“Soul Hacker 2” is the first to try, the technological and stylish “Shin Megami Tensei” derivative RPG | 4Gamers

ALTUS, a subsidiary of SEGA, will release the latest work “Soul Hacker 2” on August 25 this year. Recently, we accepted the invitation of Taiwan SEGA to experience this work with the same worldview as “Shin Megami Tensei” and “Persona”.

The scope of this experience is about three hours from the beginning of the game. The following article will mention the basic plot summary at the beginning, as well as the combat system, game overview, etc.

Compared with the mythological style featured in Shin Megami Tensei and the campus style featured in Persona, this time, Soul Hacker 2 presents another look, although the interface is not as good as the one from the Persona series. Jump, but also very own style.

The world view of “Soul Hacker 2” is positioned in the near-future modernity. The entire game reveals technology and colorful urban fashion. The protagonist “Lingo” is not even a real person, but was born from top technology, but has an electronic life form with personality. It has a height that surpasses all kinds of human emotions, but it is a little interesting to the human world.

The role of Ringo is quite different from the past. The first is that he chose a female appearance this time, and the second is that he is no longer a silent protagonist, and the character directly given completely dominates the dialogue and development of the entire plot.

Although this may seem ordinary for an RPG game, it is a new attempt for the ATLUS “Senior Goddess” series. It means that ATLUS no longer requires the player to replace the protagonist of the game, it is more like watching the development of the entire plot as a third party (although there are still many options for the player to choose).

“Soul Hacker 2” describes that in order to avoid the future of extinction, the wisdom beyond human took the initiative to give birth to two electronic life forms “Lingo” and “Figg”. “Demon Summoner” quest.

At the beginning of the game, Ringo rescued the first person in the protagonist group, “Arrow”, who had been killed in a way similar to hacking and reorganizing his soul.

Many Japanese-style RPGs have a similar design, which is to spend a lot of story space for players to gradually find other teammates of the protagonist group. This point is completely different in “Soul Hacker 2”. The plot will be followed by “Milady” and “Saizo” in about an hour. I have almost never seen an RPG game where all the staff are gathered so quickly.

The whole story is carried out by three people from different forces and representing different viewpoints, together with the non-human Ringo and Feige.

In the basic game outline, “Soul Hacker 2” will be more similar to “Persona 5” (P5), the map design is similar to the P5 partition, divided into non-combat cities, shops and other small areas, and can The maze area of ​​battle is not like “Shin Megami Tensei V” is a big map for players to explore.

Benefiting from the PS5’s reading speed, even if you frequently switch areas to buy things, it’s not very annoying.

As the plot progresses, players will step into a large labyrinth, which is also somewhat similar to the palace of P5. If you have played other works in the same series, you will find that the use of magic is also the biggest limit for breaking through. But unlike P5, “Soul Hacker 2” has no date pressure, so as long as the player can reach the teleportation point of each stage, the maze can be sent out at any time to prepare and fight again.

It is also worth mentioning that recruiting new demons. After entering the maze, the demons already in hand will be scattered throughout the maze. These own demons have the functions of treasure chests and recruiting new demons, but it should be noted that there are no other demons this time. The bargain of the series, if you encounter a demon you want to recruit, you have to meet the conditions it offers, or you will run away.

In the battle, the design of rewarding the player for hitting the weak point attribute is still maintained, but this part has also been changed. In the past, hitting the weak point can get a chance to attack again. Stack), and at the end of each round, Ringo will launch a “Beast of Magic” similar to the total attack, and the damage is determined according to the number of layers of the Stack.

Therefore, if all four of them successfully hit their weak points in the first round, it will be the magic feast of the 4-layer Stack. Most of them can clear the monsters in one round, which is a disguised inheritance of the design logic of pursuing short rounds in the past. And this time, the △ button can automatically select the weakness attribute and target the corresponding monster, which can speed up the whole battle rhythm to a certain extent.

In terms of character growth, it can be considered diverse. At the beginning, each character can bring a follower, and which role to bring which follower is the player’s choice, but because there are only 4 people in the battle, it is impossible to bring all attributes in the initial stage.

In addition, as the plot progresses, each character can also learn some passive skills. In addition, according to the plot, Ringo’s dialogue choices can increase the Soul Level of different teammates. The key to new skills.

There are also some side quests in the game, these side quests will affect the content sold in the store, etc., and the indispensable demon synthesis of the series is still alive in this generation, so from all aspects, I have played “Shin Megami Tensei”, Players of the Persona series will definitely get started quite well.

“Soul Hacker 2” is bound to be a time-consuming RPG work. More importantly, although it may be difficult to compare with the world‘s first-tier manufacturers, “Soul Hacker 2” can see that ATLUS has some technical skills. improvement. Where will the final plot develop, I believe players who like JRPG will look forward to this work.

Soulhacker 2 is expected to launch on August 25 on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows 10/11, and Steam.