Going in to Soma Union I was curious as to exactly how a sequel to Soma Spirits could really work, being as simple and straightforward as it was- especially as its simplicity was the root of a lot of its charm. Union attempts to take the framework of Spirits and deliver an experience that's bigger and better, but unfortunately ends up butting heads with the same simplicity and transforming it from a strength into a weakness.
Before I delve into sticking points, the positives: Union is, on the whole, much more polished than Spirits in pretty much every aspect. The art is somewhat more refined, the music is catchier and more memorable overall, and the UI has gotten an overhaul. If there's one element to Union that I can't argue with, its that it feels "higher budget" across the board. Unfortunately, outside of audiovisual aspects, the tune ups and additions fail to impress.
Perhaps the most major issue is that quite a lot of the game suffers from generally poor and flat pacing, owing to plenty of repetition in design, a lack of differentiation between characters, empty feeling level layouts, and the exceptional ease of the combat. There are indeed some interesting ideas here and there, but oftentimes they fall by the wayside or become overused and worn out without being iterated upon in a satisfying manner.
You're given a nice compliment of skills, but you'll quickly realize that there's little reason to use most of what you have. Spell and Attack spamming rule the day in Union, and deciding if an enemy needs to be hit with physical or magical attacks is essentially the deepest strategy you'll have to muster to find victory. With enemies that do little besides dole out minor damage and soak up 5-6 actions a piece no matter what they are, or which part of the game you're in, everything begins to blur together into a haze of smacking the Z key endlessly and wishing it was over.
Support/Active mode swapping returns from Spirits, but without being tied to the mirrored world concept and forced on the player as a central gimmick it quickly becomes little more than an extra button that needs to be pressed to access other skills. When paired with a 3 character party and the extremely easy battles it's very easy to go through long patches of game without even engaging with it, making it feel begrudgingly tacked on for little reason beyond "being a Soma game".
Level design feels very sluggish and repetitive as well, with little to differentiate between dungeons other than the local paint job applied to them. Dungeon gimmicks like jump pads and "collect the keys" rooms are reused multiple times over in nigh on the same fashion every time. Combining this with a chapter structure that follows the same basic level beats with two dungeons, boss gates, a minor villain, a story flashback, etc, smooths over the pacing and results in the entire game feeling stale rather quickly.
Narratively speaking, Union attempts to take the core of Spirits and provide more information about the world and characters, to kind of bring it up a level into a bespoke setting rather than just a cute little mechanical concept. A nice goal, and in some ways it does succeed- but in others, I think it once again falls victim to its own design.
It's a simple fact, I think, that any game with a cutesy, colourful, cartoonish aesthetic is going to have a higher hurdle to jump through in order to succeed at injecting drama into itself. It requires a much finer touch of characterization and story to make a person care about a smiley-faced blob in the same way we might imprint on a more anthropomorphic character.
The problem here is that the flavours of drama are so stock, so expected from the genre, that it becomes nigh-on impossible to take it seriously. Not only have you likely heard morals about teamwork and co-operation or character arcs revolving around discovering one's hidden purpose in life before, but now they're being filtered through Soma's happy-go-lucky aesthetic. Without a relatable face or a stimulating story, you're left floundering in the dark looking for something to latch on to.
While this would pose enough of a problem on its own, the remainder of the plot is only backed up by a somewhat sloppily-conceived string of events that ends up feeling like a rather circuitous way to have the same final boss from Spirits show up again. Instead of coming off as a satisfying expansion into a deeper lore, it feels somewhat contrived. Much of the B-Plot focusing on Bright feels devoid of cause and effect, only serving to reiterate known points from Spirits while offering flimsy hows-and-whys that don't really satisfy the potential curiosity a player might have about the character.
Lastly, the binary choice aspect in each chapter that shapes your ending returns from Spirits- however, this time, lacking the split world and stronger gimmick, things are left sort of so-so when it comes to decision points. Choosing between "Freedom" or "Destiny" often felt somewhat ancillary to the chapter and never quite as big of a deal as even the simple conundrums in Spirits did. You're not really led on to believe that there's a hidden "balance" going on or anything super impactful about what you choose, leading it to feel much like the role-swtiching: a bit of an orphaned mechanic, only here to contribute to a "Soma Brand" and not because it has much to give to the game.
Union, on the whole, suffers from a feeling of being a double edged sword giving you the worst of both worlds at every turn. Painfully easy gameplay might leave you hanging on the story, but the story then fails to deliver. Characters feel mechanically blurry and indistinct, but also barely make themselves known beyond the surface in the narrative. The game offers more runtime and content, but repeats itself so often and does so little to really utilize its additions that it feels like just 10 unneeded hours dragging along behind the original.
