hardcore hacker

hack you

I'm halfway through it and I like it for the flow of the game with side quests and soul matrix stuff. But it lacks polish and cohesiveness, it really feels like they kind of took everything that makes a shin megami tensei game and went down the checklist. It doesn't feel extraordinary or special in any way that other SMT games do. So I don't hate it, but it doesn't wow me.

I beat it; it has nice aspects (characterisation is well-done), but overall ends up feeling underwhelming (actual story feels half-baked). The personal dungeons are especially monotonous. Battle system is fun, but I mean, you know it by now. I hope it doesn't discourage them from doing other spinoffs.

It's cool but one of my lesser favorite MegaTen games tbh. But still cool. I think the story has a lot of missed potential though, and the battle system wasn't as interesting as the Press Turn (smt) or 1 More (persona) systems in my opinion. But the soundtrack/visuals are very good (my only complaint being the weak dungeon themes), and I do love the art style and characters a lot. I had some gameplay issues like the lack of dashing unless you spam MP on a skill over and over. That wouldn't be a big deal if Ringo didn't move so slow lol. Also the high encounter rate, and some battles feeling long due to high encounter rate. But they added dashing and fixed the rates and added a speed up mode to battles in a update, making it a lot better to play for me.

I've been playing the game on and off since March, slowly making progress through the game (Currently at the Ozaki Hope Tower dungeon). I think the game itself does get a bit of unnecessary slack, but with that being said, i still think it's one of the more weaker Megaten entries in quite a while (that isn't some obvious filler title like the Persona Dancing games or whatever.) I do like the emphasis on dungeon crawling which I feel like more recent mainline entries have been severely lacking in, but the dungeons that are here aren't good, they all feel pretty generic and besides like the setting, i couldn't tell which dungeons were what based on the map or dungeon gimmicks they had. Pretty disappointing as Persona 5/Royal or even a game like Tokyo Mirage Sessions, I felt they did a pretty damn good job with its dungeons, so SMT5 and Soul Hackers 2, I felt like they took a step back in this category. The combat itself I wasn't really impressed by, it lacked the flow that something like Press Turn or 1 More had, but even then, I found that even the combat systems from some older entries like the original Soul Hackers or Strange Journey was a lot more engaging and mechanically deep. I think the story is alright so far, the characters were fine enough, the music was pretty good (ignoring the dungeon music which got irritating after a while.) I do kinda hope they do take another stab at a game like this, because I feel like with a lot more polish with the combat and dungeon designs, I believe there could be a legitimately good dungeon crawler jrpg here, but as is, it's okay, but I wouldn't call it good either.

I kinda dropped it because nothing was really happening. Most of the antagonists kind of just come and go with no real background depth or explanation. None of it feels like a cohesive narrative, so the stakes seem to barely exist to pull the player into the story. The combat is inferior and more generic than other Megami Tensei games, so that doesn't really help it either.

Atlus Japan needs to hire new writers. The current crop, who got promoted from the dungeon design departments into story-writing, don't know what they're doing. And the project managers and directors of these games should have known better. Writing is an actual craft. It requires hard work. Something the recent writers after P5 Royal obviously do not understand and it shows quite glaringly in the material. I played Shin Megami Tensei due to the mix of philosophy and mythology with cool conflict ideas, not because of shitty anime tropes whereby they hit checkboxes of what is in the mainstream which is what the more recent titles have offered -- which the artists of the new designs practically confirmed in interviews.

I'm almost done with the game and as much as I love the first game I can say that Soul Hackers 2 definitely has potential. Voice acting is pretty elite. We needed a character like Ringo in the series. Hopefully Atlus can fully flush out this series with more development and hardware advancements. Good attempt.

I think it's an easily forgetable and mediocare expirience unlike SH 1 which was one of the most aesthetically beautiful games I have ever played