Though I usually cover Naruto, I’ve been seeing quite a few references to the .hack//Enemy and .hack//G.U.The Card Battle collectible card games as of late. These two aren’t exactly among the easiest to find, however. In fact, despite the fact that I’m an avid reader of the .hack manga, I had no idea they existed.
Of course everyone knows that many anime series have collectible card game tie-ins. Bleach, Naruto, Pokemon and InuYasha can be found just about anywhere on the web. Even cards for use with the Bakugan Battle Brawlers series are relatively common. However, I hadn’t realized that there were any card games that went with the .hack series.
Having a look around, it didn’t seem that booster packs for the games were too expensive, though I haven’t seen too many show up on trading forums just yet. Nevertheless, I’ve been hearing quite a bit of chatter about the games. Ironically enough, .hack//Enemy wasn’t developed by the original creators of .hack. In fact, it wasn’t even developed in Japan. Apparently, Mike Reynolds and Chuck Kallenbach of Decipher developed it. Many of you will know Decipher Inc. for its Star Trek card games.
Perhaps the fact that .hack//Enemy was discontinued about five years ago has lead to it’s collectible nature. However, .hack//G.U.The Card Battle can perhaps attribute any popularity it has to the fact that it was actually developed as part of the regular .hack project. No outside service, like Decipher, was called in. The team that was behind .hack//G.U. was also behind this game, so it may have some closer ties to the actual series.
Regardless, collectors have been somewhat clamoring for them, and yet, I haven’t ever seen anyone play the game. What’s probably the most interesting aspect of it to me is that the game itself revolves around a game. The .hack continuity all exists inside a computer game, and a card game was developed around that model.
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