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Gonna cover the numerous issues the english .hack//Link patch has. Specifically the final version 1.0.2. Now don't get me wrong this isn't a critique of the years an years of great hard work put into the patch! This here's to assist peeps in identifying situations in which the patch'll cause the game to crash/hardlock, an how to work around that so as to not lose playtime/progress. As always when it comes to rpgs, save often an have a backup save!
fwiw there are late/post-game spoilers here in the form of episode/character names. I hid 'em behind the lil click to view parts. I feel like even for first time players once you've gotten real far into the game, an especially the post-game, these things won't come as surprises to you. In fact you'll prolly have access to 'em before running into the problems they pose! I'm having 'em hidden for the sake of a non-spoilery glance over the problems this patch suffers.
5 Years Later... 2.00 followed shortly by 2.01 an then 2.02 dropped! Most of the things mentioned above and below have been fixed up quite nicely! The f-skit List and Items hardlocks are said to be all that remain outta all the things listed here. Not to mention translation fixes and many non-story related elements translated for the first time!
• Crashing & Hardlocking
For starters lets get into what these two things mean. Crashing is your PSP or PSP emulator straight up shutting down due to issues with the patch. For an emulator thats prolly not a huge deal, but your physical real-deal PSP? I'd think its not a good thing. An of course its not good for you, the player, enjoying the game!
Hardlocking is the controls for your PSP or PSP emulator becoming unresponsive. The background music will continue to play but you won't be able to move your cursor, scroll through menus, etc. You'll have to hold in your PSPs power button until it fully turns off, or in the case of emulator reset it / load a recent save state.
• Progress Blockers
They say the games story can be fully enjoyed in english with this patch but thats not 100% true. Due to issues this page is about I'd say its less than 100% though not by much. You will have direct story progress hindered by said issues. Which is why you're gonna wanna keep an unpatched copy of the game handy, cause ya will have to switch over to it in order to bypass various things.
• Crashes
During the last main episode of the fourth main arc you will have to speak with somebody at the Chaos Gate. Which is a pretty common thing throughout the game. However in this instance, head over to it but do not speak to the person!! Save your game, swap to an unpatched copy, load up your save and speak with the person, save again, and finally swap back to the translated version.
Post-game episode (click to view)
.hack//X'over 09 has almost the exact same issue as the one above, with the only difference being that simply clicking on the Chaos Gate will cause a crash. This time you should save right after entering the episode. At this point switch to an unpatched copy, click on the Chaos Gate, view or skip conversation, save, then swap back. You'll miss the opening conversation about Character X wanting to meet with Character Y, but should be able to fill in the blanks as you progress through the episode.
Post-game characters (click to view)
Trying to view the following three f-skits are going to cause a crash. Don't place these characters together in the rooms mentioned and then enter said room.
-> Among Thorns
Kite & Tri-Edge [Telepathy]
Midori & Tri-Edge [Lending and Borrowing]
-> Aina's Room
Cubia, Ovan, Tri-Edge & Flugel [A Gathering of Worthy Opponents]
• Hardlocks
Mail: Reading mail usually isn't the problem. Its exiting out the one you've just read that can cause trouble. Always save before checking your mail! Heck, save after each individual mail ya read. In some cases, after getting new mail, entering the mailer then backing out of it can "fix" a troublesome piece of mail. How/why this "fixes" them idk!
Another oddity is for "Request" mails. Never try to exit out of them with the text scrolled down to the generic "For more information, listen" bit of text nor the lines that follow it onscreen. Scroll back up until they're offscreen and then, hopefully, safely exit.
-> Subject: Thank you very much
-> Subject: Recently
-> Subject: Real Digitalization
Pressing Triangle to reply to these mails will without fail hardlock you. Ya know what comes next right? Revert to an unpatched copy, choose a reply & send it, save and go back to the patched game.
-> Subject: Increased
The trick of opening mail, closing it, and re-opening it may "debug" it. So before swapping copies I suggest giving it a try, and if it hardlocks you'll have been quitting out of the game to swap anyways!
Sort Friends (Partner Deployment): This sub-menu opens when pressing Triangle on the main sort menu. While safe to look at, absolutely do not proceed to assign PCs to a facility with this sub-menu open. For a long ways into the game this bug only affects the "Management Register" facility but by the endgame all facilities will eventually be affected.
