Just finished rewatching .hack//SIGN, and I'm struck by the ways in which it is both quaintly dated and eerily prescient. After all, it is undeniably strange to hear people in a virtual reality talk about buying a physical copy of the game, communicating primarily by email, and checking a BBS.
But that's not the part that interests me most.
The show was panned at the time for featuring very little action, despite ostensibly taking place in an RPG; episodes consist almost entirely of characters talking to one another and sorting out their own interpersonal drama. No exaggeration, I can count the number of battle sequences in the entire 25-episode anime on one hand.
The show is, in effect, about a bunch of people sitting at their computers and hanging out with friends while wearing silly outfits--a vision of the VR future that doesn't match up well with the shows that would come after it. Anime like Sword Art Online and the numerous works that draw inspiration from it imagine a VR world where we're all actively engaged in combat, embarking on some grand quest, or enjoying the novelty of inhabiting impossible spaces.
And yet, the year is now 2023, and I couldn't name you a single VR game that has lived up to the fictional hype. There are tons of VR games that are good and enjoyable, but none deliver on the promise of some grand globe-spanning adventure.
In fact, when I hear about VR, it's usually in the context of people using VRChat--a program designed to enable people to sit at their computers and hang out with friends while wearing silly outfits.
Go figure.