The games were already easy and they dumbed them even further down.

[YuGames]

These are all the battle related changes that have been applied to Last Recode:

-Unlike the PS2 versions, in which you were returned to the title screen upon defeat in battle, the HD remaster has added a retry feature that lets you restart the battle from the beginning. Internal correction is performed each time you retry, making it easier to defeat the enemy.

-Attack Power Increased – In order to keep the battle tempo efficient and stress-free, the amount of damage the enemy receives has been increased. (Damage received from the enemy has not been changed.)

-Hit Stop Reduction – Hit stops during attacks have been reduced and players can no longer get caught in an operation, which enhances the battle tempo.

-The amount of experience points acquired in battle has increased, allowing players to level at a better pace.

-You can now use the same item consecutively.

-Skeith’s standard shot bullet speed has been increased.

-Balance revisions have been made to enemies’ HP, attack power, charge speed, and the like in Avatar Battles.

-A stun gauge has been added above the enemy in Avatar Battles.

-The rate at which weapon proficiency rises has been increased.

-The level of difficulty for some formidable enemies has been alleviated.

-The amount of damage to the Flight Gauge and Morale Gauge has been increased.

-The probability that an enemy will inflict status ailments such as paralysis or sleep has been lowered. (The probability that the player will inflict these status ailments on enemies has not been changed.)

-The amount of additional damage during Beast Awakenings has been increased.

[Hitorishizuka]

Last Recode shall be easier.

Some of the changes are quality of life stuff such as the stun meter in avatar battles.

Some take in consideration that the player has access to all 3 vols right away. During the PS2 days people had months to grind and do every thing before the next vol came out. The increase weapon skill proficiency should keep players skill levels up between the vols. On the PS2 games, the rate of skill level growth was rather slow.

[YuGames]

Yes but the majority of those changes are downright easy mode nerfs, making you much more powerful and giving you much more control in battle while also making enemies weaker and incapable.

Then allowing you to spam heal and offensive items as they no longer have cooldowns and even allowing you to re-try with overnerfed enemies if you somehow manage to die like this.

I mean...what?

I will not even talk about the cheat mode because at least that is optional.
The rest is not.....

[Hitorishizuka]

Originally posted by Saga:

Yes but the majority of those changes are downright easy mode nerfs, making you much more powerful and giving you much more control in battle while also making enemies weaker and incapable.

Then allowing you to spam heal and offensive items as they no longer have cooldowns and even allowing you to re-try with overnerfed enemies if you somehow manage to die like this.

I mean...what?

I will not even talk about the cheat mode because at least that is optional.
The rest is not.....

The main thing right now is getting people into the series. The story of .hack is its strongest point.

GU games weren't difficult to begin with. Haseo and his party members can get god tier equipment rather early/mid way through the games. Vol 3, Haseo and party members can be made to break the game.

[Flyers]

I hope they give us PS2 difficult

[Kawalorn]

I'll have to play to make up my mind fully.

I do remember that sometimes the game slowed to a crawl because of way too many way too tanky enemies were present and such.

On the other hand there was only a battle or 2 that actually gave me any trouble so I could see it going overboard the other way.

[RebirthOfJack]

I do wish that CC2 implements a hard mode or something, the game was easy as it was, especially if you farmed just a few levels (on 150 you could one shot the last boss).

[SacrificAbominat]

I never thought of .hack as a hard series, but making things easier does bother me a bit. Though I do like some of the quality of life changes they are making. If it is easy then that is fine, I can always try and be underleveled to give myself a challenge if I like. Then again I've seen a lot of people just get overlevel and one shot most of the major bosses in the original versions as well.

[Eisen]

was .hack really that hard? the only time i got game over was when in vol 2 Fighting Gorre and in vol 3 When fighting Ovan , other than that I never had any difficulty

[Loki]

I was pleased that some of the fixes that they did in volume 2 and 3 are going to be backtracked... Those little updates about how things worked.

And I am SOOO glad they upped the item/chim slots. That's going to make selling easier. Grinding for virus cores, chim spheres and GP was the only part that bogged me down.

[Clive]

.hack//G.U. (all volumes) was already an extremely easy game, most of these changes are just plain insulting if they aren't optional.

[YuGames]

People that say "The games were already not that hard" do not seem to realize that this is precisely why these changes are both pontless and horrible.

It´s precisely because there were very few challenges and very few specific bosses that required some actual coordination that making everyting 10 times easier makes the games much worse.

At least in the original version it was fun enough to make you pay attention but if now we are going to be able to win by just spamming X, which is the obvious result of all these changes...eh....

And i agree that the strong point in the series is the storytelling and not necessarily the combat, but making the combat even worse is not a good thing.

[HolyAarom]

I thought there was no cooldown (skill trigger meter) for using items outside of the infinite use HP/SP item. You just had to wait for the character to finish the animation of using the item.

