So... .Hack // G.U.! Ho-ly ♥♥♥♥. This game is... Well, it's definitely quite the experience. From start to finish it's an amazing trip, watching an edgy teenager grow with his character, experiences and encounters as his eyes are gradually opened more and more to the reality of his situation, the people around him, and the gravity of what power truly means.

So! A spoiler alert, for those of you wanting to know the story that leads up to G.U. Volume 1, I would recommend first watching .Hack // Roots, which is an anime that precedes the games themselves. IT's great if you want some lore on the game for curiosity's sake.

Now with that said, I think a proper damned review is in order since I JUST finished this wonderful love-letter to story writing.


So, as mentioned in the first subtitle, you take on the role of an unnamed person who DOES name their Personal Character, or "PC" for short, Haseo, famously known as the Player Killer Killer (PKK), "The Terror of Death". After a rather cruel descent into madness and a sanity-destroying thirst for vengeance against the person who put his best friend, Shino in a coma, Haseo is now a monster in the game capable of wrecking anything within the games specs.... Key word "anything within the specs"... Which when clued in by his former guild leader of the Twilight Brigade, Ovan, that Shino's killer has been found, a careless and eager Haseo heads off to find his opponent, and... Well, Madness has a cost. A steep, steep cost.

Haseo ends up lucky, reduced to level 1 with all of his character data reverted by his target instead of in a coma like his dear best friend. So, now he has to start all over again, and we have a fitting pair of shoes for people to fill in. The main character of the game does come off as edgy, and I don't blame anyone for feeling put off by that, but suffer with it, and you'll be rewarded, trust me. He basically develops through the three volumes and you can see the turmoil going on within him as you progress.


So, combat in The World... Well, it's simple. And surprisingly addicting... And... Surprisingly repetitive. But despite this, it's fun. Damned fun, hilariously. Although for those who don't like dungeon crawling, this game can burn you out quickly if you do constant marathons.

You can attack, block, use skills, items, it's all very responsive and works really good for its setting. There are two types of Areas, Fields and Dungeons, in Fields you can use a steam-powered motorcycle to move around quickly just like in town, and in Dungeons, you can find TONS of enemies and other fun stuff lurking in the dark corners within them.

How you ACCESS Fields and Dungeons, and whether you produce a Field OR Dungeon depends entirely on your collection of Area Words, which basically is like assembling a randomly generated level to fight through in synopsis and practice. Your first Area Word decides the 2-digit level grade from the lowest possible level of your respective Volume to its highest value, so 0-50 as an example from Volume 1. Second Area Word affects the location you ultimately have, and you tune it in conjunction with your third area word as finely as you please to whatever level you wish, which is half of the fun of the grind, fortunately. You can choose to be running the same dungeon forever, or just do all sorts of fields without cease. it's great! And these fields and Dungeons alike can have all sorts of friendly and hostile encounters waiting for you as well.

The weapon you first start with, "Twin Swords" is basically a pair of long daggers, and you can get different types that have a different final attack during their combination, which is kind of cool. So you can personalize your approach regarding this. Next weapon type you get is the Broadsword, which is basically a giant ass greatsword longer than poor edgy Haseo is tall. It's all about damage per hit with those things, so lining up your targets takes a tad bit of skill. Finally, you get the Scythe, which proved to be one of my favorite crowd control weapons, which it was obviously designed for. All wide, sweeping attacks that reach damned near everybody. If they're close enough for you to hit them in the face with a roll of toilet paper, they're close enough to get reamed with your super impractical, bad ass harvesting tool. Heheheh.

However, the process of unlocking these weapons requires "Job Extension", which you only get one of per Volume. The game is a REAL slow burn.


The art for this game, in my personal opinion has aged a LITTLE better than Star Wars: KOTOR II, which is no small feat for such a pair of old titles. The games look great, and the graphical fidelity is fine enough that you won't be complaining about Nintendo 64 graphic splashes anywhere. You can easily tell where you're going, detailed-character models during close-ups in the cutscenes look nice, the environments are colorful and fairly vibrant, and the unique bosses throughout the story are a treat to look at... ESPECIALLY the Epitaphs!


The music is actually enjoyable. The Dungeon and Field music feel fitting for their respective environments, encounters, emotion cues, stuff like that, all the little jingles are great. When it wants to be epic, it REALLY gets there. All in all a very good delivery, and the most significant characters naturally have their own theme, which is nice. I really don't have too much to say other than that, though. It's good. It works.


