Do you still like .hack//SIGN or did Sword Art Online and other similar shows ruined it for you? I never cared about the games or the other media, but I watch .hack//SIGN to this day, and it is sad Yoshiyuki Sadamoto or Kazunori Ito have not done the other shows or games as good as .hack//SIGN in the early '00s.
youtube.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
.hack//SIGN
Adrian Reed
Blake Bailey
They have a very different tone. They are not each other's doppelgangers/substitutes.
Hunter Ward
Which did you enjoy more?
Alexander Baker
i still rewatch sign once a year or so but so much of it is tied up in ancient games that you'll never get that experience back if you aren't an old shit
Josiah Turner
i, , did not get through one complete ep of SAO because it was fucking terrible but at least it wasn't a multimedia franchise thing.
Jayden Hall
As other anons said, SIGN had several problems but the most blatant one is that they made it as one part of a multimedia franchise, they literally had the characters in the show spell out that it's not their job to deal with fighting Skeith and shit and it will be someone else.
I love SIGN and the games but that's bullshit.
James Morales
and the OAV epilogue thing was post-game-canon to boot. and the liminality? discs only came if you bought the games.
Austin Morales
I don't like either of them. .hack was closer to second life then an mmorpg. Playing games with friends was the furthest thing from what occurred in the original. SAO is dumb for many other reasons.
Andrew Foster
Yeah it just felt like promotion for a mediocre rpg series which was very common at the time. By comparison, I think the Z.O.E. animations hold up a lot better even stand alone. Both the dramatic OVA and the comedic tv series.
Oliver Sanders
hack was a MUD or MUSH
Elijah Smith
What distinction are you trying to make?
Luis Davis
its just a very niche thing nobody born after the 80s? 70s? would know about but the always pvp, no-goals-gameplay, and constant guild drama shit is all spot fucking on. text-only is closer to whatever VR immersion they pretended to have than any later MMO stuff.
Gavin Martin
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
It was really popular with G1 furfags.
Brayden Gonzalez
SIGN and the games are, for me, nostalgia simulators.
Sure the video games aspect of the show was garbage but holy shit Silver Knight getting way too into his RP to the point of annoying the admins was on point.
The games are less about good gameplay than they are reading through the emails and bbs posts.
I feel so old.
You really can't play online games like that anymore with how busy modern life is.
Jeremiah Reyes
They didn't have to have a story about characters beating the big bad. The problem is they didn't replace it with anything.
There's a bunch of little mysteries, but no one actually going around to piece it together.
So it should be character focused, but none of the characters do or say anything impactful to other characters or the story (Tsukasa is supposed to be this character, but just ends up having little impact at every chance)
So it feels like an entire show where characters that are almost interesting are stuck trying to find the plot.
Carson Martin
i really loved the mindless boring grind bullshit in the games but the BBS stuff was amazing. I would still play games of just that.
the mystery was good, the characters were great. Tsukasa was not the main character or protagonist. The biggest character arcs are of course Subaru & the Knights. BT got some growth but it was mostly overshadowed by her being BTFO nonstop by some 12yo gamer kid and that was way too good to be upset about. Mimiru (who isn't blackrose?) had a massive coming of age arc but it didn't work so good narratively because it was reflecting on her life as stages of player-development and the game wasn't really interesting enough to back that sort of thing up.
Most of SIGN was REVEALING their real character in contrast to what we see in their in-game persona. Sora & Crim's interactions were great, player ideology stuff was huge in the mud circles of the era ala
> en.wikipedia.org
Jason Anderson
I dunno man, the first games were pretty sick. GU also ties into Sign with Sora.
Gabriel Martin
>dawt heek sin
Grayson Smith
They should have committed to the lgbtq ending and have them kiss.
Austin Anderson
implying that shit is better than SaO
Adam Bailey
Cameron Gray
Did a non yuri anime have an onscreen kiss between women not played for any comedy (or drama), just romantic intent by the time .hack//SIGN came out? The writers seem to have saved all the post series flirting and romance for the side materials, because SIGN only had 26 episodes, one wasted in a recap. Then one extra for a Mimiru back story, and one extra for a non canon party story where players from SIGN, Dusk, and the games come together to celebrate, even Sora who waa supposed to be in a coma after events from SIGN. It sucks but all the offline romance between Tsukasa (An) and Subaru (Mariko) is made more explicit in .hack//ZERO and .hack//LINK.
Anthony Cox
Yes .hack root and gu are some of my fav animes. I enjoyed GU PlayStation game which got me into the anime or vice versa can't remember. They both have one best OST to date too.
Love ZOE too, personally think ZOE 2 is best PS2 game.
Cooper Edwards
Also the first season of SAO was good I'll say that. Everything after was shit desu.
Tyler Murphy
.hack//SIGN is better (even if it is a shit show) by virtue of not being an otaku / self insert pandering story like Sword Art Online. Unlike Kirito, only one female character lusts after the main character, arguably two, if you really want to read that much into Mimiru. Some episodes don't even bother with Tsukasa, shifting their focus to the other characters. SIGN did a lot of things wrong, but it had a lot less wish fulfillment and baiting than the isekai shit made in the wake of Sword Art Online. At the very least, we can agree that SIGN used better music and more interesting (half assed) characters than Kirito's harem. SIGN (ignoring the multi media tie ins) is a decent coming of age story for Tsukasa (and Subaru). Sword Art Online's story basically amounts to "Look at all that pussy. Isn't Kirito cool?"
Julian Lewis
Lady Subaru made me partially realize I found anime girls attractive
Alexander Murphy
Did Tsukasa accept Bear's offer?