Soul Hackers 2

Oyunun atmosferi ve karakterleri çok güzel ama dungeonlar çok sıkıcı. Oyun süresini arttırmak için bir sürü çıkmaz yol koymuşlar. Kendimi sürekli gittiğim yolu boş boş geri dönerken buldum. Ana hikaye ortalama 15 saatte bitiyor. Bütün yan görevlerle bitirirseniz de 30-35 saat arasına kadar oyun içerik atıyor üstünüze. %100'lemek için NG+ oynamak gerekiyor ekstra, ben 47 saatte %100'leyebildim. Oyun içerik olarak asla tam fiyatını hak etmiyor. O yüzden indirimsiz alınmasını tavsiye etmem. Son olarak oyuna puanım 6/10. Eğer oyunu %100'lemeye uğraşmasaydım büyük ihtimalle 7/10 verirdim.

I have always wanted to like SMT and Persona games, but I don't, because they're bad. So when I heard that the #AtlusFaithful didn't like this game, I thought, "If they say Soul Hackers 2 bad... Maybe Soul Hackers 2 actually...good?" nope turns out atlus just put out a product so hollow and tedious even MegaTen fans couldn't stomach it. Do not be like me. Do not fall for the "Hitler Said the Sky is Blue" fallacy.

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Fuera de la estelar serie Persona, los demás juegos de la serie SMT se elaboran con un presupuesto por demás acotado. Es un dato a tener muy en cuenta para no tomarse por sorpresa los malavares que hace este juego para disimular lo sencillo y breve de su mundo. Sin por esto restar la importancia dada al robusto sistema rpg de monstruos de la serie. Mazmorras desangeladas, monstruos preciosos y personajes medios para gustarles a niños y adolescentes. Soul Hackers 2 se siente como un buen juego de portátiles.

Soul Hackers 2, developed by ATLUS and published by SEGA, arrives with the unusual task of resurrecting a cult subseries within the sprawling Shin Megami Tensei universe while also modernizing it for a new audience. Rather than imitating the original Soul Hackers’ first-person dungeon crawling, occult cyberpunk grit, and early Virtual Boy-era experimentalism, the sequel reimagines the concept through a sleeker, urban sci-fi aesthetic rooted in neon skylines, holographic interfaces, and technological mysticism. It feels like a continuation in spirit rather than structure—an attempt to reinterpret what “Devil Summoner” means in the present instead of replicating what it once was. That willingness to evolve creates a game that feels approachable, narratively forward, and richly stylized, even if it sometimes struggles with pacing and mechanical ambition. The story unfolds through Ringo, a sentient construct born from Aion—an advanced digital consciousness that predicts humanity’s extinction. Tasked with preventing catastrophe, she quickly becomes entangled in a covert war among Devil Summoners, spiritual contractors who wield demons as weapons. What begins as a mission to retrieve key individuals becomes a tale of fragile alliances, betrayal, and the emotional debris left behind after violence and loss. Unlike many SMT narratives that hinge on ideological extremism or cosmic determinism, Soul Hackers 2 grounds its stakes in personal tragedy and human vulnerability. The apocalypse is not a philosophical inevitability—it is the direct result of grief, loneliness, ambition, and unresolved history. Ringo, as an artificial lifeform learning empathy in real time, becomes the perfect observer of flawed humanity, and the story uses her perspective to explore what makes people cling to life even when it hurts. The party dynamic reinforces this emotional framing. Arrow, Milady, and Saizo are not archetypal JRPG recruits—they arrive already damaged, guarded, and shaped by past betrayals. The game builds tension not through melodramatic outbursts but through subtle, quietly revealing interactions. Bar conversations, optional hangouts, and deeper dives into their subconscious via the Soul Matrix expose insecurities and regrets at a measured pace, giving the characters texture. Their relationship development mirrors real emotional healing—awkward, uneven, and hesitant, but ultimately meaningful. While the overarching plot remains urgent, the game never forgets that saving the world is also about saving the people within it, one reconciliation at a time. Combat borrows recognizable DNA from Shin Megami Tensei—turn-based encounters focused on exploiting elemental weaknesses, demon recruitment and fusion, and party builds that reward strategic foresight. However, the Sabbath system replaces Press Turn mechanics with a more streamlined, cumulative approach. Landing weakness hits stacks demons into a temporary reserve that unleashes a synchronized finishing strike. It is an elegant middle ground—spectacular enough to feel rewarding, simple enough to understand immediately, and deep enough to encourage team composition experimentation. Combat animations, UI transitions, and visual clarity contribute to battles that feel crisp and stylish rather than laborious. Longtime SMT fans may find the difficulty curve gentler than expected, but the emphasis on flow and tempo aligns with the game’s narrative accessibility. Exploration, however, reveals a more uneven design. Dungeons—whether city pathways or labyrinthine data constructs—have striking aesthetics but limited structural diversity. Their layouts often rely on long hallways and predictable branching rather than spatial puzzles or thematic storytelling through architecture. The Soul Matrix in particular, while essential for narrative and character development, can feel repetitive due to reused visual assets and minimalist progression. These areas are not poorly executed, but they lack the imaginative personality found in the game’s writing, art direction, and combat system. It is the one area where Soul Hackers 2 feels more restrained than inspired, as though its ideas exceeded its development resources. Visually and sonically, however, the game exudes confidence. ATLUS’s signature flair for UI design reaches new levels here—menus, combat readouts, and interface transitions pulse with kinetic energy, making even stat screens feel alive. Character and demon designs balance sharp stylization with expressive detail, and the neon palette gives every environment a distinct sense of place. MONACA’s soundtrack supports this identity with electronic beats, jazz-infused ambience, and emotionally weighted arrangements that capture the melancholic futurism at the heart of the narrative. Together, the visual and audio presentation make Soul Hackers 2 feel modern, polished, and unmistakably atmospheric, even during slower gameplay segments. Soul Hackers 2 ultimately succeeds because it knows what kind of RPG it wants to be—not a grand philosophical thesis like mainline SMT, nor a sprawling social-life simulation like Persona, but a character-driven thriller wrapped in speculative futurism. It values conversation over confrontation, emotional clarity over ideological ambiguity, and forward momentum over encyclopedic lore. Its willingness to prioritize storytelling and mood may disappoint those craving systems-heavy challenge or labyrinthine design, yet that same decision makes it uniquely approachable within the franchise. It inhabits a middle space—stylish without being indulgent, thoughtful without being cryptic, intimate without losing its sense of scale. For players who crave atmospheric JRPGs with distinctive worldbuilding, sharp audiovisual identity, strategic but streamlined combat, and a focus on flawed adults navigating emotional rubble, Soul Hackers 2 offers a resonant experience. It may not redefine Shin Megami Tensei or the broader ATLUS catalog, but it does something equally valuable: it broadens the emotional and thematic scope of what a Devil Summoner story can be. Beneath the neon glow lies a game about connection, choice, and the quiet hope that even in a collapsing world, people—and machines built to resemble them—can still change their fate. Rating: 6/10