My personal approach to the game depended on the volume. In fact, that's the most fun part to me is how you can choose to do the progression. You can focus immediately on leveling up to the level caps for each respective volume before moving forward with the actual story if you so choose in favor of having an infinitely easier time with the story bits if that is your desire. Or, you can stick strictly to the story, not do any leveling and just challenge yourself with what the game provides you, which is also a fun time.

So, Level caps:

Volume 1; 50
Volume 2: 100
Volume 3: 150
Volume 4: 150

And clear data is transferred to the next respective volume, so there's no excuse to skip a volume just because you don't care. It's a good story. Seriously. xD


Story: 10/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Music: 8/10
Play time: 159 Hours from Volume 1 to Volume 4 with additional time spent in Terminal Disc.
Grade of Recommendation: MUST. HAVE.
Voice Acting: 8/10 (English)
OVERALL SCORE: 7.7/10

It was a great time! I had a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blast, but the grind was... Well, it started to get on my nerves by Volume 3, so I had to take breaks between living grinding sprints. Doesn't detract from a damned fine and VERY well-delivered story though. The story is absolutely amazing, and if that's something you care about, you will be far from disappointed by it. The voice acting was great and delivered where it needed to effectively. It wasn't at all flawless, not that it needed to be, but it wasn't grating either, with the occasional exception of Atoli, whose voice actor I think unfortunately may have tried WAY too hard in Volume 1. She gets progressively better with each volume, which does help... Especially given her story arc too. And no, I refuse to spoil that. The gameplay is Keep-It-Simple-Stupid levels of functional and doesn't really do anything to complicate itself unnecessarily, which is good... Especially when you're making a game that can potentially last several dozen hours for someone. So uh... Yeah! I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ recommend this game.

Haseo is the best edgy boi I have ever played as. I do not regret a moment of it. xD

Oh god. Forza Horizon 4. Good ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ christ, this game. I'll be honest, I've experienced games that give me whiplash every so often. Never once has it been a racing game. I've played Forza Motorsports 1, 4 and 6 (Hated the ass out of 6), and every Horizon title so far.

Of the Horizon games, this is easily the worst. Allow me explain why. As usual I'll start with the nice stuff first and gradually open more and more of the ass cheeks of this game until all the ♥♥♥♥ comes flying out like the Fukushima Reactor Plant.


So, the first hurdle to overcome is naturally making sure the game works. I have a BEEFY PC: Radeon RX 5700 XT, Ryzen 7 3700X, 64 GB DDR4 RAM... And for some reason, it would crash if I set the aliasing too high, which was a little weird. Outside of that, it runs smoother than better on a pancake.

The racing... Actually feels great. Street and road races feel wonderful, Rally races feel like a blast in an all-wheel drive, and Cross-country courses are a relatively good romp too. However....

The AI are... Schizophrenic at best. I regularly race on Highly Skilled. For some reason, if you're ahead enough of the pack, they'll suddenly got HYPER-competitive and rubber band toward you like they're set to Expert. Don't worry, I'm about to get to the difficulty too:

So, let's start off with... Okay, ♥♥♥♥ it, EVERYTHING.

So first, Drivatar (Opponent) difficulty:
New Racer
Inexperienced
Average (Minimum difficulty for seasonal championships in the Lego Speed Champions DLC)
Above Average
Highly Skilled (Recommended difficulty for base game Seasonals)
Expert (Recommended difficulty for Fortune Island Seasonals)
Pro
Unbeatable (Standard difficulty for all Trial races)

You can also turn on and off various driving assists, such as the Assisted Breaking System, setting the steering to whatever you like, Turning off Traction Control and Stability Control, Setting your shifting from automatic to some CRAZY ♥♥♥♥ like manual with a clutch, Setting your driving line to be only visible during turns when you're going too fast or removing it altogether... You get the idea. Hell, you can even turn on damage! You can have it be cosmetic or, just like steering, set it to simulation. And lastly, there's a Rewind system, which was introduced in Forza Motorsport 3.

I run with all the driving assists off with automatic shift and a full driving line. It's nice to have those perks. If you're wondering abour Seasonals, allow me to explain...


