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News Soul Hackers 2 announced, coming to PS4/5, XSX/S, XBO and Steam this August

How's everyone, who got it, enjoying it?

Outside of some bugs and weird animation people seem pleased with the game.
Surprisingly into it, it's decidingly low budget though, people who made comparisons to Vita jrpgs were right on the money. It really feels like the Digimon Cyber Sleuth games to me.
 
Surprisingly into it, it's decidingly low budget though, people who made comparisons to Vita jrpgs were right on the money. It really feels like the Digimon Cyber Sleuth games to me.
Oh cool. I am playing Cyber Sleuth (again) and was watching footage of SH2 and I totally see the comparison. Not only visuals but themes.
 
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Surprisingly into it, it's decidingly low budget though, people who made comparisons to Vita jrpgs were right on the money. It really feels like the Digimon Cyber Sleuth games to me.
I'm getting almost Etrian Odyssey vibes from it, too; obviously it's very different in a lot of ways, but the way they do the shops background art + character art in those shops made me think of that immediately.

So far the game is fun, but feels a bit basic and I can see it getting repetitive (especially the Soul Dungeons). The combat system is not as good as TMS or SMT; I thought there would be more to the sabbath system than there is.
 
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I havent played SH2 yet (will in the future) but I noticed that, with the exception of SMT4, I do not like Atlus choice for their english VA direction in general.
Cup of tea did SMTV and SH2 and their delivery feels off. I know its not CT because they did FE 3H (one of my fav dubs) among others rpgs.

Maybe its because most of their games have teens (SH2 protags are adults)? And that might impact the delivery.

I know its a me thing, since people adore P4 & P5 (I think they are average). Sorry for my mini rant.

Use british/scotish/welsh vas for every rpg lol
 
Use british/scotish/welsh vas for every rpg lol
cat-yes.gif
 
It seems to work now for me on GE-7.30 but it is missing some visual effects, like the portal in dungeons and also the background during sabbaths which is a pretty big visual error. I’ve just installed it on my Windows SD card on Deck and I’ve been playing it on that, seems good and I’m enjoying it. Will switch back to my SteamOS SD if it gets patched.
I actually tried that and after the update i know have almost no textures. It worked fine before the update and boom now its textureless with a pink sky
 
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I just started a new job 2 weeks ago and I'mma buy this as soon as my first paycheck gets deposited
 
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This game definitely moves at a pretty fast clip. I've only played 10 hours and my party is level 20; fighting enemies above your level really zips you up the XP curve quickly. My main complaint so far is that I just do not care about these characters in any way whatsoever, and nothing the game is doing to try to get me to is working, at least as of yet.
 
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Playing the first 10 hours of the game has not made it clear why it isn’t on Switch
Definitely not. The shops are backgrounds and art, most of the zones are quite small, there's not a lot going on graphically... other than being sharper and higher framerate, this almost feels like it could run on PS3. And I'm not dunking on the game for that, it's just the style it has. The comparisons to a Vita-style game seems pretty accurate.

One thing that is odd to me is that it seems to have oddly long loadtimes on PS5. They're not LONG, I guess I should clarify, it's just that given how little the game is loading in locations you would think that especially on PS5 the loadtimes would be practically nonexistent.
 
Definitely not. The shops are backgrounds and art, most of the zones are quite small, there's not a lot going on graphically... other than being sharper and higher framerate, this almost feels like it could run on PS3. And I'm not dunking on the game for that, it's just the style it has. The comparisons to a Vita-style game seems pretty accurate.

One thing that is odd to me is that it seems to have oddly long loadtimes on PS5. They're not LONG, I guess I should clarify, it's just that given how little the game is loading in locations you would think that especially on PS5 the loadtimes would be practically nonexistent.
About that: turn off the tips in the loading screens and see what happens
 
About that: turn off the tips in the loading screens and see what happens
HOLY SHIT WHAT?!? That literally makes every zone load almost instantly, that’s amazing. Why on earth would they increase load screen time just for loading tips?
 
