Soul Hackers 2 Reviews

For the 5 hours that i have played this game, it was 4 hours of me going to take a nap because of how boring it was.

100% the game (atlus can you now give me Digital Devil Saga 1&2 remasters/remakes)

its a spin off. So if you need to get that persona or shin megami tensei fix. it will hold ya over for a bit.

It is SMT. If you... urr, I am drunk. If you SMT, then this game is good. I am drunk. Music is good. Gameplay is... okay, but it is SMT and I am drunk. So I am drunk and I suddenly feel that a giant green (though proportionally small) p*nis is a thing, because SMT. So all in all, play this game if you SMT. It is SMT.

Not as good as the original (one of the best SMT games), but still a really good game and lots of fun. Price should really be about half what it currently is, but I got it on sale so can't really complain. The tone and setting are completely different from the original, being more ultramodern than the (peak) 90s cyberpunk vibes the original had - I don't really mind this, since I saw it more as reflecting the real world at the times the games were made (Original was 1997 and this one is 2022), but it feels undercooked in this game as there's barely any worldbuilding compared to how much focus Amami City had in the original, and the 'other world' was similarly underdeveloped; the axis/soul matrix is just 'some other realm' whereas Paradigm X in the original was heavily interwoven with the story and atmosphere of the original. Where it being a budget game is most obvious are in the dungeons. The game only has 7 main dungeons; two are shipping areas at the docks, two are subway tunnels, one is a series of two connected towers (it's not as interesting as it sounds), one is the previously mentioned soul matrix and the final dungeon is this strange ocean floor type thing - the latter 2 being the only interesting dungeons in the game. It's not so much that you're just running through hallways for most of the game, it's that the dungeons aren't terrible creative either. The first game may have had basic dungeon design but it was at least creative with the type of "dungeons" you could find in a city; you went through an auto plant, an airport and an astronomy museum just to name a few, and they were alongside the more supernatural dungeons you went through in Paradigm X. That being said, the game looks and plays great for a budget game, and I was really surprised by how much I liked the COMP upgrading system, genuinely one of the most enjoyable upgrading systems I've ever seen in a game even if it is just menus. I was literally running back to the shop after every dungeon visit just to see if I could upgrade anything. Ringo was also a great protagonist and hopefully serves as a reminder that a silent protagonist isn't always the way to go for an SMT game.

Soul Hackers 2 is considerably easier to play than Persona 5 from a technical perspective, which is the only other Atlus title I have personally experienced. It has good moments, it has cringe-worthy moments. You spend far too much time in a pointless world of digital cubes called the Soul Matrix to unlock your companion's abilities - akin to having to spend all your time in Mementos in P5. Largely the main areas aren't all that complicated either, returning to them for side quests doesn't make them more interesting, but at least they have a graphical environment and more concrete story purpose. In Soul Hackers you have only three companions and their stories to follow. You can freely assign demons to each of them as you wish. You don't have to worry about leaving a party member out. You don't have to worry about making the most out of every action on each day, and doing it all in the right order to get your relationships and stats. It is clean of that management panic, you are free to continue the dungeons as you please: and yet I suspect many would say Soul Hackers lacks whatever magic quality it is that draws them to Persona. Overall Soul Hackers 2 is.. fine? At least you don't have to worry about suddenly dating your teacher or anything silly either.