.hack//G.U. Trilogy

First of all, I´m a german and this is my first english written preview, so please bear with me if I made some spelling-/grammar-mistakes^^

Just to have said it in advance, I finished all three .hack//G.U. games, so it´s not like I´m not familiar with the story itself. I had high expectations, but I sadly got dissappointed.

Story:
They tried to put the story of each game in 30 minute-parts. Since the games itself had a play-volume of 12-18 hours per game (don´t remember exactly and can´t check it because my PS2 is broken), you can guess how extremly it got cutted...

The arena battles that were essential ... in the games are only shown as flashbacks for around a minute. The story itself strays from the game after the last scene that belongs to "G.U. Rebirth". From here on, everything focuses at Atolis and Ovans story-parts; other characters that were involved with the story (like Sakaki) won´t appear.

Art:
They used the ingame-movie grafic for this movie. It looks cool and awesome in the action-scenes '(especially phase-battles), but terrible at the "chatting-scenes". And in the end, as a GC movie, it´s measured at Final Fantasy anyway, and here, .hack//G.U. trilogy can´t compare at all.


Sound:
After hearing the "Gentle Hands" remix of the trailer, I thought we get more cool remixes, but I hoped too much. Still, the music fits very well, esspecialy the fights.

Character:
My biggest part to complain about.
Most of the main-characters aren´t even shown, and the story focuses totally at Haseo, Atoli and Ovan.

Instead of the cool PKK style that Haseo had in the game, he only has that mad side shown in ".hack//roots", and seems like a little kid very often in the first half, Atoli isn´t even half as fun to watch since she has not much air-time in the first quarter, and Ovan´s calm attitude is nowhere to be found.

Enjoyment and Overall:
If you played through the games, even with that changes you´ll do nothing wrong with watching the movie at least once. If you never even played the game you may do better to ignore it, since they left so much out and made a speedrun through the story, so that it´s hardly understandable at times.

I only recommend this to fans of the ".hack//G.U." - Universe, the others will just ask "what the hell was that about?"

I had high hopes for GU trilogy. The games were loads of fun and the game story line was one of the best since SIGN and the first quartet. I was a tad skeptical that they would be able to capture the dynamic of the GU story in a one 90 minute film and boy was my skepticism right. In short .hack//GU Trilogy is made for those who have played the games and not for those who haven't. If you watched Roots but haven't played GU I would suggest not watching this movie.

The story is of ... course based on the GU trilogy of games for the PS2, the immediate sequel to .hack//Roots. And this film is supposed to be a film adaption, or so I thought. In reality GU trilogy is an expensive and choppy recap and abridgment of the GU Story, made entirely for those who have played the games. Unlike most, I understand the difficult task of adapting medium into film, so naturally I wasn't expecting a 100% loyal adaption, but I was expecting that this film would make sense to a person who has never played GU. It doesn't, it's like watching ".hack//GU abridged" only with out the humor and jokes of the Abridge series that litter YouTube today. It was appalling how quickly and pathetically this story jumps from one scene to another, no exposition is conveyed, no character development is conveyed, nothing, it's as I've said a million times by now, an over the top and over expensive recap of the GU. It was as bad as the writing in Blade of the Immortal.

The music score which was amazing in the games was all but dropped from the film. I barley heard any of the great themes from the games by Chikayo Fukuda. Tomoyo Mitani the vocalist did provide some nice vocal tracks of course, but they pale in comparison to her tracks in the games. The music is far and few between and silence is used way over the top.

The Japanese acting in this was beyond dreadful. Expressions and grunts were over emphasized and frankly the English dub track in the games is much more pleasing than in this. As this has no dub I had to rely on the fansubs and my own imagination to hear the voice cast I liked. The only plus to the Japanese acting in this case was that Endrance didn't sound like the tormented artist like he did in the English dub of the game. Most of the time you hear overly dramatic grunts and sighs and yells.

The 3D graphics are however rather good. They look much like the cut scenes in the game and the action is spectacular almost to the level of Advent Children. However there were several bad facial renderings and really silly expressions. The director did allow the camera to move, when I was fearing the action would static and uninteresting. The action scenes are great and they would be perfect for an AMV.

Overall GU is just plain horrible. It was made for those who have played the games, and one 90 minute film simply would not do it justice. CC had a great opportunity to make and interesting movie based on the games. Instead they made it into a long and expensive recap. They should have made three 2 1/2 hour movies to fully tell the story in depth, and to even make it remotely interesting. If you are thinking of watching this, don't waste your 90 minutes you'll be horribly lost and confused. Play the games instead.

