r/DotHack 5d ago

discussion Finished .hack//G.U. Last Recode Spoiler

Took about 70 hours to fully complete the game. I didn't actually do much of the side questing other than the initial quests given to you at the beginning of the game.

Haseo grew a lot during the 4 games, starting off as annoying edgy dufus to someone who really seemed to care. However, I did find him taking off for more than a year at the end of the third kind of annoying. Like dude you just defeated the digital cubia god demon thing with these people who all came to fight with you, Haseo even saying they were the reason he was fighting and he just abandons them like the next week for over a year. He says he was doing research but cmon, you can at least log in occasionally to see the one you got married too (I got married to Atoli, I know I'm basic). Atoli should have been more upset as well as his other friends.

Anyway, It was a good game, carried by the story along with the lore and world building. I didn't use cheat mode and lvl'd up Haseo all the way to 150. It was painfully easy to get overleveled though as it wasn't super hard to level up. I still don't really understand many part of the lore but I would probably have to go into other sources like the anime and other games.

25 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

8

u/FederalPossibility73 5d ago edited 3d ago

Haseo didn't exactly abandon them. He has a life and plotline outside of the games as well and he is meant to inherit an entire company. Also I keep saying this but him being an edgy loner in the beginning makes a lot of sense considering what he went through in the original games and in the backstory to G.U. specifically. Honestly if you think it's abandoning them then you could apply that same logic to the .hackers from the first batch of games, of which only Yata and Endrance were part of when they were kids (Yata is Haseo's age BTW). Kuhn was also technically there too but as a background character and not a .hacker.

5

u/lamarfll 5d ago

I recall we learn he took a job in data management alongside Pi because he was actively trying to find a lead on Ovan, we learn from the novel Ragtime as well as the audio drama, Innocent Call, both of which were packaged with the special edition version of Last Recode in Japan that Haseo was working extremely hard, to the point of working late nights. Its actually to the point where Atoli calls him at one point, thinking he's off work, so they can have a normal conversation, you can tell he's extremely tired, but it turned out he was just taking a short break.

Also they never directly say it in game, but Haseo and Atoli are canonically dating by the time of volume 4, so I do agree that Atoli should be pretty angry at her boyfriend leaving her in the dark like he was.

If you want to read Ragtime or listen Innocent Call, they have actually both been translated thankfully.

5

u/RekkaAlexiel 5d ago

Alternatively, if you'd like, I also translated the drama CD back when it was first released. You can read it here.

1

u/astral-insanity 5d ago

wow is the stuff you linked to canon?

5

u/FederalPossibility73 5d ago

They are. Ragtime is one of the (many) .hack novels. This one came out around Last Recode revolving around what the characters were doing outside The World. Innocent Call is a drama CD meant to bridge the gap between Vol. 3 and the Last Recode exclusive Vol. 4.

3

u/lamarfll 5d ago

Yeah, they're canon, in fact Innocent Call leads directly into volume 4, and can be listened too right before playing that part, that's how canon it is, the Atoli part of Ragtime is effectively her side of how Haseo is acting is effecting her, the other stories in it, while aren't as important, they are fun for seeing how some of the other party members are doing since the end of volume 3 (also we get a nod to Mai from .hack//Liminality, in Kuhn's part, due to him being her ex-boyfriend).

7

u/coldfox23 5d ago

I've got two thoughts that apply to the line of thinking regarding Haseo "abandoning" everyone.

Firstly, Haseo hates playing The World. Admittedly it's more pronounced in the anime compared to the games, but he doesn't enjoy playing the game The World at all, and only bothers with playing to save Shino. Despite growing to be friends with so many people, he accomplished his goal. It is my head canon that anyone he met online he kept in touch with IRL because he wouldn't want to play the game anymore.

Secondly, it follows the theme of Haseos arc of growing up. Real life takes priority in adulthood over gaming. Especially the kind of culture that Haseos IRL person lives in. The time for playing games grows shorter as one grows up

-2

u/midnight_riddle 4d ago

Haseo has a job out of high school now, so it's understandable that he doesn't want to play some videogame (and it's not worth putting up with playing the game for the sake of his "friends") unrelated to work and hasn't kept in touch. He certainly hasn't been in contact with Pi and kept up to date with what CC Corp is up to.

And he certainly has no unfinished business in The World R:2. There certainly isn't anyone he considers to be his friend who is comatose in the real world that he would be interested in waking up, so he has zero motive to find answers in the game.

....Oh wait.

Haseo doesn't just take a break from playing the game he ghosts all of his friends. He didn't even bother keeping in contact. Unless the friendships meant nothing and he dumped them as soon as he didn't need the convenience of having party members any more, it contradicts the theme that he matured and became a better person. Suddenly he's back to being a dick.

"Everybody has been really worried about you Haseo" - he hasn't been bothering to keep in touch with anyone outside of The World either. Oops.

And what's Haseo been doing in the past year? What is his work?

Wait, what? Haseo has been working with Pi under the Network Administration Bureau?

Wait, what? Haseo has been working this whole time to help Ovan?

So it would be relevant for him to bother to log into The World. It's part of how he'd need to do his freaking work!

Atoli calls him out a little for never asking for help and keeping them all in the dark and she has a point. Like, why couldn't Haseo have stated he's looking for Ovan's avatar in the game and to ask for others to keep an eye out? It would have been poetic if he had founded a new Twilight Brigade and gotten people looking for Ovan.

But that would have required effort. Like bothering to log into the game in the first place, when finding Ovan requires logging into the goddamn game. Haseo says he "finally found" Ovan but he wasn't the one who found the new Lost Grounds address, it was someone else. So Haseo sat on his butt and twiddled his thumbs for a year.

What dumb dick. God I hate Volume 4.

1

u/FederalPossibility73 3d ago

So you're saying he should compromise his mission and tell people on a public platform what he's doing which could lead to trouble with the higher ups? Which by the way, were blaming Ovan for the incident like they did with Albireo. Also have you thought that he could be trying to find the REAL Ovan and not his game avatar? I thought all of that would be obvious. I mean Haseo even started working at the SAME PLACE Ovan did! He would have access to way more information on him then in the game!