I should start this review by noting that Soul Hackers 2 is not a particularly good game, and the pricing and DLC border on corporate thuggery. I also rather enjoyed playing it and found it strangely comforting as I wound my way towards 100% completion. Allow me to try and explain this apparent dichotomy while my aging brain continues to unravel.
This is yet another entry in the stalwart Shin Megami Tensei franchise. I mean, I think it is? SMT is its OWN franchise, but it also has a zillion spinoffs, and some use the SMT umbrella name and some don't and it's all very confusing. (This is the second Soul Hackers game but the fifth Devil Summoner title... see what I mean?) But you know SMT when you see it... wielding demons, Agi spells, Jack Frost saying "hee-ho!" and so on. Anyhow, the original Soul Hackers debuted back in 1997, over in Japan. It wouldn't be localized to America until 2012, when it was ported to the plucky 3DS. Both that port and this 25 years late sequel seem like odd business decisions, but a certain SMT spin-off series called Persona has become very big business indeed for Atlus, and has led to increased interest in the SMT brand as a whole. And so Persona shall drag all of its siblings kicking and screaming into the West, ready to get their big break.
I enjoyed the 3DS version of Soul Hackers well enough, but was still surprised to see this sequel announced 25 years late to the party. It centers around our protagonist Ringo, a plucky artificial gal created for the noble purpose of doing JRPG things like fighting monsters, talking to party members and solving side quests. She was also created to wear heels and snug hot pants, and to be shot at an angle to constantly remind us of this. I'm not a prude, but I think this hobby is well past the point where it needs to constantly be nudging us in the ribs, telling us how hot this imaginary girl is. I dunno; maybe it's ingenious satire. Ringo was spawned by a giant AI called Aion, and if one of our own Earthly AI entities pooled our collected knowledge and spawned a savior based on all it learned about human culture, knowing us, it probably WOULD take the form of a cute anime girl in short-shorts. Well played, Atlus.
The game's story can be best described as 'functional.' Ringo and a bunch of Devil Summoners on various sides are fighting over five MacGuffins called Covenants, which are helpfully color-coded and look like those long, stringy sour candies. Battles are fought, people fall, and Covenants are traded around for a while. Everything then culminates in a story beat that didn't quite land for me, because the underlying relationship to support it just wasn't developed enough. I like the concept behind it and find sympathetic villains intriguing, but yeah, not enough time in the oven. (I know I'm being annoyingly cryptic here; just trying to avoid spoilers.) Then you have the Big Battle, and depending on your Soul Matrix progression, one of two endings which fall on differing sides of the Bittersweet Spectrum.
The underfed nature of the climax is indicative of Soul Hackers 2 all over. It's a game which needs a lot more, well, game. This would (and probably should) be the length of a modest indie RPG, but it's been padded to the point of absurdity with fetch quests, mazes, and repeated returns to various dungeons. Although the word 'various' is a stretch there, as every area is either a shipping yard, an abandoned subway tunnel, or generic office space. The exception is the Soul Matrix, the dungeon where you explore the psyches of your teammates, but every sector there looks identical too and it gets old pretty fast. It's unfortunate, because I actually like the game's aesthetic overall. It's a warmer, more colorful take on cyberpunk that really does it for me. I wish the developers had a bigger budget to get more thorough and creative with level design.
So yeah, here's where we talk about the expensive elephant in the room: the monies. This is more of a budget title; something akin to what we call a AA game. And that's fine, and even laudable; this industry needs way more of these, instead of us having to always choose between overblown trillion-dollar monoliths and something three people made in their basement. But Soul Hackers 2 retails for a full $60, and if you want the complete version, that'll be $90. This is an absurd price point for what's on offer. The DLC is especially galling, putting iconic demons like Mara and Satan behind an additional paywall. This is modern Sega all over, cutting corners everywhere but wanting even more cash as they do it. I bought the complete edition only when there was a massive sale, and I highly suggest you do the same,
Gaving said all that, there it is, my thumb pointed upward atop this review. I won't remember this game in a few months, unlike, say, Persona 3, which still traverses my psyche 20 years after first playing it. But I'd come home every day after work and be happy to settle in and boot this up, basking in the glow of SMT's familiar charms. I like the non-combat locations and the fun people who inhabit them. I like Ringo's upbeat nature and shiny neon jacket. I like optimizing the demons in my compendium. Early SMT games could be brutal indeed, but the difficulty here is far more temperate. Demons don't back out on deals and you aren't likely to wipe on basic enemies. There are some tougher battles if you want them, though, and sometimes I did. It was the gaming equivalent of a "hangout movie" and I welcomed it, and the dozens of hours I could escape into it and enjoy a dystopia far more fun than the real one outside my window. The game sold below "expectations" so we probably won't see another one for another 25 years. (I'm sure Sega blamed everything except their own pricing schemes for that.) Farewell, Soul Hackers 2. Who knows what you might have been, had your parents loved you a bit more and money a bit less.