The .hack animated series is certainly something that is difficult to understand if you haven't played the games. Even after watching all the .hack anime series, I still sit there, and go:

what.


.hack//G.U. Trilogy is one of the more confusing ones. Watching this reminded me of watching Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children; never in my life have I played a Final Fantasy game, and I can say that actually with some shame.

STORY: The typical story line of the .hack series; something within The World is causing players to go into a coma. I can't really remember much from Roots, since I watched that in 2008, but ... I'm thinking Trilogy goes into further detail about this 'AIDA' infection that's spreading in The World. This is something that probably shouldn't be watched if you haven't watching Roots, or played the games, since the movie actually goes straight into where Shino is 'PK'd'. Regardless of lack of .hack information while watching this, I felt that the story was still deep.

ART: I didn't actually read the description of MAL on Trilogy until I was just about to watch it. The CG was a biiiiiiiig turn off, well, that is when you compare it to something like the Final Fantasy merchandise. I realize that the CG style was probably supposed to be similar to the .hack game graphics but either way, the lack of detail made me want to cry. Haseo's face just did not look right compared to the design in Roots, but for some silly reason, all the other characters looked fine. Some parts of the movie were well animated, but overall, it just seemed like average CG animation. I did however liked some of Haseo's psycho facial expressions, along with Tri-Edge's.

SOUND: Congratulations to myself! I've finally realized where most of the sound effects and sound clips in DJ Sharpnel's 'Terror Of Death' are from now. Even though it was pretty obvious by the song's title, and I never picked it up while watching Roots. ANYWAY. Sound as always in the .hack titles is lovely, actually I've already forgotten what they sound like since this review has been written two days after watching Trilogy.

CHARACTERS: Main complaint with the .hack series is the ridiculous seriousness of a characters, obsessed over a game. If you find out it's going to harm your actual physical self, then stop playing it immediately and not try to live up to the saying 'curiosity killed the cat'. I honestly have no idea who the crap is Atoli, and what kind of relation she has to Shino and the other characters.

The reason why I gave this a 7, rather than a 6 (would actually be 6.5) was because of one particular scene. This would be the scene with Haseo and AIDA Atoli in the classroom. Oh. My. God. Animation, design and emotion looked like it had been carefully thought out well for this scene, I'd have to say it was mind-blowing. I even had a want-to-cosplay moment when I saw AIDA Atoli, despite the complexity.

Moving on, this is definitely something for the .hack fan, especially someone who is a fan of the games. I must stress again once more, not to watch this, along with the other .hack series, without having a robust knowledge about the .hack world and/or already having played the games.

This review may contain spoilers. Please do NOT read it if you are going to watch this movie.

Well, first of all, I didn't play the .hack games, but since I got interested in the story I read the GU+ manga. Therefore I will be comparing the movie and the manga. So let's see what the movie offers us.

Story:
The story presented in G.U. Trilogy is incomplete and full of leaks. There is a strong focus on the relationship between Atoli and Haseo which becomes annoying pretty fast. In contrast to this it is hardly explained what Epitaph Users are and who have got the Morgana Factors. ... Also the movie is missing the Net Crisis and the reason of Ovan killing other player (collecting the 8 Morgana Factors for Aura's rebirth).

Art:
Well, this is of course amazing. But sometimes some really strange facial expressions were shown, some full of exaggeration. I espially liked Yata's appearance who doesn't look as lame as in the manga, lol.

Sound:
Yes, this is the part where I've got to seperate. On the first hand we've got some awesome OST which I really love and enjoy listening to them while I'm drawing. Therefore it's a pity that the only melody I could remember being used in the movie several times is Liar's Smile.
On the second hand we've got the voice actors. They DID their job. Aber the text itself was awful. I've got to mention here that Haseo is screaming half of the movie. I mean - 2 or 3 times are okay, but everytime something bad or dramatic happens? Pathetic.

Character:
Too bad the only character who are really shown are Haseo, Ovan and Atoli. It even takes time during watching to recognize the names of the GU project's members. And though Haseo kept fighting for her all the time, you only see Shino dieing in the cathedral.
Another aspect I didn't like (there is plenty of them..) was that the movie didn't show the relationship between the World and real persons sitting at their computer. My boyfriend who I watched this movie with told me that he couldn't take this all for serious knowing it's just a MMO.
Atoli is shown more annoying than in the manga, but I guess it's her role. And Haseo.. since he was screaming and screaming and fell down to the ground because of his despair.. no, I didn't like him either.

