What’s the longest you’ve ever waited for a video game sequel? Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers was released all the way back in 1997 on the Sega Saturn, a first-person dungeon crawler JRPG made by developer Atlus. Four console generations later we finally have a sequel – Soul Hackers 2 – though it’s really a standalone game with mostly thematic connections to the original. 25 years is a long time in computer graphics, and Soul Hackers 2 has a wide variety of tech it could potentially use – but early footage didn’t exactly impress. There’s little here to suggest that the current wave of consoles are being taxed by this Persona-lite release – and the knock-on effect of that seems to be that the last-gen machines get some shocking ports, especially the vanilla Xbox One.
Soul Hackers 2 borrows its gameplay elements from other recent Atlus titles, so at a basic level, it’s a turn-based RPG oriented around exploiting weaknesses, which is an enjoyable enough system but nothing out-of-the ordinary for RPG veterans. There are some twists, like an overkill-style mechanic that rewards strategic play, and plenty of customization. But this isn’t especially novel. Elsewhere, however, this game really shines. Soul Hackers 2 is a party-oriented title that weaves multiple characters through a winding, serialised story. Interpersonal conflicts and interactions take center stage here, and a social system gamifies out-of-combat interactions, giving simple conversations actual consequences. It’s more like a TV show than a movie, with a ‘villain of the week’-style narrative that features multiple short story arcs that build over time.
This formula is fairly novel by industry standards but if you’ve played other recent Atlus RPGs – particularly Persona 5 or Tokyo Mirage Sessions – you’ll know what to expect. That fortunately extends to the rest of the package as well, with a keen sense of visual style. But you can’t make a video game out of artistic flourishes alone – so how does the 3D rendering hold up?
