I couldn't finish the third one. The gameplay just never got better, or even changed at all. Only managed to get through the first 2 because they were so short

>>4030464
The forth one gives you some easy mode weapon iirc, but it's all pretty repetitive. Compared to the original 4 I still find it more palatable to play through, but it's also lacking the charm of those in other ways.
Overall I just find it hard to have strong feelings about it. I feel like I should to at least some degree when there's all that .hack franchise shit to go through (which over the years I've seen quite a bit of), but a lot of it is just mediocre outside of the music.

All 7 of them are kusoge with vast unreached potential. Wouldn’t call them bad but they needed at least double the budget. GU 1 also made me feel like an abusive boyfriend from how unpleasant the MC is and the waifu being a doormat

I think the only truly great thing they did, is how GU makes the returning characters a big fucking deal without ruining any of them or overshadowing the new cast. That’s a very rare thing to see

>>4031031
GU might actually be the only .hack thing that really benefited from all that multimedia crossover project bullshit, just because it made the choice of main character for that game pretty funny

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>>4030454
awful experience. Bad combat that never improves, unlikable MC for way too long, and absolutely no sense of fucking pacing. Stop kicking me out of the fucking video game to check emails and then logging back into the game.
2 almost has some good character work with the MC and the blonde girl, and its all ruined by the reveal that the mastermind is an evil 12 year old
there are only 3 good things in GU: Alkaid, the hag tits in the OP, and this wallpaper

IMOQ is a fairly authentic simulation of early Japanese MMOs, particularly Phantasy Star Online. I understand why some people find it tedious to get through but I respect it for having a unique identity.
GU completely gives up on pretending to be an MMO, it's just a generic action RPG.

>>4030454
My biggest problem with GU was how repetitive it is. Every volume follows the same structure. Why is the mid-game in every GU volume a tournament arc, grinding for the tournament matches (sometimes it throws a little story at you, sometimes it's literally just a character going "Hey, lets level up for the tournament!"), and then doing all of the quests to unlock the record stuff? The beginning and end of the games were nice but the mid-game was a slog every time.
>>4031077
>Stop kicking me out of the fucking video game to check emails and then logging back into the game.
The email reading itself isn't really that bad. IMOQ does the same thing. The issue is that it takes so much longer in GU. IMOQ you could log out and be reading emails almost instantly while GU has to show you a bunch of loading bars and fancy effects first. Forum posts are even worse since the scrolling is so slow while IMOQ's forum is formatted so that there's minimal scrolling and you can quickly look at the next post.