Stream: Soul Hacker 2
Dive into Soul Hacker 2 through my perspective. This page serves as a living journal, updated daily with bite-sized reviews, exclusive video highlights, and curated screenshot galleries from my adventure.
Victor what are you doing?! Don't give out info!
Oh, this is interesting. Victor seemingly was the one that gave info to Iron Mask about the Zoma (Artificial demon) 6 months before the beginning of the story. Zoma is an experiment made by humans to create a soul from nothing, it usually start very weak and absorb other demons to become stronger. Apparently Zenon wasn't that strong when Victor first saw it and was incomplete.
Victor speculate that it's because it changed it so that it could power up based on the covenant too (and it has 3 of them now). Something happened that allowed Iron Mask to complete it and make it that invincible. The battle against him was a one-sided scripted loss for the player.
Seems like we have a lead at least. Zoma are weak when the new moon is out...so it's time to wait until the next new moon before fighting. Assuming Iron Mask gives us that much time...
First confrontation with Iron Mask
Just continuing on the story of Soul Hackers 2 a bit and we get to the fight direct confrontation against Iron Mask while trying to find Mangetsu. Milady was, as usual, pretty aggressive and tried to attack him, but no real result as this is supposedly the boss of the boss.
Seemingly the enemies have all, but one covenant so they're almost ready to end the world as we know it. How is Ringo going to solve this situation?
Last few game sessions, I was distracted going through the soul-levels for the various characters and doing merges of demon. It can get quite addictive to be honest to try and "get them all" by merging the right demons and farming cash to summon more.
First encounter with Ash
Continuing on the story and, after what happened to the guy from Arrow story, I was expecting Ash to die too, but seems like I was wrong. Which is good as I like her design quite a bit and it's nice to have more cute female characters around (even though Ringo is still way better overall).
Apparently Ash was the girlfriend of Saizo while they were both Summoners trying to survive the waves of the war between groups. Eventually they failed to escape from that scary world, shame to be honest...
Mangetsu where are you?!
We're about to interview the current manager of the orphanage to see if he can give us hints about the journal and the whereabouts of Mangetsu. He seems to be an old operative of the Yatagarasu that "retired" and started working in this orphanage instead. It's honestly a bit suspicious because that doesn't feel like the organization you can simply "retire" from.
That little girl that was shown earlier in the scene is also likely an important character considering the custom model that really stood out compared to the generic models used by the other orphans.
Could she be a new playable character for later in the game? Or at least an important character going forward...
Safe House scenes are quite chill
I like how they just go back at chilling at the base like nothing happened right after the mission with the emotional battle between Arrow and his best friend now turned enemy. Sure there was a small segment with Arrow sulking around at the bar, but it was quickly solved by Ringo talking with him so it doesn't really count does it?
The chase to try and reach Mangetsu continues, but things are getting more complicated because apparently he's been monitoring our progress too. How can you try someone who can see through you and monitor you without even being able to detect him? Need some solid info from some external source.
Mangetsu has a crush for Arrow?!
No, I don't think Mangetsu has a crush for Arrow, but I had to pick the third choice in this specific scene just to make Ringo make everyone laugh a bit. Admittedly though, it's kind of scary to think that your life has been monitored all day long without you even realizing it was happening.
How did he manage to do that considering Arrow was around powerful entities that should've been able to detect Mangetsu spying? (Like Aion for example)
He seems to be the most mysterious character so far, way more than the relatively straightforward Iron Mask of which we know the objectives of.
Mangetsu photos of Arrow
Whoa whoa why does Mangetsu know about our what we were doing and even has photographic evidence? (see the picture of Ringo resurrecting Arrow)
Is someone spying on us as we're playing through the game? Why is Arrow that important to get all these photos? Aion referred to him at the beginning of the game as an important person to prevent the end of the world so he has to be special, but so far he has not shown any particular special power since he lost his covenant.
There's so many questions and very little answers...
Hangout base thoughts
There's one chair available (ignoring the one where Milady is supposed to be sitting), I wonder who's going to be the last character to join us...
I'm eyeing the only girl in the orphanage that shows with a special model and portrait. It was way too suspicious that she was the only kid that actually had one so she has to be important to the story going forward.
Maybe not playable, but definitely she'll have a major role in the plot, hopefully nothing tragic as I'm really weak to those cute characters dying or having a bad time...
Ringo really doesn't like the physical body
Ringo really is against the whole physical body thing isn't it? She made multiple remarks about it being "uncomfortable" compared to when she was part of Aion, but honestly girl just accept it. It's an amazing body to be honest, really like the character design. I should personally thank Aion as they did a great job producing it!
Joking aside, they did a great job with Ringo design, she has that futuristic look to put her out compared to the normal humans while also looking attractive to the eye. Figue design is also good even though those flashing legs are...
Discovery of Safe House
I guess this safe house will be the base from which all the operations of the team will start from. Sort of a hangout for the characters in between the missions where you can rest and maybe adjust your equipment. Probably we're going to get most of the lighter tone stories happening here while they're eating or just simply talking.
I wonder if it's safe to use the old base of Arrow though, wouldn't the people who targeted him already know where he was hidden?
Ringo Soul Hacking Explained
Seems like Aion developed a technique (that Ringo can use) to hack into the soul of the recently deceased called Soul Hacking (which fits considering the game) and revive them as long as they agree to it in a limbo-like exchange with Ringo.
These individuals get bound to Ringo completely and lose their contracted demons (that switch owner to Ringo instead), but I guess it's better than dying. Curious to see how many characters we get in total playable. Will they be just enough to fill the party or will we have extra character we need to slot in and out depending on situation?
Gameplay thoughts
The gameplay seems to be similar to all the other games of the devil summoner/megami tensei series, even the skill names are pretty much the same of what we're used to (Agi, Agilao, Maragi, etc...). So far so good, you go around fight demons and eventually try to small talk some of them into joining you to bolster your army of demons for all the needed situations (all enemies have different weaknesses that you need to exploit).
I'm guessing the demons will be able to be merged too creating that pokemon-like minigame where you want to "catch them all". I'm not huge into collecting, but I can see why people like that.
Let me continue and see where it goes from here.
Aion, that smells like a huge powerful AI system
Ok started now with Soul Hackers 2. Seems like the story follows Ringo which is an entity created by a supercomputer called Aion that oversee the entire world as a sort of "observer". They detected something that could destroy it so they want her to investigate and stop these bad actors before things run out of control completely.
The idea is that there are a few key persons that need to survive and Ringo/Figue need to reach them and save them before they die at the hands of the villains.
I have to say that Ringo's voice in japanese is so soothing that I could listen to her for hours.
Death End Re Quest 2 Journal Completion
I completed Death End Re Quest 2 just now (it was downright amazing). I really got angry once we got to know the truth behind Mai's situation and the real culprit behind all this madness...
Thankfully it was an happy end so Rottie and Mai can be happy together. I'll write a post on it soon that you can read on the main blog.
For your information, the next game I'm going to start is Soul Hackers 2.
I found a good offer in a shop online and I heard good stories about it online so gotta try myself. It's an Atlus game so I'm not too worried as they usually are high quality.
