Soul Hackers 2 review PS5
Soul Hackers 2 review
The game was developed by the Unity engine and it offers very beautiful anime-style graphics with the use of cell shading technology with enlarged images of the characters during conversations. The game offers a choice of performance between 60 frames and true 4K performance.
The protagonist of the game is a character named Ringo, and it is worth noting that for the first time in the Megami Tensei series, a game in the Megami Tensei series gets a non-silent hero, which is basically a supernatural creature called Aion. To extract it from them or defend them, and the first task assigned to them is to search for a character called Arrow, when they find him they discover that in fact he is killed and here Ringo uses her ability called Soul hacking to bring Arrow back to life again and then he joins her to search for the killer and the Covenant users. others.
Soul Hackers 2 presents an interesting story
In the game there are three main characters in addition to Ringo, and they are the ones who will be in your team of 4 characters for the duration of the game, and this is something I liked very much so that you do not need to think much about developing the characters. The combat system in the game is a role-playing type and very similar to Persona 5, where you use the abilities of the demon with you to attack the enemies in addition to your own abilities, and there are different demons in the game and each of them has strengths and weaknesses, and these points are transferred to the character that the devil is assigned to For example, if the devil is weak towards fire, the player becomes weak towards fire as well, and the game depends entirely on the natural elements present in the game and the player must plan strategically to use demons in combat.
Each character starts with one or two main elements that have strengths, for example, Ringo has its element of strength is electricity, while Arrow has its element of strength is ice, and it is preferable to allocate demons with the same element of strength to them for important reasons that we will address later in the review. The beautiful thing about the game is that many factors help the players and facilitate them as well. For example, the option of Assist has been set, which means assistance in the list of players during the fight, and its idea is that it automatically chooses the ability with the effective element against the enemies, but it is required that you know what are the weaknesses of the enemies in the fight, and there are different ways To find out and the easiest is to try each element on the enemy until you discover its weak point and for this reason it is preferable to diversify the elements between the characters, and one of the helpful things is also the automatic save in the game, which is done when you enter a new area or before killing a very strong leader or enemy, and this saved me A lot especially since I play the game on Hard difficulty which you can't use retry.
Well let's delve into the subject of using items in enemies' weaknesses.. The main reason is that when you use the fire ability on a snowy enemy, you will cause great damage to him and this is normal, but the special thing is that you will add a number +1 to the stack in the upper right corner and if Use another character to hit an enemy with his weak point, the cumulative number will increase by one Stack +1 and become 2 and so on, and after the turn ends, the Stack points will be consumed and use one demon power for each number in the Stack and hit all enemies on the screen and this strike is called Sabath, which is one of the most things A benefit in the game when you use it correctly. This is done through the development of characters, for example, Ringo has a development option that allows it to add +2 to the Stack box when it hits an enemy whose weak point is electricity, and of course the rest of the characters have the same option, for example, Arrow uses snow by adding +2 and so on. When the number goes up.
Each character has one weapon called the Comp and you can't change it, but you can develop it and the improvements vary from adding a +4 power to opening new boxes to add monsters in. You can also open new item boxes for players, for example, you can open the fire feature of Ringo, so you can take advantage of the properties of fire and so on For all players, these upgrades require collecting resources from enemies or obtaining them in the trench (Dungeon) during exploration. The player only has one time per turn and later in the story you can exchange all the demons for the characters in one turn during the fight.
The gameplay is like a mixture between Persona and Shin Megami Tensei
Let's talk about the dungeon or the stages in the game. It is divided into two parts: basic stages in the story and there is a diversity in its form and a stage dedicated to each of the three characters and it is called the Souls matrix. In the beginning you can explore on the first floor in each one of the soul matrix for each character and as you progress in the main story the rest of the roles and doors will gradually open to each Soul matrix, and you have to raise the Soul Level and the spiritual level and it is raised for each character via selection during the dialogues in The story or by meeting them through side missions, and after collecting a certain number of points, you can open a locked door in the character's Soul matrix and gain a new feature for him and even move to the other floor, you have to fight the floor boss and after winning it, part of the character's past will be revealed. Depth to the main story and linking events as well.
There are many side missions in the game, and they vary between going to fight a certain monster or eliminating monsters and searching for a lost tool. There is no depth or story in it, the most important of which is opening new features in one of the stores in the game, and of course this is a very useful thing, and there are also side missions in the game. The Soul matrix for each character is boringly repetitive: kill a certain number of monsters, find certain items, kill a powerful monster... Too bad the rewards in these missions are usually worthless because then you'll have upgraded the characters to a level beyond the utility of the tool. How can you get new demons? At the beginning of each Dungeon, all the demons you own will be released and distributed around the map (don't worry, they will be there during the fight) and you have to look for them and when you find them they will give you a financial reward or a tool or introduce you to a demon they met and you have to fulfill the devil's request in order to join you, for example, he may ask for some energy HP from you or money and others... It is worth noting that this is the only way to get new demons in the game and of course by merging demons as well.
Now let's talk about demons in more depth; Each demon has limited abilities that are gained when raising the level of the demon during combat, and when all abilities are gained to the demon, he will give you a gift that varies between auxiliary tools and the Mystique, which is a character accessory that increases the effectiveness of the element, for example, there is a Mystique that increases the effectiveness of electricity to 20%, and there is another type that reduces the Mp consumption is 15% and so on, and it is considered one of the most useful accessories in the game, and it is obtained from demons as a gift or through a vendor available later in the game.
Well what happens to the devil when he gains all his abilities? You will have to replace him with a demon stronger than him or combine him with another demon and he will gain the basic abilities of the elements acceptable to him, for example, the fire demon will gain fire abilities and will not acquire the abilities of snow when you combine it with an ice demon. There is something that annoyed me here. When you develop a demon and make it acquired from its abilities, you can register it in the blog within the game, and this will make you use the money to summon it if you combine it with another demon… But in order to register it, you have to pay a sum of money, unlike the previous Shin Megami games in which it is Monsters are free to register with cash when summoned, but here they force you to pay twice: once to register and once to pay for summoning.
Devil hackers 2 took the best things from the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games and combined them with each other. Fans of the two series will undoubtedly like the game, but the difference here is that it requires more focus by diversifying the demons and exploiting their weaknesses.
Soul Hackers 2
Very nice anime-themed graphics, deep and fun combat system, beautiful, fast and suspenseful story pace to follow, beautiful music composed by Keiichi Okabe, composer of the Nier series.
Forcing the player to pay for the demons to score, boring repetition of mostly shallow side quests.
Soul Hackers 2 took the best things from the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games and combined them with each other.
The game is sure to please fans of the two series, but the difference here is that it requires more focus on diversifying the demons and exploiting their weaknesses.
Publication date: AUG 2022
Developed By: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus, Sega, Sega Europe Limited, SEGA of America
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