The Start of something good... A RPG with some flare and a decent story.
The story is simple enough. You are part of a Massive online RPG where things are going wrong with players in the real life. Players in the game are being affected with coma's and other things while playing the game called "The World". So by logging out of the game and checking your emails and the Game Board you have to decipher whats going on in order to save your real-life friend who is one of the players in a coma.
While playing you make new friends in the game and become friends with them through emails outside the game. You can call upon them to join you while playing the game and each character has their own qualities that will help you on each adventure. Plus choosing different characters helps keep their affection towards you at high levels.
One of the things I really liked in this game which was different from all other RPG's I've played is the ability to TRADE with other "online" NPC characters throughout the 2 main root towns. This was the main way of getting new and better weapons, armor and items. You can also obtain many items in the different battlefields and dungeons during the main storyline. But what also was good was the ability to go to random areas just for levelling up or item gathering. The possibilities were almost endless as you can just click on "random" and a level would open up to you and depending on the level of the area you can go and clean it out of all treasures.
As for the story, you are givin a special book which turns into a special bracelet. You use this bracelet to Data Drain some enemies to get items and Key Items throughout the game. It also helps out while fighitng enemies infected with the Data Bug or Virus. Once Data Drainied the monsters turn into level 1 creatures and can be killed with one hit, but you dont get alot of experience for that.
The graphics arent anything special and the dungeons can look the same after a while but it doesnt take anything away from the actual gameplay. Same for the sound, nothing special but not bad.
Well, I'm off to start Part 2. I am hoping I get more of the same as the games continue. If you like RPG's with a live action battle system and a story thats different that most other games than you should enjoy .Hack.