desktop [Desktop] (.hack//Infection [2002])

[Will insert description here later; my apologies for not being able to finish this list in time without cutting corners a little]

(Length before loop: 1+ minutes)

LieN - Gentle Hands (.hack//G.U. Vol. 1//Rebirth [2006])

I know I won’t be able to play this game for a good few months at least, but hearing this song after originally hearing its shorter version in Project X Zone 2 impressed me even more than Stairs of Time from 19 days ago, which had just about the same personal history of discovery too!

Since I’m planning to play G.U. after the original saga, wanting to take in its story and other aspects, I don’t want to waste your time with an incomplete description that’d do the music a disservice. Instead, you should simply know that this is one of the most emotional themes I’ve ever heard in a video game, and I look forward to finding the respective context on my own!

(Length: 4+ minutes)

LieN - Stairs of Time (.hack//Link [2010])

During my research on franchises featured in Project X Zone, two IPs in particular caught my interest:

.Hack//, and Little Tail Bronx, the former IP being because of a different version of this song I 1st heard when I played the Demo A of Project X Zone in the mid-2010s (Remember when the 3DS EShop still accepted purchases? Yeah, its only been a month, yet feels like a memory of a forgotten past). With it being featured here, you can already tell that even the watered down “Stairs of Time” I heard back then was impressive enough to grab my attention!

I’ve featured the latter IP before, via Little Tail Story’s “To the Other Side of Light” song 79 days ago, but didn’t elaborate on it, because the Twitter character limit was a thing back when I had an account there. I’ll get to that later, but if you browse my Cohost, you’ll already know part of why I love Little Tail Bronx. Reason I bring all this up, is because of my plan to play and watch the .Hack// multimedia franchise in full someday, with prior knowledge of what shared company CyberConnect2 is capable of when they’re at their best.

At the core of this phenomenal song are an impactful Piano and well-placed Bells for the relaxed portions, with the rest held tightly together by sick Guitar melodies and epic singing from Tomoyo Mitani, the vocalist half of CyberConnect2’s regular music duo LieN, with Chikayo Fukuda putting in her own effort as the composer half.

LieN are also responsible for the aforementioned “To the Other Side of Light” song, where their common choices for String instruments can also be heard. Ending it off is a Piano roll with tons of reverb, to make it sound all mystical, I love it when music pieces do that! Even without knowledge of the franchise yet, you might get emotionally attached to this track like I did, it’s really that powerful!

Perhaps when my experience with the .Hack// franchise truly begins, I’ll also have more cool things to say about the song itself. I’ve given a special spot to this track for this very day, marking a moment to go back to and expand upon, for when I’ve finally shaped my own history with .Hack//

(Length: 4+ minutes)