Soulhackers 2 sits on my entertainment console. The disc was purchased second hand from somewhere, and spins quietly in the PlayStation 5. For the last few days, I've had my first exposure to the Persona style devil summoning that many gamers have enjoyed for years heaped upon years.
In this truly virtual world, resembling a Japanese technopolis, physical manifesations of AI, Ringo and Figue (pronounced Fig) emerge from Aion, a super powerful intelligence that wants to come along and save humanity - but not in a menancing way.
In a way that "this thing is happening in slow motion, and someone has to stop it before the acceleration of it all prevents us from being able to ever prevent it." It is a dark story, with soulhacking (as the game's title implies) enabling those who are dead (in limited situations) to be ressurected from the dead.
This comes in handy as the investigation into the antangonists begins in earnest, and the story starts to unfold. The only problem with the story (apart from very shallow explanations behind the science fiction involved in the setting) is the pacing.
Story elements are short, and broken up by long periods of grinding and sidequests, if you want to be able to progress with comfort through the main plot. As a result, it feels as though the main story is episodic and built around the grind, but that tends to be a feature of JRPGs, and well, Soulhackers 2 is indeed a JRPG.
There is nothing offensive or terrible about this formula, and I knew what I was getting myself into over an Easter long weekend. I have, after all, seen my wife play through Persona 5 Royal for weeks on end. Soulhackers 2 is a much more tightly packaged, smaller game, with probably less to do, but just as much tactical depth.
The game doesn't hold your hand too tightly with all of its varying combat mechanics, but that's good. Discovery through trial and error is the way most learning is done, particularly when it comes to enemy weaknesses.
And those weaknesses are important, particulary when navigating through the Soul Matrix, where Ringo delves through the past of each of the party member's past memories and forges stronger bonds with them, unlocking additional skills.The dungeons you traverse through a needlessly tangled mazes, and the typical JRPG mechanics of go here, now go there, now back to here, then back to there.
It is frustrating that the mature story is interrupted by such things, but in a world where "play time" is everyting, it really frustrates instead of being a well told story and an experience to truly cherish and remember.
The game is about a six out of ten as a result, as people who are not fans of the genre will likely not put up with such nonesense and see it as a waste of time. There's no point doing busy worlk and running backwards and forwards unless it is doing genuine exposition, character building, or something unique mechanically.
Sadly this game, and so many others, entirely miss the mark on that.
