i too will suss out one sick outfit and then wear it nonstop for like a month so i don’t have to think
7 Likes
I’m about 8+ hours in and this is the only scene so far for me personally that made me think the game might have something to say. Hoping the plot weaves some more commentary like this into its themes.
2 Likes
i’m finding this pretty enjoyable. its nice to play a new megaten thats just 90 degree turn square corridor train tunnels dungeons. low expectations, simple pleasures
3 Likes
OK, I’ve finally turned on the game and am having a good time. It only took:
- getting all the party members so the basic-ass setup exposition would stop
- beating like 2(?) bosses so I can finally do super basic shit like swap demons in battle
After unlocking Requests and the Raidou/Nocturne-endgame looking Soul Plane thing, I’m having fun battling, following random story threads, and doing the party hang out events that unlock. The Requests really give a Raidou vibe, where Ringo (in battle when the characters shout her name, I keep hearing them call her Gringo) is detective-style following up on cases and diving deeper into the world of Devil Summoners and how demons affect normal people, or how shady the Devil Summoning life is like or whatever.
I also like how Ringo unlocks private discussions with the other characters after story events or side quests, and that their conversation topics are varied and more interesting than dumbass teen topics. Gives me a P2 Eternal Punishment vibe, where it’s just adults hanging out. Also all their Demon Summoner convos feel very Raidou/Soul Hackers/Devil Summoner-ish, which, I mean makes sense, but is pretty neat and unique to this series’s scenario. Also I love that they comment on recently completed side quests or story events and naturally bring up lore or personal details in their personal chats, unlike the really heavy handed way they would explain then parrot stuff back constantly in the beginning of the game.
The parts I’m disappointed by are:
- No Demon Conversation in Battle? That hasn’t been seen since DDS/P3/P4! It still kinda exists ingame, but it’s instead relegated to encounters on the field that your Stock Demons may generate (but usually don’t). It does feel kinda Raidou-ish in that way though, having to use your Demons on the field like that. The RNG for it totally sucks though and I assume there’s probably a skill you can get that raises it which is
but whatever - the Demon fusion cutscene or complete lack thereof. What the hell? Why is it a powerpoint slide with a red curtain and stock-ass confetti? This is a highlight of SMT games, why didn’t they go crazy and have demons flying off trapezes and then slam into each other as Victor sings a musical number or something stupid flashy?? I’m soooooo disappointed, it feels so cheap. I would’ve preferred they made a cool cutscene for this instead of the stupid Stock Explosion cutscene I skip after every turn in battle
- no Press Turn or equivalent system makes battles really boring. For hitting enemy weaknesses, you get 1 Stock, which is just additional damage you deal after everyone in your party’s turn is over, which is fine but basic. But more importantly, there’s no penalty for attacking the enemy with the wrong element/attack type and likewise, there’s no problem getting hit by your character’s weakness except just a bit more damage. It’s so boring. There’s no risk/reward
- at the point I’m at, in battle you can only swap an equipped Demon once for the entire party’s turn. I’m sure this’ll change later but it’s pretty boring
- the music is super boring. Having the DLC lets you randomize the battle BGM to swap with classic games, which is a nice touch, but it just makes me think, “wow the older games have so much better battle music.” Like I couldn’t tell you what the battle or boss music sounds like at all if you asked me, despite having played like 8 hours so far. If they were in a Heardle, I would fail every time. Meanwhile, Devil Summoner/Soul Hackers/Raidou/SMT I-V music I could easily identify and bop to. It’s pretty disappointing so far.
- I don’t like how the sound is mixed so that the character voices are the loudest, and changing the volume ingame so the BGM is louder just makes it sound like everyone is at a party trying to shout over the music, just sounds awful. But the battle music is boring anyway, so maybe it’s fine to just hear the party members shout Gringo instead.
- super disappointed Figure turned into a P3-5-style navigator that shouts whenever an Enemy is on the field, complete with a stupid animal mascot body she takes on. Why did they do this, the series doesn’t need this. Wish there was an option to turn this off, shut up Fig
So in conclusion, I’m having fun but so far the battles are a huge step back compared to previous games. The most fun battles are the optional ones that give strict conditions, like “X Character is unusable, no items, no demon switching, Final Destination only” because they require a bit more strategy and setup before engaging.
7 Likes
Like seriously, what is this weak Demon Fusion animation:
What do they think this is, a DS game? For comparison, this is what Devil Survivor’s Demon Fusion looked like:
Meanwhile, in the last Devil Summoner game, Raidou 2’s baller demon fusion looked like:
Here’s Soul Hackers 3DS’s Portable Fusion animation:
And when you fuse a Zoma:
2 Likes
Beat the game with best ending, which was a lot easier to get than I heard in about 50 hours on normal with some easy.