HOLY SHIT WHAT?!? That literally makes every zone load almost instantly, that’s amazing. Why on earth would they increase load screen time just for loading tips?
I guess they heard people complain about not being able to read the tips due to quick load times and decided to take it to the extreme.
 
I guess they heard people complain about not being able to read the tips due to quick load times and decided to take it to the extreme.
And that’s fine as an option, but the game doesn’t make it clear that the loading tips are coming at the expense of load times. Especially going into and out of the Axis, where there are 2-3 load screens right next to each other, that extra 4-7 seconds per really adds up
 
I don’t know if I brought it up here, but for anyone wondering, the Xbox version comes with the Windows Store PC version and supports cross save
 
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I guess they heard people complain about not being able to read the tips due to quick load times and decided to take it to the extreme.
Could someone pass their notes to the Live A Live team, because you can barely read the loading screen tips in that game before it's done loading
 
The solution really should be to just let us manually exit the loading screen imo
As long as there's an option to not wait for user input I'd be good with that. Anyways, sorry for the threadjack I was greatly amused at this discovery.
 
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Watched some reviews. The game looks decent enough. The only glaring issue that I might have a problem with personally is...yeah the dungeons look pretty bland.
So far from what I can tell (about 10 hours in) my main issues are that the dungeons are bland and the characters kind of are, too. It's like... "diet SMT", or (as I heard it described in a podcast recently) it's like mixing SMT and Persona and ending up with the the strengths of neither: The combat/atmosphere/difficulty isn't as good as SMT, and the social elements/characters/'team bonding' etc. aren't as good as Persona.

But even after describing it like that, I'm still having fun with it. It's pretty quick and snappy, and while I'm also a little mixed on the soundtrack it has some good tracks in it.
 
if they do a smt v apocalypse it better fucking be a dlc expansion that i can pay for and not some p5r bs. do not fuck me on this one atlus
Well... there's a big difference, there. P5R is debateable and only added most of its content near the end of the game, but it had a ton of other stuff throughout that was nice and it kind of requires you to replay the game in order to get the experience since some stuff is different and it needs the buildup. But I can kind of understand the frustration of it not being DLC, even if it'd be weird to implement. Even if I understand the arguments for it, I don't really know how you'd do it.

SMT4: Apocalypse on the other hand is basically a completely new game. It reuses a ton of locations and assets from the original, but the entire plot is different and I have no idea how you'd sell it as DLC.
 
Thinking of getting this game, but wary if it has any bigoted stuff in it like some previous Atlus games.

I don't mind spoilers for anything so would appreciate it if people knew the answer to this.
 
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Watched some reviews. The game looks decent enough. The only glaring issue that I might have a problem with personally is...yeah the dungeons look pretty bland.
When it comes to Atlus games, I do not trust the Megaten community for their opinion. Granted my experience with the community has not been great, I find the pokemon community more tolerable lol. So I tend to trust reviewers (even some Megaten reviewers) more than the fans.
 
Way to sell me on the game. ;D

God, after reviews and user impressions, this doesn't even feel worth picking up at 20 bucks...
lol, I try! It's just a very 'medium' game for me so far; very C+/B-, 7/10. It's not BAD, and I'm having some fun with it, but at the same time it has issues and doesn't seem to do anything overly well. Maybe that'll change the further I get, but I'm not going to count on it.

I think it'd be a great game to pick up later on a sale, no doubt, once it's not as expensive.
 
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another perspective from a writer I like a lot: https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/soul-hackers-2-review/
A 30 to 40 hour JRPG is almost unheard of at this point. And it’s breathtaking. Sure, there’s little room for walls of explanation and expository dialogue. There’s no hidden lore fragments to collect. The character side quests are straightforward to resolve and clearly telegraphed. Soul Hackers 2 tells a good anime story about rivals to friends, AI learning about humanity, and dealing with trauma, and wraps it up in some of the best dungeon crawling Atlus has put together in over a decade. It’s condensed and digestible, perfect for a modern gamer who has way too many things in her backlog. Look, I’m not unsympathetic to the brutal coarseness that got us here. I dearly love mean-spirited, immensely flawed dungeon crawlers. They are satisfying in ways current AAA games can’t touch. But we’re never going to get that from Atlus again. These were games that were marked by their insufficiency, and really only now, looking back, heralded for it. Phantasy Star 2 is only Phantasy Star 2 because its creators were still figuring out what the genre even was. Gaming, like Amami City, moves ever forward, growing over top of its history, for worse and for better.
 
