.Hack Trilogy was quite different from the games, but I think it was done well. I had to pay good money and wait some time for this movie to come to me from Japan but as a die hard .Hack fan it was worth it. They changed a lot in the movie, but they had no choice, it was three 20 hour games in a 2 hour movie. If you are just stumbling across this movie and have never heard of .Hack, you will not like it. But if you are a returning fan excited to see that a movie was made, I think you will enjoy it. The movie follows the journey of Haseo, a player in an MMORPG called The World. People in this world have been going into comas in real life after being killed in game by something called Tri-Edge. One of Haseo's closest friends Shino has been put into a coma so Haseo sets out to find a cure, to discover what happened, and eventually fight for his own survival.

Hack://G.U. Trilogy starts off as a prolonged recap of what happened in the 3 Hack://G.U. games for the Playstation 2. Interspersed amongst the things familiar to anyone who has played through are a few new takes on events or elaborations upon what happened. There are though an equal number of shortcuts and alterations.

The movie is all done in CG, the quality slightly above the quality of the CG cut-scenes in the game. All characters are well rendered and the models seem more expressive in the movie. Unfortunately the whole thing focuses only on a handful of characters, well over 3/4ths of the cast is left out...

Hack://G.U. the game and movie is an unusual story of players of a near future online MMORPG who come into conflict with a mysterious force that leaves players in comas. The story starts in a 26 episode anime series called Hack://ROOTS. Out of this develops the player Hasaeo, an Adept Rogue in the game called "the World" wherein his very first adventure ends with him being PKed (Player Killed) by other players. Essentially players predating on other players for the thrill of killing and inconveniencing others, or even robbing the PKed victim (This happens in many modern MMOs unfortunately.) From this Hasaeo is saved by a mysterious Steam Gunner named Ovan, a player with a strange left arm. From there Haseo slowly is drawn into Ovan's search for the "Key of Twilight" a mythical item in "the World" said to give unlimited power to whoever finds it. Ovan collects other players to help him, in particular his assistant Shino, a Harvent Cleric character who Hasaeo slowly comes to like. But as the story progresses, Shino is left in a coma by a strange figure called Tri-Edge and from there quests to gain the power needed to defeat and rescue Shino. Hasaeo gains more and more skill in the game and actively hunts down PKs, becoming a PKK and earning the title of "Terror of Death" after defeating 100 PKs massed in a failed strike to eliminate him.

The anime series end abruptly and the story follows through into the start of the G.U. games. Here Hasaeo finally faces down with Tri-Edge, but is totally wiped out and then "Data Drained" just as Shino was. But unlike her, Hasaeo awakens and soon discovers that his online character has been reduced to level 1 and lost all his powerful equipment.

Thus Hasaeo begins a very long road to recovery, helped by strangers along the way and eventually learning to care for others and gain a deeper respect for those he once though little of. Hasaeo soon meets a girl named Atoli who by co-incidence has a character model that looks much like Shino. Over the course of the story he develops feelings for Atoli. Not long after this he is drawn into a covert group called G.U. who comprise game administrators and players intent on stopping the spreading cause of the comas.

The movie recaps the full spread of the games 3 chapters at breakneck speed, sometimes with jarring jumps and abrupt stops that feel very out of place or inconsistent. Near the end though the movie vastly elaborates on and alters the final critical battles and then draws out a nicely fitting closure to a very specific loose end that the game had left unanswered.

Unfortunately on the down side, most of the side characters are missing, and a few critical ones as well. Central to the movie are Hasaeo, Ovan, and Atoli, secondary are Yata, Pai, Kuhn, and Aina. Missing are Endrance and Alkaid who played key roles in the game, and Sakubo, who played a lesser role, as well as over a half dozen side characters that join Hasaeo's ever growing band.

All in all its a OK movie. But if you do not know the plot of the games then you may well end up feeling more than a little lost as the movie ricochets and leapfrogs through what was a very long and convoluted story.

The truth is that a lot of people have played the games and i believe that actually more than few of them have enjoyed them. What was unique about the G.U. trilogy as a game was the amazing story line that kept u on your toes. A story about love, friendship, respect for others and yourself. A truly mature way to depict how can someone like Haseo (main character) can change from a spoiled, annoying and selfish brat to a considerate, wiser and kind man. It is also a story about taking responsibility and self sacrifice.As it is obvious, such a story would need catalysts to progress a.k.a. various supplementary characters. These are missing from this movie, turning it from a story of a journey towards self improvement to a story of rivalry between two men. That would not be too bad if someone had to consider that the creators tried to fit about 100 hrs of gameplay into an 1,5 hr film what is bad is that they made the characters two dimensional, left many parts unexplained ( who or what is tri edge) and didn't not give them proper motivation for their actions. Artisticaly it is beautiful (although not like advent children from ff franchise),the music satisfactory, and... of you are an Ovan fan (like myself) a must see not only for the amazing dueling sequence between him and Haseo but also for the alternate ending... By the way if anyone is interested more about G.U. the can always watch .hack//roots which is an anime TV series... not sure if this movie would have any appeal on anybody who hasn't played the games. What a shame...