Database: This has many issues. Some terms added simply by progressing through the game will cause hardlocks while scrolling up/down through sections 3/4/6/7. This doesn't happen for awhile provided ya skip a couple side story episodes which'll be noted below. But no matter what by the end of a 100% story completion those sections are gonna be hosed. Read what you can, while you can!
-> However even before 100% section 6 will become temporarily borked after the third episode of the second main arc.
-> After the seventh episode of the second main arc simply trying to open the database causes a hardlock. Much, much later, after episode two of the fourth main arc you can once again open it and catchup on many terms that had been added since way back when!
-> As with most menu issues present elsewhere, fast scrolling (holding down a dpad direction or using the L/R buttons) is not recommended. Try to slowly scroll through the list and be sure not to land on any of the entries below:
Database entries and episodes they're acquired from (click the view)
-> Section 3
Link 18 ~ "Ryuuji Sogabe" (the last thing in this section, so never scroll upwards from the top to the bottom)
-> Section 4
Roots 15 ~ "TaN"
-> Section 6
AI buster 01 ~ "Descendants of Fianna"
LotT 03 ~ "Cobalt Knights"
-> Section 7
Chup Chop Case 3 ~ "Macha"
f-skit List: After clearing a certain post-game story episode (noted below) simply scrolling through this menus pages causes hardlocks. Up until that point scrolling left/right through its even increasing page list wasn't a problem. Afterwards, trying to fast scroll past pg.18 will cause trouble.
Note that right from the start pressing Circle on any of the skit names is gonna bring about a hardlock. You can still view skits by placing the right PCs together in the right room as intended. You just aren't able to rewatch 'em. And remember as mentioned above, there are three which simply cannot be viewed and cause the system to crash.
Post-game episode (click to view)
The episode in question is .hack//G.U. Trilogy. When you clear it, among other new skits listed, "The Experts are Talking" shows up on pg.18. This seems to be where the scrolling problems begin.
Area Results: Pressing the Square button here will bring only the deepest of sadness cause all that hard work ya put in clearing the Area will be lost!! The first time opening this you'll be able to read the first two pages of results explanations but upon going to the third page its hardlock time! Bypassing this by clearing out the explanations via an unpatched copy will still leave you sad cause the proper results screens also bugs out! Oddly enough this isn't an issue in Link Play.
View Status: A Start menu option which lets ya see stats and abilities. If Tokio is solo there isn't an issue. However once partnered up and in an Area? If ya wanna try an view their stuff then do so right at the start of an Area (after having saved before entering it!) cause ya may get through each page if you're lucky. But definitely do not rapidly L/R between character status pages!
Items: Another Start menu option. Go ahead and view items and their descriptions. What you want to be wary of is when you're in an Area. Don't go pressing Circle to try an use an item from this menu. Sometimes it'll work but sometimes it'll hardlock, which can mean progress loss. The workaround here is assigning the item you wanna use to your Action Trigger and using it from there.
Options Menu: Pressing the Select button opens this menu. Have you noticed the three super expensive items in the EX Shop? Upon purchase, each one will be added to this menu. Problem is, if ya own all three then trying to access the Options menu while aboard the Grand Whale will cause a hardlock *if* the cursor is on the: Bridge, Akashic Monument, Serpent of Lore, Room Movement (Main Hall), Room Movement (Shopping Mall), Dressing Room, Gallery, Admin. Account, and Room Movement (noted below) icons. Oddly the EX Shop is exempt from this. As are PCs, and having the cursor placed over nothing (done with analog stick). I haven't run into issues while owning 0, 1, or 2 of them. Its when you have all of them that you're asking for trouble or slight inconvenience.
Late-game suite room (click to view)
Of the 13 total Suite Rooms, pressing Select while having all of three of those items will cause a hardlock only on the Room Movement selection in the Moon Tree @HOME suite. I've had no issue with the 12 other suites Room Movement. I gots no idea why that'd be, but take what you can get!
Link Play: This modes issues occur in its item shops.
-> Buy Items: in the Normal difficulty shop fast scrolling from the bottom of the list is a bad idea.
-> Buy Items: in the Hard difficulty shop pressing down or up onto the "Divine Med. of Resurrection" item hardlocks you.
-> Sell Items: in all 3 difficulties don't fast scroll through your item list.
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