I loved it! The best “modern” megaten game of the 3D era (sans nocturne which is aiming for something else). I’m glad someone else mentioned this with Eternal Punishment because this is very much a companion piece to the original which eschews looking at how the past affects the future like IS did and is solely concerned on the mistakes of the present. Within HOURS your entire cast of dysfunctional ADULTS is established, Gen Z Drip and all, and establishes a hangout game that Persona >=3 teases but never commits to, like you hang out in a BAR in this one while each of the five central characters gets equal but considerable thematic depth like Maya, Ulala, Baoto, Jun and Tatsuya were.
This even extends to the gameplay design which trades weight for friction, every battle feels smooth and snappy in ways only the original SH pulled off, I loved going into fights and seeing autoplay mimic your characters literally fast forwarding the fight and the original victory theme is consistently a nice touch. This is like a split if Persona 3 Portable became the go to game over FES, where the new stack system encourages you to get through battles as quickly as possible and continue the pace up rather than being drawn into shallow tactical decisions that wear off their welcome in the modern entries around half way through, even by the end
The game does feel cheap but it was nice that they leaned into it especially in the matrix areas where the further you go the more fractured the level design becomes leaning into endless screens of teleportation fields as each of the three gets the main story recontextualised as far as the player would like. Also the non matrix dungeon design also manages to squeeze a lot out of nothing which was nice going from the original SH’s bland warehouses and TMS’s empty labyrinths with the recon system feeding into another degree of player control.
Biggest complaint bolded, underlined and italicised is the BIZZARE decision to have a button prompt asking if you want to close a tutorial screen that’s somehow can’t be turned off. A more smarter person than myself would say this is the team’s middle finger to the evolution of 3 FES → 4 Golden → 5 Royal’s UI but aside from the VERY vita vibes the entire game gives off that’s a boundary that feels very 9th gen. Also I haven’t done new game plus yet but a Dragon Quarter approach to storytelling would work very well here as the narrative is flexible enough that you could fit in at least 10-15 hours worth of development on a second go through and no-one would mind. TMS wasn’t great but I liked some of the ideas presented but this makes that game seem even hollower now that they’re successfully iterated on. Also the game looks gorgeous with a mixed palette compared to the solids or darker hues Megaten usually goes for and I liked going through the game just to see what they’d come up with next over the original’s collection of warehouses and power plants.
6 Likes
one thing i appreciate is that i can finally use the elemental “hit all” spells without the fear of a single resistant mob causing that to end my turn. tbh i’m glad to see them try something a little different than the same press turn “hit only weaknesses or you’re wasting your time” system they’ve been using since nocturne. weakness focus is still there, it’s just not the end all be all as much as it used to be.
Yeah, I could see that - the changes were made to streamline battles more and make it more approachable to new players?
Thinking about it now, the original Soul Hackers battles were pretty dang fast. Picking commands for the entire team and knowing who’ll move first by your knowledge of their speed (I think that’s how it worked?) and then seeing it all playout like a football play was super fast. I remember going from Soul Hackers to SMT IV and back and being surprised at how slow it was to choose individual character inputs instead of just commanding a whole squad at once. Almost felt like a chore to micromanage everyone.
In the end, it’s just a different playstyle though.
I do wish that Soul Hackers 2 would’ve learned from Nocturne/DDS on how to cut closer to the action in their battle animations. Literally nobody needs to see a lavish startup or recovery of an attack; just get to the hit then cut to the next character. Like each time Milady does an attack, nobody needs to see her mocap flip backwards and then floatily land in her original spot - just cut it the second she gets to the apex of her backflip and it’s fine, we’re done, let’s move on. Even SMTV had slow lavish battle animations but they at least let you skip it entirely + keeping the option of Auto Battle’s speedup. (SH2’s Auto Battle speedup bugs me too because it speeds up the battle animation but still plays character VO but not the impact sounds, so it’s just the floppiest feeling VO talking over each other mess.)
Being forced to watch battle animations just makes me think it’s the developer’s hubris and they’re telling you to look at all their hard work, isn’t it great? No, you had a solution figured out 2 decades ago where the timing was perfect already. Also for the lavish Stack attack animation that takes forever and I imagine most players skip after their first watch, when the developer need to add a Skip button to an animation, that means the dev could’ve just made the attack snappier and faster to begin with instead of giving up and giving the player an option to skip.
