Soul Hackers 2 review

Soul Hackers 2 lacks the rich storylines of Persona and some of the sophistication of the mainline Megami Tensei franchise. Instead, the fifth Devil Summoner entry demonstrates a shift toward accessibility. That’s great for newcomers, but MegaTen devotees might feel a pang of disappointment when they see the simplifications.

Most fiction envisions artificial intelligence becoming sentient and promptly killing off humanity. In Soul Hackers 2, AI known as Aion predicts a doomsday scenario and intervenes to prevent a catastrophe from occurring. One of the first missions for metaphysical agents Ringo and her partner Figue are to protect humans who undoubtedly play a pivotal role in Aion’s projections. Clad in clothing that reveals a kinetic mosaic composed of neon colors, the pair emerge in a near-future cityscape.

But the individuals in need of security are dead by the time the duo arrives. As such, Ringo is left with no other option but to ‘soul hack’ them, resurrecting the team of human Devil Summoners. Much like the relationship between a Trainer and their Pokémon, Summoners capture and subsequently summon demons when in battle. While comparisons with Game Freak’s prolific property are inevitable, the Devil Summoner series has traditionally held a more cynical worldview.

1997’s Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers prophesied the dominance and ethical failings of real-world tech giants. But a quarter century later, Soul Hackers 2 is less concerned with real-life reflection. Like a multitude of games, films, and comics, there’s a requisite villain who needs to amass five collectibles known as Covenants to complete their power-grab. While there are a few minor surprises, many of the plot points in Soul Hackers 2 can be anticipated. Similarly, some of the main characters just aren’t that engaging. While Ringo’s pursuit of understanding human behavior could have made her a compelling character, her dialog doesn’t often convey a sense of curiosity. She relies on quips too frequently, to endow Soul Hackers 2 with a sense of imminent peril. At least, she’s not the typical silent franchise protagonist.

Dungeons can Feel Soulless at First

Three devil summoners will become part of your party and naturally, offer a bit of backstory. Some of this takes place in multi-floored labyrinths called the soul matrix, which are representations of your companions’ minds. While it’s rewarding to earn new abilities and glean a bit more insight into the motivations of summoners Arrow, Saizo, and Milady, these allegorical spaces lack visual distinction and can feel far too linear. Eventually, these semi-optional areas grow in sophistication but expect the first 10-15 hours to be rather uninteresting.

Given that Soul Hackers 2’s cast are adults rather than teens, exposition also takes place when Ringo hangs out with the crew at a bar. Here, the conversations can raise soul levels, permitting players to plumb deeper into each party member’s soul matrix. It’s a capable metaphor for building bonds. But in execution, getting to know your companions lacks the depth of Persona’s Social Links system. Like much of the game, it feels streamlined, as if directors Eiji Ishida and Mitsuru Hirata wanted to trim any possible instance of excess. The result is an experience that can sporadically seem sterile.

A Rather Slow Simmer

Like the soul matrixes, Soul Hackers 2’s dungeons aren’t all that interesting, especially at first. You’ll scour shipping yards and offices, that flaunt visual detail but don’t offer many of the interactive puzzles or gimmicks that tend to make exploration truly memorable experiences. That eventually changes once you survey an abandoned subway station. This region demonstrates the game’s components finally realizing their potential, but you’ll wonder why the game chooses to delay gratification for 12-15 hours.

One interesting mechanic in dungeons is called Demon Recon. Here, your demon crew will randomly reconnoiter a map and you’ll find them placed in different alcoves. Interact with them and they might give you an item, some money, heal your party, or extend an opportunity to recruit another demon.

The offer makes enlistment far easier, but it eradicates much of the capriciousness temperaments of demons. Throughout most of the Devil Summoner games, you had to haggle, bride, and get to know the dispositions of different demon types. And occasionally, they’d be swindlers, screwing you over after asking for a succession of payments. But here, demons behave like typically role-playing NPCs, confiscating much of the fun and also a bit of frustration.

Attack ‘Em and Stack ‘Em

Combat offers a departure from MegaTen’s Press Turn and Persona’s One More system. However, instead of trying to gain an extra turn, the goal is to increase your Stack by exploiting enemy resistances or weaknesses. When you’re successful, this adds to the counter, ideally resulting in a Sabbath at the end of your turn. If this occurs a stack of demons will assault foes, supplementing your damage output. There’s not a lot of strategic sophistication to the mechanic, but it does feel casually satisfying since enemies don’t have the same ability.

This time out, you won’t directly summon demons in battle. Instead, each of your four party members can equip a demon, who provides access to the skills you use during the turn-based battles. Soul Hackers 2 isn’t as difficult as its predecessor. Normal presents a fair challenge, easy is ideal for newcomers, while those looking for more challenge will want to tackle the hard or even very hard mode (which is provided via free DLC at launch).

Conclusion

For Steam Deck owners, Soul Hackers 2 offers a wonderfully stable 60 fps delivery. Traditionally, a role-playing game that exhibited this much visual detail was confined to home consoles. Despite the extravagant show offered by Ringo and Figure, the game had no performance issues on older GPUs like a GTX 1060. When it comes to vocal performances, the original Japanese track is the way to go. Atlus’ normally solid dubs sporadically emphasized peculiar parts of the dialog.

Soul Hackers 2 is noticeably streamlined as if the developers heeded some of the concerns about role-playing padding and feature bloat. So, if you’re looking for an adventure that won’t overwhelm you with difficulty or absorbing a lot of different mechanics, this might be a welcome alternative to massive, 80-hour epics. But if you’re hoping for something that captures the complexity and cynicism of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, Soul Hackers 2 might feel a bit too pedestrian.

Soul Hackers 2 was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.