if you manage to get all the secret keywords. Some of these dungeons are pretty hard. Not to mention the sidequest dungeons that you need to complete for Kite's friends during the game. Which have no effect in the storyline. There's also the Hack Sign character sidequests where you need to find all the characters from Hack Sign and talk to them 6 times to get items from them. The Goblin tag game have made a return visit too. And lastly, after finishing the game, you get an extra bonus dungeon with a bonus boss fight to tackle. So there's quite a bit of mini games and sidequest in this chapter.

Not much difference in this game compare to the last one. It's not really better nor is it really any worst. There are some changes in the score in certain areas but the overall average score is still the same. Judging by the direction and approach of each chapters, I expect chapter 4 to be the same in terms of presentation and scores. The whole series looks to be a good game or a better than average game. There are better rpgs out there but you can still have a good time with this series. Final Score: 7.2/10 Time to complete: over 30 hours for complete game. Difficulty: Hard Favorite character: Rachel Hottest character: Helba Best fighter: Balmung Most useless character: Moonstone Best music theme: Lios Coolest feature: 2128 Best advice: Use Data Drain only Best magic skill: Level 3 wood magic Best offensive skill: Storm Rage Also try: .Hack Infection Part 1 and 2 Up next: Disgaea: Hour of Darkness