Soul Hackers 2 is the latest JRPG from developer Atlus, and takes many of its queues from the publisher/developer's other recent titles, like Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster. While we enjoyed our time with the title, we too found the experience was held back by the title's aggressively bland dungeon design and stripped-back structure.
In the latest episode of Digital Foundry, Eurogamer's specialists take the title to task in the technical department. While they note that combat animations are excellent, and the art design reflects Atlus' sky-high standards, they slam the game's lighting, and lack of texture variety, noting that the techniques used aren't significantly more advanced than what can be found in similar PS3 titles.
It's well worth a watch, especially for those of you who are more technically minded, and the points made are worth considering if you are still on the fence on this one. That being said, there is still a lot to love in Soul Hackers 2, so long as you can get past its more simplistic technical design.
Did you pick up Soul Hackers 2? What did you think of it? Search your soul in the comments section below.
[source eurogamer.net, via youtu.be]
Comments 21
Just wait until it gets a Switch port and the good folks at DF will write an article about what a miracle of coding it is. EG will probably retroactively recommend it as well.
@Amnesiac
Lol. So true. Everything just magically gets better on Switch for some reason.
This release really is messy. Those Xbone numbers are unbelievable. SMT V even runs better, and that featured enormous environments, more advanced visual techniques, more enemies on screen at once, etc. and was exclusive to potato hardware.
That this isn't easily holding 30fps at 1080p on PS4 is, frankly, a little shocking.
@Ralizah I don’t think it was ever meant to be demanding; the issue probably lies in Unity and the team not being experienced in it.
If this project was an experiment to determine whether unity was a good match for SMT style games I think we can say this project shows it isn’t. That said I’m playing it on PS5 and enjoying it.
I haven't had any real technical issues at all personally though i am on PS5. I do agree the dungeon design could have been better but I've really enjoyed it for the most part. My second favorite game of the year so far only behind Elden Ring. To each their own I guess. 🤷♂️
@mousieone Clearly. Atlus also doesn't typically do multiplatform releases like this, which probably didn't help either.
The Xbox One S version is pretty unacceptable though. Something is clearly wrong with that version. Makes one wonder how a Switch version would have performed!
I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. the technical stuff etc doesn't bother me much, esp for games like this.
@Korgon haven't had any technical issues either and I'm playing on a PS4 slim. It was my most anticipated game this year and i'm having a nice time with it. The Soul Matrix is a cool concept but the grid style maps of it is a lil much at times. Other than that, really cool characters and the comforts of a JRPG are there. Enjoy!
@straw-hat-crew
Yeah in particular the 4th level of Saizo's Soul Matrix is a nightmare!😄
@OneWingedAngel @Amnesiac Sad but true, the double standard especially at DF is really getting out of hand. With certain members more than others.
It runs and looks infinitely better than SMT V did. It would hit such low resolution (and lack of AA) that cable lines became dashes. Not seen that in a game in over a decade
But the nonsense of making background enemies run at 3 FPS is the worst!... it drives me nuts. Just make them static at that point.
If people can deal with SMTV on Switch, they can deal with Soul Hackers 2
@Ralizah Artdink did the Xbox and PC ports. Atlus only had to work on the PS versions.
@Korgon hahaha that's exactly what I was thinking of when I made that comment. Def had to use a guide for it. Arrow's 4th FL is no joke either. good luck the rest of the way!
@mousieone I've actually not heard quite as many complaints about the performance of the PC version, despite the dire state of the last gen Xbox port. Seems to be the best way to play the game, currently, even with middling hardware.
Honestly, I'm running in on Series S, streamed to a phone/Kishi setup, and it runs great. I'm sure it runs worse on PS4/X1, but still, I'm not sure what the complaints are about.
My only real complaints about it is almost all my time has been spent in the soul matrix and that blue tile dungeon forever and ever that looks like it came from Tron gets really old, really fast, and the LOAD TIMES are insane, even with SSD, and you have to do multiple loads to re-enter your floor in the soul matrix.
I do have frequent stuttering problems that I at first thought was the game, but then I tried the Diofield demo and it was doing the same thing, so I'm not sure it's the game.
@NEStalgia I thought that about the load times too - but actually they're really short, at least on PC. For some crazy reason, the box with the tips text is set by default to display for 10 seconds between each area. If you go into the menu and either set it to "button skip" or switch it off altogether, you'll see what I mean.
@metak Ooohh! That's a great tip! I'm going to have to try that out later on, thanks!
@metak That was a fantastic tip! You're right, especially if you just disable them, loading is as fast as you'd expect. That's crazy that they used tip dialogs to actually hold back the load speeds by default and then have to go through 3 loads to get to the soul matrix!
Unfortunate to hear, though I don't see myself playing this until they finally get around to remaking the first Soul Hackers game.
Tap here to load 21 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...