The best part of the Battle Hunter is the multiplayer. Despite different animations, there are no real differences to each character’s attacks the result comes down to stats and the luck of the cards. The cards add some uniqueness to the simplistic gameplay, but the feature isn’t expanded enough to make up for it.īattles take a characters statistics and randomly add to them through a selection of numbered cards. New cards are obtained by starting a new turn or finding them on the ground when you have less than five. Each hunter has up to five cards that add movement, attack, and defense points or plant traps to hinder other hunters. Gameplay is turn-based, rotating from the players to the monsters. The dungeons themselves are extremely plain looking (which doesn’t make sense, considering they’re supposed to be the ruins of high-tech cities) and just too big for your slow-moving characters. Once you’re given the task of finding an item or person, you’ll be transported to the dungeon, where items and monsters are scattered about. As you progress through dungeons and find disks, more backgrounds will become unlocked. Also available are options that sport the usual choices, and the rather neat option of changing the background on the menu screen. The client gives you missions or buys your items off you. For a price, the nurse at the hospital heals your hit points and raises your level. Once you have a character, you have two choices: the hospital or the client. Stats are completely customizable, but no character initially has better stats than the others. Despite having the choice of several different types of characters with several different color pallets, each plays the exact same. In addition to the hunters, monsters and traps also hinder your progress.Ĭharacter creation is simplistic. Hunters can attack and steal items from each other, making it important to know when to run and when to attack. Your basic task is to create a hunter and take him or her down into the “dungeon,” where you’ll compete with three other hunters for items. It’s up to specially trained “Hunters” to delve into the wreckage and recover what’s left. Left in the ruins of civilization are items and information vital to the survival of mankind. Set in the near future, the world is recovering from World War III. water, is a key to successful monster combat.ĭeveloped by Success and released in North American by Agetec’s A1 Games division for “budget” games, Battle Hunter is yet another example of getting what you pay for – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. This will help the many action-challenged. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.ĭot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player.
Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore.
Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube.