Well, it's seven months later and I must admit the games haven't been what I expected. Part 1, which disappointed me on many levels, will be discussed at a later date. What about the second part of the series, .hack Part 2: Mutation - or .hack//MUTATION as it's also known? Did anything improve? In a word . . . no.

A bit of good news first: Upon loading the game, you have the option to convert your data from the first over to the second, which I did. This lets you start with all acquired equipment, levels, and party members.

The game starts out with an introduction that attempts to summarize the events that happened in the previous game, and I noticed one thing right away. "What the hell?" I said to myself. "Everything’s in Japanese. Hey, and no subtitles - that's great!"

Ok, right here I'll own up to the fact that I listened to the entire first game with the Japanese voice track. I'm no purist; I'm not the type of guy who wants to hear everything in its native language, but when the voice acting was as horrible as it was in the first game, it makes me happy that Bandai had the grace to include said track. The oversight of these subtitles forced me to restart though, and I hope this "bug" will not occur in parts three and four.

At any rate, directly after the introduction, you receive a faux e-mail from your pal, BlackRose. She wants you to accompany her to take a look at what happened in Infection's final dungeon after the fact. With that, the game launches you into a non-stop thrill ride . . . No, I'm kidding here. The pacing of the game is extremely slow, so much so that it makes you think you've played long beyond the fifteen hours it will actually take you to complete it. I know that more than once I left the game running, returning four-or-so hours later after finishing up a few pet projects.

The way the story is presented is a bit odd. Close to the beginning, you're recruited by a system administrator (Lios) to try and discover what's been happening to change the structure of "The World," the online game your character has been playing since volume one. Your character, Kite, receives e-mail from time-to-time from other players you've met, system admins, etc. Some of these are integral, others are not. You’ll discuss everything from the Lord of the Rings trilogy to the Epitaph of Twilight, a seemingly very important piece of "The World's" background. Still, the many story snippets are few and far between, and though I'm interested in what's going on, I think I can say with near certainty that most people will not be.

Gameplay in Mutation follows this formula: short, in-game cut scene; long, boring dungeon with thankfully quick (for the most part) combat (more about this later); log out, check email; repeat. Had the dungeons been designed with a bit more variety, they wouldn't have posed as big a problem to me as they did. However, the fact that I only saw six or seven different background templates for them (and I visited far more than was required) is definitely a mark against it. For something so popular, ("The World" has supposedly sold upwards of twenty million units of software), it sure is generic.

Speaking of generic, the character designs in the game were done by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto of Evangelion fame. While they're bright and colorful, templates exist to some extent here as well. Wouldn't a game set in the future have tried to fix this a bit by now?

Combat at its best is quick and easy. I only died a couple of times, and that happened when I was exploring dungeons in which I was far below the recommended level. Still, it does have its problems, and one bothersome aspect is the way in which skills are acquired by your characters. Equip that weapon, get this attack. Equip this piece of armor, get that healing spell. You only have one skill, Data Drain, that is not subject to said formula. Some people would probably call this picking-and-choosing strategic. I call it shallow.

One final thing to mention is the extra Liminality disc that accompanies the game. Each volume in the series will come with one of these discs. Each will contain a one episode OVA about events happening in the "real" world parallel to those in the game. You’ll also get extras such as art galleries and production team interviews, as well as pieces of background info on "The World" itself.

Here's to hoping that Bandai gets it together for volumes three and four in the series. Some added gameplay elements, extra dungeon/character templates, and some new music would go far in helping them out. I don't think I'll be purchasing another part of this serialization until Bandai releases them together in a gift set (fingers crossed) at a (hopefully) discounted price.

· · · Taloony