Tail Concerto

Tail Concerto is a 3D action-adventure platformer game by CyberConnect2. It is their first video game and has several references in the .hack games.

Setting
The game is set in the fictional land of Prairie, a land consisting of numerous floating islands and populated by roughly 50,000 Dog-People and 2,000 Cat-People. Navigational instruments do not work outside Prairie, making it an isolated land.

Plot
The game revolves around police officer Waffle, who is assigned (during his day off) to arrest a gang of troublemakers known as the Black Cats Gang when they attack Resaca Harbor. Waffle soon learns that the leader of the gang is his childhood friend Alicia, who is after the five crystals of Prairie. Waffle must fix the problems the gang causes and hopes to convince Alicia to stop.

References in .hack
The .hack//Games make several references to Tail Concerto.

News Ads
In Infection, the news section of the ALTIMIT OS has a banner ad for Tail Concerto near the top of the browser. In Mutation the ad is for Tail Concerto 2 (though the project has since been abandoned by CC2... for now)

NPC cameos
In .hack, there are NPCs named after characters in Tail Concerto; namely, Alicia, Stare, Flare, Waffle, Teria, Cyan, Fool, and Panta.

BGM 37
Background Music 37 for the ALTIMIT Desktop is "Cyan," which is a rearranged medley of Cyan and Princess Terria's themes.



Summoning Cameo
When a Twin Blade equips all pieces of Cats Equipment, the Meeeow! summon is enabled. The summon spell summons a giant Kitten and three drillbots that explode upon impact. The drillbots come from the second boss battle of Tail Concerto. The Kitten is, of course, a standard member of the Black Cats Gang.

The Iron Giant and Cubia
The final battle with the Iron Giant in Tail Concerto parallels the final battle against Cubia. After Waffle supposedly defeats the Iron Giant, it resurrects itself to full power by using the power of the crystals. After Waffle takes the blue crystal, the Iron Giant collapses. In the battle against Cubia, once Cubia's HP drops to 0, it restores its HP completely, but Cubia dies instantly when Kite's bracelet is destroyed.



Love Triangle reference
Alicia and Princess Terria both fight over Waffle, neither one actually telling him how they feel. In .hack//Quarantine there is a bonus dungeon in which Terajima Ryoko and BlackRose both invite Kite to the same dungeon and are shocked to find each the other in the same party. They argue with each other and eventually leave Kite at the end of the dungeon. In this scenario, Terajima Ryoko is like Princess Terria, since they are both wealthy girls in fancy dress and have similar names, and BlackRose is like Alicia as both are fairly rude, tanned, have known the main character longer, and also have fairly similar names (BlackRose's real name is Akira).