For all of you who didn't understand what the story was all about, here is the whole thing.
Yes, the plot IS boring. But that doesn’t change the fact that the story AROUND the plot of .hack is AWESOME! What I describe here is the story BEFORE the beginning of the events in the series, as the series itself hardly evolved the story any further.
In the near future, a super virus destroys all but one web networks, plunging the world into chaos.
A few years later, the same events are slowly repeating through the most famous on-line game of the time, simply called THE WORLD. As gameplay goes, the game is not better than Lineage, but it features a revolutionary originality: Virtual Reality! VR helmets and gloves make the sensation of the game a lot more realistic, although feeling pain when hit is not possible.
But even that is beginning to get dangerous, as many are struck by a virus in the game that throws them into coma. The producers of the game keep this a secret because it sells like crazy and simply order several programmers and moderators to secretly “fix” any problems the game may have.
The reason of the virus is The Key of the Twilight, a forbidden artifact in the game that can alter the very programming of the game and effectively make anything possible. Even making NPCs act like players and throw players into coma!
The Key was made by the now deceased original programmer of the game, who was in love with a woman poet/phantasy novelist. When she died in a traffic accident, his grief led him to secretly create a simulation of her personality with the name of Aura and sent her dormant and hidden in the game. A program called Morgana was responsible for gathering information on players that would help Aura become artificially intelligent. She would move freely in the game, without any game programming restrictions, thanks to the Key’s power to alter anything.
And here is where the problem arose. Morgana became self-aware and like all living/sentient beings, it wanted to stay alive. If Aura would awake, its reason-for-being would end and effectively, it would be erased/killed. So, in order to prevent Aura’s awakening indefinitely, it gave the Key to someone who didn’t want to change or face reality (not awake from the illusion of the game, so to speak). That person was Tsukasa, someone who wished to stay in the game forever (the reason is described in the Character section). So, Tsukasa almost willfully chooses to forget who “he” is and stay in the game forever, in order to escape the harsh reality.
And then the series begin. Tsukasa’s Key is slowly corroding the programming and creates viruses with a thematic motif of those of the woman’s End Of The World novels. These viruses start to expand beyond the game, causing troubles and beginning a new world crisis. But the story is about Tsukasa learning to trust people again, search for his lost memories and face reality. You hardly hear anything about the story I describe so far. The series focuses on him and leaves aside the whole world threat.
The ending is open, as you are supposed to watch .hack//LIMINALITY and play the .hack Playstation game trilogy to get the full picture. But those are just marketing tricks to rob you of your money, as the plot is also boring and slow and not even interesting characters are present.
There! If that is not a good story, I don’t know what it is. It sure beats all those “I want to become No.1 in the world” and “I will beat the crap out of everyone” series. |
