New Soul Hackers 2 trial by Atlus JRPG

In these early hours of the game, we took a look at the potential in Soul Hackers 2 to be loved by those who don’t have a Nintendo Switch and those who are orphans from their special Shin Megami Tensei V, as well as those who are looking forward to it. next – and farther – Person. But Soul Hackers 2 doesn’t want to be just the meeting point of two beloved brands. atlus. In soft character design and bright colors, we saw the spiritual heir to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE; this makes perfect sense given the same captains are at the helm, but we wondered how successful this new JRPG would be in confirming its existence. it is also a market that is starting to get very crowded.

ours New tryout of Soul Hackers 2 In this first five-hour game, we explain what we liked and what we didn’t like.

Stories of blood and demons

Soul Hackers The sequel to the ’97 game this was the second installment of the Shin Megami Tensei spin-off series, it’s pretty obvious that you won’t need to play any Devil Summoner to understand the story, and in fact, Atlus released the title to avoid misunderstandings and confusions. However, the first thing that catches the eye is the brutality of the narrative, which, after an eccentric start, leads to an actual battle between seven summoners who shoot each other in the head, stab each other, and generally die in the lakes. blood.

In this futuristic world, the artificial intelligence known as Aion has predicted the end of the world and sent two of their avatars, Ringo and Figue, to rescue some critically important people. When Ringo finds the first of them dead, he decides to resurrect him by literally hacking his soul. we told you History was eccentric.

In the early hours of the game, Ringo assembles a team of summoners to stop the Phantom Circle, a kind of divine gift divided into five individuals, a cult that aims to destroy the world with the power of the Alliance. iron maskThe leader of the circle intends to reunite to gain unprecedented powers. In short, we know the purpose, but getting there can be a problem because: our hero, Arrow, is a member of Yatagarasu who is at open war with the Circle; The other protagonist, Milady, is torn apart because she’s Iron Mask’s ex (exactly!) and so she wants to get rid of him a little bit and kill The Arrow a little bit; Saizo, on the other hand, is a neutral summoner who prefers to stay alive for a while and is therefore helpful. ring tone and acts as a mediator in the team.

Unlike Persona, the heroes in Soul Hackers 2 adults they face the danger from a more dramatic and concrete point of view, but we cannot say that their characterization stands out immediately.

However, it is clear that there is a lot of background to explore about them and it is the maze that is called the labyrinth. the matrix of the soul above all it serves this and prolongs the game in itself. The Matrix is ​​vaguely reminiscent of Persona 3’s Tartarus; it’s actually a very long dungeon with several floors that we can explore whenever we want. It is divided into three macro regions that represent the memories of the three heroes and will allow us to get to know them better if we have increased the parameter of the character enough.rapportan individual value that changes by correctly answering certain questions in dialogues or participating in social events, such as having drinks in the company. The Matrix of the soul, in short, rotates from time to time between one dungeon of the story and another to better understand the motivations of Arrow, Milady, and Saizu, and to develop characters by fighting enemies at full speed.

Classic fights

As you might imagine, the plot is more Persona-like than Shin Megami Tensei: while the latter leaves more and more room for the narrative, gameplay, and role-playing component, though Personas tend to be a bit queasy. that’s part of their appeal. Soul Hackers 2 seems to risk a compromise: after all, like almost all Japanese RPGs, it’s still a bit of an angst, but fiction and characters they immediately look better defined and really surprise the player.

It’s pretty important that Soul Hackers 2 insists that the characters don’t just look like gameplay tools. The four heroes use different weapons – at the same time COMPONENT – Deals physical damage, demons attached to each summoner, inflicts traditional basic spells of Atlus games such as Agi, Uncle, Bufu and so on. But the Press Turn system works a little differently here.

The basics are the same. Each enemy is vulnerable to one or more elements, but does not lose their turns as in Persona and Shin Megami Tensei: however, here, each correctly exploited vulnerability evolves a combo, and at the end of the player’s turn, Ringo automatically launches a counterattack. all enemies – pretty much equivalent to Persona’s All-out Attack, but it’s called Sabbath – deals damage based on the number of exploited vulnerabilities.

Even enemies can take advantage of our characters’ weak spots, but for better or worse, they can’t cause us to lose turns, as in Persona and Shin Megami Tensei V, so the player is somewhat of an advantage, but don’t underestimate it anyway. fragility and resistance: In Soul Hackers 2, we actually decide on the demons of the whole team, and when we “equip” a demon to a certain character, we affect the values ​​​​of the latter. The management component is therefore slightly more important than in Persona 5, where every character except the Joker is attached to a single Persona or Shin Megami Tensei V itself, the mechanism being the same but only applicable to Nahobino.

As we said, the combat system is much more focused on the characters, and earlier on you learn to micromanage many aspects of customization from the rarities. MagigioielliDefeat and COMP weapon modifiers that cost materials dropped by monsters and heal or change your stats and abilities. The skills that the characters learn by exploring the Matrix of the soul also allow them to be better defined at the role-playing level, and as a result, make Ringo the so-called Commander skill This strongly affects gameplay, for example, by allowing teammates to change their demons during battle.

As for demons, fans of the Atlus series will find their favorite mythological figures, including the inescapable Jack Frost, but there are at least some completely unreleased early bars that refresh the Grimoire a bit. Of course there is merger here too: it’s made in Cirque du Goumaden and works pretty much as usual, but there’s also a kind of mini-search engine that helps find better specific combinations based on the parameters chosen.

Discover in style

We’re playing Soul Hackers 2 on PlayStation 5, and although it’s a cross-generational game, it has to be said that the cleanness of the visual impressed us: Atlus is working on the game more and more. cel shading, a look that fits perfectly with the character design and anime-style narrative, and the new RPG sometimes resembles an animated production for TV for a more refined cut of direction or level of definition and detail. environments and characters. This is especially noticeable in the districts of the city and the so-called Kingdoms, which are smaller in size but very rich in detail. You will visit them constantly to access stores or continue in many stores. side missions This will allow you to spin like a hill around the city and dungeons you visited before.

The gameplay has been very fluid on the next-gen Sony console so far, but some options surprise us, like the console’s location. camera Since you need to react to the presence of enemies that can be moved slightly during exploration but maintain an unusual and not particularly comfortable angle, especially in dungeons, which suddenly appear a few feet away from us: Ringo can hit them stun them with COMP and start to gain time or attack with a start, but rare and stronger enemies can only be repulsed, and it’s not easy to dodge while the camera rows at us.

Speaking of exploration, we appreciated more original ideas than ever before – for example, our demons scattering around the map in search of treasure and then acting like chests when we meet them – and the return of some of the dynamics seen in Shin Megami Tensei V. Some demonslet’s say they will be enlisted in the field for consumables or yen cost, but there seems to be no real method of enlisting them during or after the war. Another element that hardly convinces us is the floor plan of the building. dungeonare complex combinations of corridors and cul-de-sacs that are very old-school and may appeal to the nostalgic, but certainly represent a monotonous step back from what was seen in Persona 5 and partly in Shin Megami Tensei V.

After all, Soul Hackers 2 looks exactly like this: a middle ground between the two games, not only in narrative terms, but also in gameplay: and Persona is a more experimental spin-off, considering Shin Megami Tensei is the original branch and more conservative. while the balance is logical. Now we need to understand how strong his identity is. From this perspective, the new Atlus proposal should be able to satisfy anyone who likes the combat system. Press Translate and underlying esoteric themes.