Soul Hackers 2

A boring game with a boring storie

I can easily recommend this game: it is a classic Japanese Role-Playing Game (jrpg) with turn-based combat, sets in a beautiful neo-noir sci-fi world. there isn't a dating/life simulation aspect like in the Persona games, but for me it is a positive thing. I'm enjoying it much.

A dungeon crawling JRPG that sees you take control of Ringo and her party of devil summoners as they set off to prevent the end of the world. It's part of the megami tensei series so those familiar probably know what to expect gameplay wise to some degree. It has more of a focus on your party members, learning more about them as you watch them clash with and confide in each other, and I was really fond of the party and this aspect as a whole. I'm also really fond of the designs of both the world (outside the dungeons) and characters. I still feel like the game could've expanded on NPCs outside the antagonists and the world itself. Most sidequests aren't that interesting to tackle and aren't good for much more than character tidbits but the writing can feel shallow, and there's not much for the few characters with a proper name and design like the shopkeepers. Some plot elements are also a bit questionable but not overwhelmingly so. This is a megami tensei game and that means you'll be recruiting, fusing and summoning demons to use in battle. Well, you won't exactly be summoning them, this game uses a system akin to Persona games before 3, with each member being able to "equip" a demon and use its abilities, take on its strengths and weakness and have their stats boosted. There's no restriction to what demon each of them can use, but each party member can only equip certain tiers of enhancement items and choosing demons with skills that benefit from those items is ideal. The demon roster is decent, it's mostly nice to see some of these in full 3D, lots of cool designs as usual. As you can expect in battle you'll need to carefully consider your party's composition and the enemy populations of whatever dungeon you're going through to make it through in one piece. Mostly you just want demons that can hit their weaknesses hard, and as always the fusion system gives you an interesting way to make the most powerful demons you can. Unfortunately the actual dungeon crawling part of this experience is also its weakest. To start with outside of the final dungeon the visual variety is very lacking and they aren't very interesting. You've got shipping yards, subways, an office building and... that's it. Well, there's also the (mostly) optional Soul Matrix, but it's the biggest in the game and all of it has the same cubey cyberspace look. Most of it doesn't feel like it reflects the game's flashy, futuristic cyberpunk style, they could be in any modern game really. In terms of how they're laid out they also aren't that interesting to navigate, kind of feeling at the same time simplistic and tedious to get through, even worse when they're involved in side quests. For the Soul Matrix specifically, the issues start with how it's explained: in-universe it's 3 dungeons that represent the connection Ringo has with each of her teammates, built from their memories. That sounds like a pretty cool concept with lots of room for interesting theming inside the dungeons themselves. In reality though, all 5 floors of all 3 of these dungeons look the same, the only difference being you'll see events for their respective characters in the appropriate place. They also aren't that much more interesting to explore and the sidequests for these are the same 3 kinds for each floor for each dungeon. Defeat some number of a specific enemy, that can be annoying when it just won't show up (at least enemy groups containing it are marked), collect a specific item from around the floor, and fight a powerful gimmick enemy with some restrictions (which can be an interesting challenge at least). They are all optional but a few of the item collecting ones at least you will need to unlock fusion for each Mitama, something you'll want if you plan to take full advantage of the fusion mechanics. Exploring the soul matrix is also how you enhance each character's passive abilities. Another thing I'm not too fond of is the demon recon system. Supposedly you send your demons out to scout and find useful items and information for you, but in the end it's just a way to reframe finding an item in a chest which I'd honestly prefer over this, it's not like your demons have that many personalities or things to say. It's also part of the much simpler replacement to demon negotiations, and you also just can't speak to demons mid random encounters anymore. Some other miscellaneous gripes: The Sabbath system looks very cool, but the (skippable) animation is overkill for something that'll be playing constantly because it's really easy to trigger, generally just strike an enemy's weakness, and doesn't feel like it adds any strategic depth. Characters are way too chatty in battle, having a line even for every menu option you hover over. The enemy warning system is pointless and sometimes annoying. The soundtrack feels too limited. Attack effects and animations in battle feel lackluster. Risky enemies are your best source of XP and money but it still doesn't compare to how much of a chore they are to fight. Autobattling or fast forwarding in battles still feel too slow. I wish I had a much longer lasting version of Estoma or a way to autokill weak mobs... Overall it's kind of hard to recommend so I suppose I won't, there might not be many people, interested in MegaTen or not, that could overlook its significant shortcomings for the parts that are good.

A really cool Atlus game with its qualities and its flaws. The game's character design is really cool, characters have cyberpunk-styled outfits with many colours. Gameplay is a solid turn-based JRPG as Atlus' habits with the famous demons/personae/shadows we know so well. The world has its own futuristic post-apo punk atmosphere with dark themes such as death, cults, end of the world and robots/demons taking over humans theme/lore. I like these characters, they learn to understand each other, and we also learn to like them during the adventure. The only major flaw is that the level-design is really crap-tier, it is pretty simple : full labyrinths, made me close to crazy sometimes. When you had this to many side quests where you have to go back to the previous places with random quest locations on it, I thanked a lot soluces websites :3 I can add that some dialogues that I've passed through quickly because some of them are just random things such as "What did you eat yesterday ?", "What's your take on this specific subject in every-life ?", it adds more links to the characters but it felt too much and too basic for me. I would've loved to platine this game but you have to go through a NG+ for like 3 of the 47 achievements, and I hate NG+, especially when I've just finished the game :v You should give it a try if you're not labyrinth-phobic hehe, that's a cool game, I'd love to see more of this universe with a better level-design ;)

Putting aside day one dlc which Sega and Atlus loves to do nowadays. The Game gets really boring, I like that Atlus is trying to bring back the spin offs of Megaten, but this is not the way to do it. The Combat feels as if it needed a little bit more to have that amazing flare Megaten uses to have, but the way it is in game, gets repetitive really fast. The Dungeons are really boring, the mapping feel like a mess, the gimmicks they tried to do make them more boring and slow to explore, and the settings and visuals are uninteresting. The only aspect I found was kind of good, was the story, that it has interesting undertones that do speak about modern issues. But it isn't that good, since the characters are kinda bland and is the classical, let's save the world story. Not worthy, for a couple more you can get SMT V which is a better Megaten game. If the budget is a constraint, I recommend Persona depending on the regional prices. You can also get SMT III if you hate yourself.

the only atlus game on steam wherein you do not have to sit through a dialogue about how hot teenagers are in the first 3 hours is also the lowest rated via user review

I've read the other reviews. you weak ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wouldn't even come close to compare any dungeon in this to what amounts to boring or repetitive in older adventure RPGs. the sound team poured their heart and soul in, even compared to other megatens. the characters are exciting and worth being invested in. this is(one of)the only Atlus titles that lets you use almighty as a meta strat. The story is ambitious enough to warrant a sequel. The fusions gave me plenty of hours of experimenting. STATUS EFFECTS ARE GOOD. support the devs who didnt have time to finish this game

I love Shin Megami Tensei games, but this is the weakest release the series has had in years. It looks cool, but the characters and story are lacking, the gameplay is lackluster relative to other titles in the series, and the dungeon design is completely phoned in. This isn't awful, but this series has come out with much better products than this in its past.

请不要冲动购买，原价虚高即使打折也很贵。世嘉的几款JRPG里算是烂的、迷宫做的一塌糊涂90%相似的场景走一遍就腻。城镇地图也非常简陋跑完全部地图只需几分钟。打怪毫无乐趣。动作设计，战斗演出非常敷衍。所以根本不像是近几年出的新作！玩几小时就想删了。