Bandai knows anime, and they know how to present an anime-themed game as well. With a second volume of the .hack//Liminality anime disc tucked into the package, fans of the medium will be pleased, while gamers who aren't that into it just get a pleasant bonus.

Little kiss of death and things that die

The combat system, as with everything else, remains fundamentally similar to the original game's -- speedy and action-based, with a nice dose of special attacks and a smattering of menu navigation required. The difference is that the number and strength of enemies is greatly increased over the original. This is both a blessing and a curse; while tougher battles are just what the game needed to keep its simplistic battle system fresh, they also bring all of its flaws into sharper relief.

The fiction of .hack is that the other characters in your party are controlled by human players of The World; if I were playing an online game with such slow and dim-witted people as these computer-controlled lummoxes I'd hasten to make some new friends. In the original, the mage Mistral was the cornerstone of my offense -- now she's increasingly ineffectual. Now that the enemies are speedier and cleverer, she winds up dead in most encounters; it'd be nice if they gave the weakest character the sense to run away from tough enemies -- instead, she'll just stand there and get pounded on till she dies (and then whine about it.)