.hack//Link | |
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Developer(s) | CyberConnect2 |
Publisher(s) | Namco Bandai Games |
Composer(s) | Chikayo Fukuda |
Series | .hack |
Platform(s) | PlayStation Portable |
Release | March 4, 2010 (with bonus disc) March 28, 2010 (without bonus disc) |
Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
Mode(s) | single-player |
.hack//Link is a single-player action role-playing game developed by CyberConnect2 for the PlayStation Portable. The game was released exclusively in Japan on March 4, 2010.
Set in a fictional version of the year 2020, .hack//Link's story takes place in a new version of "The World", a popular series of MMORPGs known as The World R:X. The game focuses on a young man named Tokio Kuryuu, a second year junior-high student who gets transported into The World R:X by a new student named Saika Amagi. After arriving into the game, Tokio is tasked by an artificial intelligence version of the character Kite to be a hero and use a tower of the Akashic Records to save the Twilight Knights, a group of artificial intelligence versions of characters based on casts of previous entries in the .hack series. Using the Akashic Records, Tokio is able to travel backwards in time to previous .hack entries and encounter past characters in order to unfreeze the data of the Twilight Knights.
Since its release, .hack//Link has been met with negative to mixed reception among both critics and fans alike. With many praising the expansion of the series' overall lore, but with strong criticism towards the gameplay of the title.
Although never stated to be the final chapter to the .hack series, the game is currently the last game in the chronology of the series to bear the name of .hack. The game was eventually followed with future installments known as Guilty Dragon: The Sin Dragon and the Eight Curses and New World Vol. 1: Maiden of Silver Tears for both iOS and Android platforms. Both games have since had their services discontinued.[1][2]