... Okay, it's the United Kingdoms, but still. Anyway, Forza Horizon 4 introduces seasons as its newest mechanic in the game. Each weak the season changes. And every four seasons, a new racing series starts up: Summer > Autumn > Winter > Spring. In that order. And if you're worried, fret not, the DLCs are affected by this rule too.

Spring, Summer and Autumn can basically all be held in the same category whereas Winter is in its own little place like Horizon 3's Blizzard Mountain. Not too many people like snow in racing games, and I don't blame them. I for one have a weakness for offroading, and Winter makes offroad races a TON of fun. Now back to the seasonal bit...

Seasonal Events. These have been introduced in Horizon 4 to dramatically increase the game's longevity. And it works, surprisingly! You usually have One four-chapter car challenge worth 100 Forzathon points (I'll explain those later), A photo Op challenge, 7 daily Forzathon challenges that unlock with each day (and expire if you don't get on top of them fast enough '=_=) The Trial Race (Team of players versus team of Unbeatable level Drivatars), A playground games event (Basically PvP. You don't HAVE to win to get the reward), 3 Seasonal PR Stunts (Danger Sign, Speed Trap and Speed Zone), 3 or 4 racing championships, and occasionally, a Seasonal Showcase, which is fairly neat-o. But I'll get to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ showcases soon enough, I have some ♥♥♥♥ to say about them... And then finally, Monthly Rivals and Online Adventure.


I. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Hate. Horizon 4's. Showcases. The first one you get is the worst of the five. A giant-ass hoverboat you have to actively contend with. See, the problem I had with the showcases is, because I'm usually pretty good at the game, I'm always ahead of the pack. ...In Horizon ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 4, that can bite your fragile asscheeks off and send you into a livid rage during most of the Showcase events. The first one especially. See, I can't explain the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with words and do it enough justice, but in my effort I shall try anyway. For some reason, the boat seems to push objects away from it whenever they get to close... Problem with that is, it's an enormous ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ penis in the way that often obstructs you, and if you're in the path it's sliding around toward, prepare to lose the race. Over and over again. Seriously, ♥♥♥♥ the hoverboat race. I hope that thing goes to the River of Styx and never escapes. It belongs there, truly.

There's better, but the review would be too long if I went into detail unfortunately.


Well... Not quite final bosses. More like ultimate races you can unlock for each category: Road Racing, Rally, Offroad, Dragracing, and the favored final boss every Horizon fan can never get enough of since Horizon 3: The Goliath. A single lap around the entire map.


The DLC is... In a WEIRD ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ place for me. I guess I'll start with Fortune Island first, though.

Fortune Island is fun as hell. A rally racer and offroader's wet dream. You can gain a net-total of about 8 million credits here, assuming you don't have the cars you need foir all the riddle challenges. As well, the map itself is just fun to go hogwild on. It has two final races, a Goliath and Gauntlet style race. Not much else I can say. It's fun... A lot more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun than the Lego Expansion...

Lego Speed Champions... Lego. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Speed Champions... The concept didn't sound appealing. The execution made me want to commit defibrilator-ribcage. The requirements made me want to go on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crusade with the Imperium of Man to destroy all the heretics and xenos. Let me just... ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ preficy LSC with this: EVERYTHING is mandatory to unlock the last race. And yes, even the Bonus Boards. Doesn't sound so fun, does it? Just wait until you do it. For me it felt like slogging through Warframe, but I already had I wanted to start. Horrible alternative radio, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cars made of legos... I hated it. A lot.


Yeah... Clothes. ♥♥♥♥ me crying, clothes. What in hell do clothes have to do with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ racing game again? I don't know, but it's pretty offensive. I'm going to address this ♥♥♥♥ right now. The clothes pretty much clog up the wheel spins. Getting clothes or emotes for your character equates to getting nothing to me. Even garbage from a landfill is a better award than clothes from Wheelspins.

Honestly? No. It wasn't that bad. The WHIPLASH was that bad. Over all, Forza Horizon 4 certainly isn't a bad game. In fact, despite the ass-ripping I've given it, I still highly recommend it to people curious about the franchise who missed out on Horizon 3. The racing is fun, the car variety is truly insane, and despite my misgivings toward Lego Speed Champions, it DOES have some good race courses in there if you can find them. My favorite's at the bottom-right section of the map.

All in all, I give Forza Horizon 4 a 6 out of 10. It could have done better, but easily did more than good enough to keep me playing for a good while. A shame Horizon 5's racing wasn't good compared to its awesome... Everything else. Damn.