Feels like a chore to play this one. It's also pretty half-baked for the price they are asking.

Pro: Cast dei personaggi principali simpatico e divertente, spicca la protagonista Ringo. Performance dei doppiatori giapponesi ottima. Ottimo gameplay, vario e con una buona profondità, bilanciato anche bene. Contro: Tecnicamente nulla di eccezionale e port scarno. Dungeon spogli artisticamente e bruttini. Secondarie abbastanza anonime come anche negli altri JRPG Atlus. Nel complesso, un buon JRPG con un ottimo gameplay e una storia carina, soprattutto grazie ad un buon cast che ho trovato simpatico, la storia di per sé è senza infamia e senza lode, a mio parere. Mi sento di consigliarlo, se amate il genere, siete alla ricerca di un buon JRPG, avete già giocato i più apprezzati e ne volete uno nuovo.

Let me put this first: Soul Hackers 2 is not a /spectacular/ game. It's no Persona 5, it's no Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne, it's not even Digital Devil Saga. When you come at this game, it's best to come at it entirely on its own merit, without the staggering expectations of other games in the SMT series. Not even because it's a BAD game with those in mind, but because it just doesn't live up to those others, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. Soul Hackers 2 is an enjoyable experience if you're not approaching it with the sky-high expectations people seem to come at SMT games with. Gameplay: Combat is simple but solid, albeit somewhat restrictive. The Very Hard DLC mode is dumb, it's just Hard but no items in combat, which is super arbitrary and seems more like something you'd find in a self-imposed challenge run than an actual difficulty setting. Demon builds can be extremely restrictive, especially in the early game, due to the super limited skill slots, and you don't get much more, not to mention switching out demons in battle can be troublesome. Still, it's not the biggest deal to go into a fight with a variety of skills, see what the boss can do and test what it's weak to, then reload, adjust your team, and try again. This is helped by the fact that you can save any time, anywhere, even in the midst of a dungeon. This does make it "easier" in the sense that you won't be losing nearly an hour of progress if you screw up, but you can definitely still get suddenly pummeled in random encounters on Hard. Dungeons: Dungeons feel sort of samey for most of the game, but as strange as it sounds, I don't think this is a huge problem. The different types of settings are distinct enough from one another that not /everything/ feels the same. For me, it actually contributed both to the themes of the story and to the reveal of the final dungeon, which definitely wouldn't hit the same otherwise. It could be better, but I think it's fine for what it is. That said, I do have one MASSIVE complaint, and it's probably my biggest complaint of the entire game: The Floor 4s of the Soul Matrix. AKA one-way teleporter dungeons that will get you lost and going in circles if you're not careful or don't have a great memory. Do yourself a favor and look up a map for these, because they are probably the single worst instance of the 'Atlus teleporter dungeon' trope in ANY of their games, not just SMT. I got through 95% of these floors without a map, but it was an utterly miserable experience and I definitely will be using a map for my completion playthrough. Also, yea, the navigators CAN get a little annoying, hard to deny that. I do wish there was a way to turn them off. Story, Characters, and Worldbuilding: The story is probably the best aspect of the game, in my opinion. The world and characters probably aren't going to blow you away, but they don't need to. They're good, solid characters, and you'll likely find at least one person in the party whose narrative you're engaged in. There's a fair bit of good humor in the banter, and the game got me actively rooting for the canonical romance between one of the party members and an NPC, which isn't something most games can say. There are two endings to the game, something I wouldn't have known from the game itself, as there's little hint of that besides, perhaps, the Steam achievements. You need two playthroughs to complete the game anyway, so if you care about that, it's probably easiest to just get the 'bad/normal' ending first and the 'true/good' ending second. As of writing, I've only gotten the bad ending myself. All in all, Soul Hackers 2 is a good game. It's got a good story, good gameplay, good aesthetics, and is overall just /good/. If you go into it without the staggering expectations of SMT, you'll probably have a good time. I'd say it's best to wait for a sale, to be fair; I started multiple playthroughs, which is why my playtime is where it is at the time of writing, but the first playthrough to actually make it all the way through the game was still only 27 hours long. Granted, that is on Easy, and doesn't account for any game overs, but I did do almost all of the first four floors of the soul matrix and nearly all of the available sidequests, so it's not like I shotgunned the story or anything. It's just not a particularly long game, so it's arguable whether it's worth full price. Still, if you're interested, I think it's a good buy, and I'm looking forward to my second playthrough (this time on Hard) to get completion.