I've yet to finish G.U.'s final volume, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to give the first quartet a try.

Given the fact that I love G.U.'s story, gameplay and graphics plenty, what would you consider to be the best way to approach these games?

Grab lots of extra Virus Core D's and G's once they become available, or it become brokeny awkward to hunt them down in later volumes >:/

Wow. It's been a while. Anybody remember me?

As for your question... My suggestion is spend a lot of time leveling up. You can easily get swamped by bosses, and some of those will crop up in quick succession. You can also benefit from all the loot you'll inevitably gain from fighting: Some really cool weapons, other stuff to trade or pawn off... and then get what you REALLY need after that.

So run the little monsters down in a slaughterfest free from battle modes and other structural things. Just select skill, select target, and go. Run away if you need to. Watch Balmung run cartoon-like across the horizon on your screen chasing after an impossibly fast wizard-type monster... XD

I actually prefer the battle system of //IMOQ over the one for //G.U.

You might be able to guess, I also like Final Fantasy XII and Fable, for the same reason, among others...

By the way, I'm curious... I'm the only person I've ever known to use the series abbreviation //IMOQ... Did you get that from me somehow, by any chance? o.o

The shortform IMOQ? No idea where exactly I got it (you're on other .hack fansites?), but I needed one to differentiate them from G.U. or the other media.

So, this game requires plenty of level grinding, huh. Combine that with the Virus Cores hunting that most people seems to have a problem with, this one will be tough.

I didn't even like hunting for those few dozens of Adler Keys in Reminisce...

I've perpetuated calling the series //IMOQ on a few other sites so long ago, but I can't remember now what those were. You very well could have gotten it from some other source than me. The acronym is pretty logical, really.

Yeah... Lots of leveling. Especially in Outbreak and Quarantine... The first two games are a bit easier on that, but starting with Outbreak you fight a lot more bosses in quicker succession, so stay prepared.

And Virus Cores... Most obnoxious items ever, but so necessary... You get emails throughout the series outlining the monsters that will give you specific cores, so you should always know where to look.

Do not decide it will be funny to level to 150 halfway through the game. Once I got Siliad or whatever I just had to use it.

Easiest way to level up is to pick codewords to get to a dungeon that is like 3-4 levels higher than you are. It will be a little hard, but it's worth it. Also, NEVER USE PIROS!!!! (I forgot when you get him...) he sucks, he sucks, he sucks. Pick like 3 or 4 party characters and stick with them. They'll totally rock by the end of the first volume, and then everything's peachy for the rest.

Also, just my opinion, always have one Wavemaster with you who has Ol Repth and La Repth (Or the Strongest healing spells available at the time) and have them set on Recovery and things for the harder places.

As for when you reach the bosses, I found it worked playing a little defensive rather than all out offensive, of course I was usually underleveled but ja.

Mistral<3

make sure to keep people evenly leveled, you never know when you will need to take them out for a spin

and holy crap. its lycoris! remember me? i was tsukasa503

There's a technique that seems to work well for some of the bosses, particularly the end boss of Infection. The .hack//IMOQ games are sort of notorious it seems for instilling fear of their end bosses because they tend to be pretty hard unless you're overleveled for them. ^^

Anyways, the technique that I had great success with was to take two heavy hitters (actually, there are two in particular that I used, but I won't say explicitly who they are so I don't spoil anything, but if you'd like to know later on, send me a private message. I tried most of the combinations, and there's one I found to be by far the most effective) and buy a ton of healing items and heal yourself. Because the healing spells aren't the world's fastest, and because your wavemaster won't last two seconds against the last boss, this strategy seems to be the most effective.

Also, I would recommend keeping everyone on your list not only equally leveled (which is a great point, Pursuer) but also equally stocked with good equipment as you never know who you might have to play with. Furthermore, it helps flesh out the story more.

Okay, I think I did that without any spoilers (other than "the last boss is hard" but what else is new? )

Having the lead play the healer role? That sounds like what I normally do in action RPGs like this. It's the most reliable method of keeping the entire team alive in the absence of good AIs (cough FFXII's Gambits cough).

Will keep that in mind.

I'm barely through G.U. Vol 3, so this may take a while.

I'm not sure if you mean that Gambit is a bad A.I. or that it would be more safe to have a system like that in .hack//G.U. when it coems to healing. I found it pretty reliable myself. But Gambit actually isn't A.I. since no judgement calls are ever made. The characters only act exactly like you set them up to act, no matter what.

I wonder what Gambit mixed with a self control A.I. would be like though. If they could override their commands when they feel it's needed. Only the player was able to do that in FF XII.

In .hack//G.U. I only played healer in a few situations that I can think about. One was fighting the bosses when releasing the Forgotten Weapons. I usually did it at a somewhat early level. But I also controled all the characters myself in that fight. (Always had Endrance attack with Heavenly Sword as soon as Atoli's meteor shower ended, and vice versa, so the boss didn't get to move much.) I also equipped the accesory that doubles the potency of healing items on Haseo. It worked pretty well.