Speaking of battle, there’s a lot of attacks where the VFX animations or player animations are a little weak and could’ve used tweaking to really sell. Like the one physical attack that looks like an animal bite that drains enemy HP - why isn’t there a hit sound when the bite VFX hits the enemy? It’s just silent when the bite snaps, then it just plays a drain noise? And shake the screen please or have a hitstop on the bite! The original Soul Hackers did a way better job with their VFX, screen shake, and SFX. Hell, the first Pokemon has the same kind of attack and they nail it better lol
Anyway, these are my annoyed observations at how animations have devolved since the PS2 era. I’m sure everyone experienced who was doing them back in the day have moved on to different positions or other games so the people doing it now don’t know how to do it in a way that feels as good as the past/they didn’t bother to study the previous generation’s knowledge. 
7 Likes
tbf bosses in nocturne basically never have weaknesses—it feels like an smt iv and on thing to me
I think it’s an early game to have bosses have elemental weaknesses to give players an easier time getting into it? Pretty sure they don’t have weaknesses later on. At least I’m pretty sure IV and Apocalypse didn’t 
Actually, maybe SMT V did? Shoot, it’s been a while so now I forget. I remember Lucifer did have Weaknesses but only in specific rotating forms, which was similar to DDS’s final bosses.
Lucifer had a weakness but idk if I’d call Pierce+Freikugel an element.
yeah… i couldnt rlly stand smt iv past a certain point but i think i played to the route split and thats how it was to then.
im listening to the soul hackers 2 soundtrack and veins are popping out of my forehead and i’m crying.
if they’re not going to have kaneko anymore someone has to go send a Cool Guy to teach everyone at atlus about things that are cool. where is the techno? chaos, law, computer demons, techno. i think this makes a world of sense
8 Likes
Oh, I meant SMTV Lucifer. His boss pattern was that after his first form, he’d change colors and elemental weaknesses/strengths.
Which is kinda hilariously pointless in SMTV because there’s a super affordable item that let’s you identify all enemy weaknesses, including bosses.
1 Like
so i finally picked this up a couple weeks ago because it went on sale for about $29, which seemed, to me, to be the correct price.
off the bat, i will say i think this is a better game than Tokyo Mirage Sessions, though that is probably obvious, by now. the game makes me think of what it felt like playing Digital Devil Saga 1&2, or at least the memory of how those felt. not exactly a major wave in the ocean of SMT, but enjoyable and memorable in its own right.
i think the changes to the battle system are interesting, but having just come off of Persona 5, it’s immediately obvious how much-less snappy everything is, how more of the game’s seams come through. it feels like a step backward, but maybe not in a way that matters or is bad. to be fair, i was actually kind of shocked that they’d made any changes to the Press-Turn System, at all.
i like the characters more than i thought i would, and Ringo, especially. i mean i think i’d want to hang out with most of them, even the kind of annoying ones.
that said, if i never have to hear 「あぶない！」again while wandering through a dungeon, it will be too soon.
getting the Nier-people to make the soundtrack was an interesting choice and i wonder why they did that. that said, some of the music really hits and other music just sort of blends into nothingness. but yeah, i’ll be damned if people having internal revelations about their inner-most selves while echoey bells toll in the background of a digital-yet-physical world doesn’t hit me each time.
also excited by the fact that this is kind of a short one.
the more i play it, the more the name Soul Hackers seems to fit, though calling it “2” is some very old-world videogames stuff, imo.
4 Likes
Nice! $30 is a pretty good price for SH2!
I forgot to mention my thoughts on the game after finishing it a while back: it’s pretty mid. The characters and their interactions are really endearing and there’s a few good twists but there’s nothing that really makes it that memorable in my mind, especially compared to previous games in the series, even the lower budget games like the Raidou ones.
Maybe if the music was better, I’d like it more? I dunno, it was a fine game but it wasn’t memorable. It’s a serviceable game? A pretty 7/10???
There’s lots that the game did well like the character portraits, the VFX, the new 3d character models. The parts I enjoyed the most were the hang out scenes between the characters or the dialogue you get when unlocking new powers. The rest of the plot was kinda eh and the world wasn’t that interesting overall? Like I appreciate the effort they spent, but the world isn’t as interesting compared to other Megaten games. It’s neat to see the modern-future evolution of the Devil Summoner universe, but it’s neither as interesting as the past-future of Soul Hackers 1 or the past-past of Raidou or the classic Megaten occult modern day of Devil Summoner 1. Maybe I would’ve liked it more if it had way, way more occult things in it? I dunno.
It’s just overall pretty forgettable to me compared to other titles. Maybe my thoughts will change when I look back on it later, but that’s how I feel a month or two after I finished.
3 Likes
Yea, my thoughts as well on this one. I almost kinda forgot I beat it a couple months ago. My expectation for the game was that it would function as a passable appetizer for the next persona thing, but I was surprised at just how slight the experience was overall, even with my minimal expectations.
1 Like