I'm not sure if you HAVE to use the "retry with easier settings," but if you want to be prideful about playing a single player game then I guess it makes the retry option moot if you want to try fighting the boss again without it being weaker. I'm pretty sure they offer a retry option against actual bosses (barring PKs and field/dungeon bosses.)

As for the Beast Awakening damage, I'm wondering if it will balance out with the game not being a slog to play and being overall faster (aka faster draining meter.)

I do think that a lot of these are quality of life improvements, because I personally would like to try fighting bosses on an even ground now instead of cheesing. For example, I remember going straight for the Epitaph weapons in Vol. 2 and curbstomping the bosses that guarded the weapons by spamming the guard cancel with Heine's Broadsword. The charm made all of those bosses a joke, and not having to do chip damage against a boss gives me an incentive to not cheese as early as possible.

Watch everyone just do the old strategy of spamming critical heals and 15 hit combo favorite actions and going to town with Beast Awakening.

[Scyris]

Originally posted by Hitorishizuka:

Originally posted by Saga:

Yes but the majority of those changes are downright easy mode nerfs, making you much more powerful and giving you much more control in battle while also making enemies weaker and incapable.

Then allowing you to spam heal and offensive items as they no longer have cooldowns and even allowing you to re-try with overnerfed enemies if you somehow manage to die like this.

I mean...what?

I will not even talk about the cheat mode because at least that is optional.
The rest is not.....

The main thing right now is getting people into the series. The story of .hack is its strongest point.

GU games weren't difficult to begin with. Haseo and his party members can get god tier equipment rather early/mid way through the games. Vol 3, Haseo and party members can be made to break the game.

Thats the thing, the orignal game was not diffcult, so many of the changes mainly the attack pow, exp/weak skill exp and enemy boss diffculty did not need to be changed, neither did the item cooldowns. I really hate it when devs casualization up a game. Like heres a prime example Looking at the elder scrolls series.

https://imgur.com/JAbffHx

Casuals have ruined videogames period, as the devs dumb the stuff down so even a stupid monkey can finish it that is half blind and deaf.

The game also was never a slog, if it was your doing something very very wrong. If I did have to pick 1 thing I hated, it was the whole chim sphere system, it was just plain annoying as hell, better in vol 2/3 on ps2 since allies helped but it still was stupidly annoying.

Sadly, games these days are made for casuals that suck at games, if they don't get their trophy/reward they cry. Its killed mmorpgs as well.

I also don't mind the retry option as I never got a game over in the orignal game, so that won't even effect you much, honestly with how much they probally casualified the game, if you die it'd be sad.

[YuGames]

Originally posted by HolyAarom:

I do think that a lot of these are quality of life improvements, because I personally would like to try fighting bosses on an even ground now instead of cheesing

If you cheesed that is on YOU
Plenty of us beat the games without the cheese and unlocking all the side stuff and gear.

It was perfectly possible to fight them on an even ground if you knew how to play properly.

But hey, do not worry, now you will probably just be able to spam X and occasionally rengeki on pretty much every single fight in the game.

[Hitorishizuka]

Originally posted by Scyris:

Originally posted by Hitorishizuka:

The main thing right now is getting people into the series. The story of .hack is its strongest point.

GU games weren't difficult to begin with. Haseo and his party members can get god tier equipment rather early/mid way through the games. Vol 3, Haseo and party members can be made to break the game.

Thats the thing, the orignal game was not diffcult, so many of the changes mainly the attack pow, exp/weak skill exp and enemy boss diffculty did not need to be changed, neither did the item cooldowns. I really hate it when devs casualization up a game. Like heres a prime example Looking at the elder scrolls series.

https://imgur.com/JAbffHx

Casuals have ruined videogames period, as the devs dumb the stuff down so even a stupid monkey can finish it that is half blind and deaf.

The game also was never a slog, if it was your doing something very very wrong. If I did have to pick 1 thing I hated, it was the whole chim sphere system, it was just plain annoying as hell, better in vol 2/3 on ps2 since allies helped but it still was stupidly annoying.

Sadly, games these days are made for casuals that suck at games, if they don't get their trophy/reward they cry. Its killed mmorpgs as well.

I also don't mind the retry option as I never got a game over in the orignal game, so that won't even effect you much, honestly with how much they probally casualified the game, if you die it'd be sad.

GU is not the game to look for when it comes to challenge. Most of the changes are quality of life or to really just speed things up a bit. The weapons and armor can be customized to really make Haseo and party members op. In Vol 3, Haseo even gets Dual Guns that can infinitely juggle most small to medium size enemies in the game. GU being a challenging game is not what is being aimed for.

A lot of games have been made easier over the years but at the same time there are many difficult games out there. These is even the case were some aspects of games have been made easier but that still does not stop the game from being hard. Fighting games are a great example of this. Certain mechanics have been made easier but casuals still get stomped on by AI and other players that learn the mechanics.