.hack//Mutation

When is a sequel not a sequel? When it is the continuation of a story that was always designed to be told in four chapters. Confused? Then let us try and explain what is going on here. .hack//MUTATION follows hot on the heels of .hack//INFECTION and later on in the year, the story will be sown up with another two videogames. These are only a small part of the .hack universe though, with some anime and comic books filling in the blanks.

Now, the problem with all this of course, is that if you missed out on the original game you’ll lose much of the story, despite a quick recap at the start of the game. Even more confusingly, the game dispenses with the Training mode, naturally presuming that anyone who purchases MUTATION is already familiar with what is going on. It’s good to not have to wade through a load of stuff you already understand, but it means that the game will be incredibly daunting for anyone who decides to innocently pick this up on a whim.

So to the story then, which once again focuses on Kite, who is a regular in the MMORPG world of The World and is trying to find out why players are seemingly falling into comas whilst experiencing the online adventuring (in the original, Kite’s comanion, Orca, was struck down in the real world having been defeated in battle inside The World…). In the first game, there were many parts of The World that Kite could not visit due to his lack of experience, but by the end of INFECTION, he’d grown in reputation and so there is a whole new server here for you to visit. Kite is also much more powerful here, with the ability to reduce enemies to lines of code, which comes in extremely useful as the foes here are just as tough to defeat as before! Handily, those who played through INFECTION can carry their stats and items across to this second game – although if you don’t have a save, don’t worry, Kite still begins with some impressive powers.

Basically, MUTATION is merely more of the same, which is good enough as the original kept us enthralled to the end. Once again the game comes with a bonus DVD, so anyone already familiar with the world of .hack should be suitably impressed with this second package. See you at part three!