Enjoyment:
Actually I only can enjoy it if you:
1. like clichés, because the movie is full of it
2. REALLY are interested in the story of .hack, but here again the story isn't very thrilling
3. can laugh about all the things I have criticized because that's what my boyfriend and me did after a while.

Overall:
All in all, I would definitely NOT recommend this movie. Though I don't think the manga is great or special, I believe that the movie even more horrible.

no Endrance
missed a lot of heart wrecking scenes that were in the video games.
now because everyone sees this instead of playing the G.U. games gonna think G.U is shit ( which is not I loved the story line in the video games to death)
should of just made 3 movies instead of jamming everything into 1 movie
soo many key points were missed and needed scenes
im still pissed that Endrance (aka Elk) was not in the movie I give it a 6/10 at best

While I love the .hack games, I've never been able to play the .hack//G.U. games for PS2 (they are pretty expensive games these days). I feel that the movie rushed through the three games without really explaining a lot. I felt a little confused as to what was going on, but if I played the games I probably would have understood.

The CGI animation in the movie was great and I found it fitting to the story. The characters were animated beautifully and it did make me think of the PS2 era. The appearance of a certain boss creature from the ... original .hack made me pretty happy.

I liked the voice acting and I preferred these characters over the ones from the original .hack video game series. These characters make me really want to get to the source material for the movie.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie but I wish that the movie was split into three parts so that it didn't feel rushed.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
------

✦Story
Hard to comment this anime without spoiling. As it's apparently the compressed version of 3 games. So I will only say a simple thing that wouldn't equal negativity with cause of compressed game into animation.

So we get a bit story of .hack//roots and from there we get to see all sorts of cool battles, powers and some new plot points. I did enjoy for the most part. Consider it kinda special bonus for .hack// franchise fans/players.

✦Art & Sound
It's like watching video game cutscenes in a row. ... Meaning that for the most part it was good, but not that impressive.
With music & ost I had a bit of an issue. Meaning that whenever it was the version of movie I watched, encoding or whatever, that ost/music was horribly quiet when I watched, heard almost none of it, which really took a piece of enjoyment out of me.

✦Character
.//roots + some others. Mostly same cast, some just a bit different now and not as enjoyable were some of them. So they were enjoyable as before and addition of new characters was good.

ONLY, big complaint would be Atoli. Here existence/appearance was confusing as heck, considering how quickly she grew into others and valued them really quickly. But I'm quite sure the cause would be 3 games compressed into 1 Anime movie. Most likely in game she is actually character I would grow into & understand.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
Did like the game'esque CG movie. Had some cool moments, but nothing amazing. Overall, it was watchable and not that boring.

Please, don't watch this, especially if you have never played the games. The games' plot is amazing, but this movie proceeds to ruin it in every way possible. Do yourself a favor and play the game.

There are scenes in a different and weird order, and others were brutally skipped or ruined. There are some cute additions, but they aren't enough to justify watching it.

It also randomly forgets to explain important plot points, while instead trying to create a love story between Atoli and Haseo, which ultimately means nothing to the viewer because they never showed their friendship moments in the first movie.

It's one thing to try and adapt a game into a movie. It's got challenges, things to cut, and you really sacrifice a lot in the transition. We have a different beast here, trying to adapt 3 ENTIRE GAMES INTO A SINGLE 90-MINUTE MOVIE.

I played the games back in the day, and I have the plot fresh in my mind. You can easily make a movie out of each game, honestly. The problem with the material is the illogical emotions displayed. The game asks from the player suspension of disbelief to a high degree, and it isn't that big of a problem since you do ... get to slowly enjoy the characters and world. I could get invested after two hours, but this is a movie that expects you to believe everything thrown at you in less than that with 3 games of plot.

It doesn't work, it's impossible for it to work. Putting myself in the shoes of a newcomer, this is the most incomprehensible movie ever. Motives, twists, arcs, and terrible editing. Movie vs. audience. Sadly, it's not even a summary. Served more as a cutscene compilation from disjointed moments of every game, with original scenes that make no sense, with or without the context.

The only thing I like, is the animation. Stylish CG animation that doesn't care about realism, but on the flow. The big fights, with some unintentionally funny, and exaggerated expressions that could work in a well-written work. I'm sad that that's the only good aspect, and some people seem to hate that too.

2/10. Excellent stock footage to make edits, and music videos for the series.