Way to sell me on the game. ;D

God, after reviews and user impressions, this doesn't even feel worth picking up at 20 bucks...
For what it's worth, a lot of people over on Era are really enjoying it.

My copy arrived today, looking forward to starting it tonight.
 
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Way to sell me on the game. ;D

God, after reviews and user impressions, this doesn't even feel worth picking up at 20 bucks...
It’s pretty good imo. Just… it should be on Switch, with the amount of dungeon crawling I’m doing for side quests.
 
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another perspective from a writer I like a lot: https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/soul-hackers-2-review/
It's not the length nor the simplicity that I have issues with; a shorter game would be totally fine by me if it were better done! But, uhh, I greatly disagree with a whole lot of what they're saying here. A "good anime story about rivals to friends" certainly hasn't happened yet and seems shallow in the extreme to me so far, nor has the game given me much reason to care about any of the characters at all. And "some of the best dungeon crawling Atlus has put together in over a decade" is kind of a baffling statement to me in reference to this game unless things greatly improve later on.

Now, it IS condensed and digestible, kind of a 'popcorn JRPG' in a way, that's definitely true. And I don't mean to sound too negative if they really enjoyed it for being that. But it kind of sounds like they're giving it a lot of points for being short and snappy and overlooking a lot of the flaws as a result.
 
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I never played the first soul hackers. I love the Persona series though. What are the general thoughts and feelings here?
 
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Patch coming in "early November":


Good to see they're continuing to work on this as it definitely sounds like this one came in a bit on the hot side. With them adding new demons I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if they're prepping an updated version for Switch or "new hardware" in 2023.
 
Patch coming in "early November":


Good to see they're continuing to work on this as it definitely sounds like this one came in a bit on the hot side. With them adding new demons I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if they're prepping an updated version for Switch or "new hardware" in 2023.
Yeah maybe it came down to the wire. There is a mod that did the dash feature and the speed up, so now console can have those features.

If that theoretical switch version comes out with all DLC included at 60$ (they could sell it without it), is it because they learned their lesson about DLC practices or simply because its an old product? There aren't many examples outside of P5 so we will see.
 
If that theoretical switch version comes out with all DLC included at 60$ (they could sell it without it), is it because they learned their lesson about DLC practices or simply because its an old product? There aren't many examples outside of P5 so we will see.
I'm not entirely sure. I feel like the DLC scene on Switch has been a little more restrained than it was on 3DS. Like Fire Emblem 3 Houses just went for a season pass vs. all the little packs they did on the 3DS games, and SMT V only has one or two items vs. the half-dozen or more that SMT IV had.

Did P4 Arena also include all its DLC?
 
Patch coming in "early November":


Good to see they're continuing to work on this as it definitely sounds like this one came in a bit on the hot side. With them adding new demons I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if they're prepping an updated version for Switch or "new hardware" in 2023.
Some good stuff in here and I'm certainly not going to complain about great features like quick battle (which before you had to sort of activate auto battle on and off to achieve, and it was dubious) and running speed. But it also feels oddly late to do this - 3+ months after release for some QoL features and four random additional demons? Again, it's all good stuff and free which is great, just a bit strange.
 
I'm not entirely sure. I feel like the DLC scene on Switch has been a little more restrained than it was on 3DS. Like Fire Emblem 3 Houses just went for a season pass vs. all the little packs they did on the 3DS games, and SMT V only has one or two items vs. the half-dozen or more that SMT IV had.

Did P4 Arena also include all its DLC?
From a first party its interesting. Like FE example, they mostly do season pass (Zelda, Pokemon, FE, XC, etc). Third party depends. SMTV was not as bad as SH2 but it still locked 3 demons behind paywalls.

P4 Arena did since it was the Ultimax release, I think a couple of songs were not included because of licenses.
 
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