hey, all. if you notice a thumbnail change, it's because i'm trying to see if it'll improve the video's performance. i may change it back if i don't notice a difference. support the channel on patreon for update posts and early access to videos: 🖤 www.patreon.com/bubbletea_

@eyoshinthemaximum

11 ай бұрын

Bold of you to assume that if Persona fans made a game it would be comprehensive and not creepy

@Technonova323

6 ай бұрын

Didn't see the old one, bc I'm only watching it now. But did it work tho? I'm curious

I feel like the reason why ppl want a persona with adults is because people who played persona in high school are now adults

@sonicsucks2961

Жыл бұрын

Or because P2EP is kino and we simply want to replicate it.

@aegisop4862

Жыл бұрын

Woah todd howard finally Speaking facts

@CasuallyConsistent

Жыл бұрын

@@sonicsucks2961 p2is I basically the same and you are in fact a high schooler in that game

@LizardKingRequiem

Жыл бұрын

Theres literally a persona game with adults in it. This idea aint new and it aint sumn ppl recently started to want

@gamercow4297

Жыл бұрын

@@LizardKingRequiem yes persona 2

I think that in trying to make a game that appeals to everyone in the various parts of the MegaTen fandom, they ended up making a game that appeals to no one in the various parts of the MegaTen fandom. It lacks the things about Persona that appeals to Persona fans such as the strong characters and narrative, but it also lacks the things about SMT that appeals to SMT fans such as the challenge and ideological conflicts. It tried to throw all of those things together but stretches itself too thin to make all those parts work (minus the challenge, even the free DLC extra hard mode wasn't too difficult). It's not a horrible game by any means, but it doesn't have a unique identity within MegaTen nor a strong focus on anything that would intice newcomers to explore the franchise.

@athorem

Жыл бұрын

It's definitely less refined of a niche than Persona or SMT considering it's trying to be both of those mixed together. The low sales likely reflect that. There could be a place for this kind of game though. I think people who have unsuccessfully tried to get into mainline SMT after getting into Persona would be able to get into this game. Soul Hackers could work as a bridge for people who think the jump from Persona to SMT is too jarring

@scofield117

Жыл бұрын

It also lacks the things that appeal to Soul Hackers fans, such as the 90s cyberpunk vibe and retro futurism.

@jeezycreezy4220

Жыл бұрын

​@@scofield117 since it came to the west much later, it's easy to forget that the original Soul Hackers is 26 years old now, so what we now see as "retro futurism" was at the time of the games original release not "retro" but was seen as a realistic idea of what the future could look like.

@Santoryu90

Жыл бұрын

That’s fair

@maramba32

Жыл бұрын

How is soul hackers 1 then on the 3ds?

This game gives me the vibes of a Persona enthusiast inside Atlus deciding to make a sequel for a game he never played because he liked it's name.

@skywoofyt5375

4 ай бұрын

*MegaTen enthusiast. cause let's be honest, none of us will be able to make a game.

This truly was one of the games ever made

@DIEFORME173

Жыл бұрын

Indeed

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

12 out of 10

@drowningin

Жыл бұрын

This comment is getting old. I've seen it commented on every movie, game, song in the past 6months

@karatellamoment7426

Жыл бұрын

@@drowningin 🤓

@eW91dHViZSBpcyBjZW5zb3JzaGlw

Жыл бұрын

01 out of frog

I'll admit, you got me with the thumbnail. Despite being concerned I was about to waste 38 minutes of my life on clickbait, as soon as you addressed the thumbnail I was like, "okay he actually has a point." Watched the whole rest of the video and left satisfied.

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

don't worry. i wouldn't say such a thing unless i meant it.

@KawaiiJackHonne

Жыл бұрын

​@@bubbletea_NGL man you're kinda startin to sound like a biiig elitist

9:35 "Why does this game love subway so much?" you asked, because it saved them the trouble of making the surrounding scenery and skybox. Cost-cutting at its finest.

@BladeMasterIcarus

Жыл бұрын

hmm let me think of better scenery that don't get stale after hours of gameplay: underground shopping mall, catacombs, office buildings, powerplants, a mansion, the sewers, a sports arena, a road tunnel. I'm pretty sure they could've found a way to reuse the same three skyboxes and still cut cost. If they were going to have not that much variety in the game's scenery then they might as well have made the game's dungeons shorter.

@The_Gronne

Жыл бұрын

@@BladeMasterIcarus Yeah and what game have we seen tons of levels of subways...? Reminds you of anything? Rhymes with "My mentos"

@dmaa88

5 ай бұрын

A sky box is fairly easy to implement, but scenery dressing is definitely one of the reasons to use "clean" looking subways.

@ajflink

5 ай бұрын

​@@BladeMasterIcarusEverytime a sewer level is mentioned, Civvie 11 has an existential crisis.

This game made me realize that SMTV despite all it flaws is still a great game.

@alsaiduq4363

Жыл бұрын

Great is bit too much. It's good..

@eternalsuffering7374

Жыл бұрын

@@alsaiduq4363 Tied with SMT4A as the best gameplay ever in the series. the story is a mess however yes.

@1SecondToLight

Жыл бұрын

exactly this

@themasterladisaster4336

Жыл бұрын

I would not say great. It does combat very well. The rest eh not so much

@drowningin

Жыл бұрын

The combat is great. The story was meh. The art style was really good. I like the 'filter' the monsters had on them, the darker edges. Made them seem really creepy

21:00 clearly the virus was like when Yugi fused his Mammoth Graveyard to Kaiba's Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon by using an arrow card, zombifying it to make it lose attack By which I mean I have no clue how she managed that at all

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

lol

i like how they had to add the ability for ringo to sprint as a post launch update. priorities

I’m happy for the people who enjoyed SH2 but personally I wish that instead of even making it, Atlus just put those resources and effort into making SMTV a more well rounded experience.

@nr2676

Жыл бұрын

Or remaster Digital Devil Saga and Raidou games.

@BanksySCII

Жыл бұрын

@@nr2676 or make another actual devil summoner game. With rei or a pre raidou or in-between raidou and kyouji devil summoner game time frame. Or a game playing as kyouji as prequel to the first devil summoners

@yusufyasaf8010

6 ай бұрын

Sh2 is my favourite smt game and I agree

@anarche4900

5 ай бұрын

Silent hill 2

@RumorBB

4 ай бұрын

Well guess what

Going by interviews and the like, it seems pretty obvious that the creators, the same people behind TMS by the way, just wanted to create their own Persona game rather than actually make a Devil Summoner or Soul Hackers game. As such, just as with TMS, they just take the IP they were handed and slapped it on top of their Persona fan creation. So calling it a game made by Persona fans seems quite apt.

@skywoofyt5375

4 ай бұрын

what's TMS?

@matteste

4 ай бұрын

@@skywoofyt5375 Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or as it was originally known, Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem.

@paperfaceguy

4 ай бұрын

@@matteste devil survivor still the best

@AzureGreatheart

6 күн бұрын

I like TMS, but more as its own thing than as the crossover it seemingly started as. If the teaser for that game hadn’t been shown, I think most people would still be ambivalent towards it, but there wouldn’t be any hostility like it ended up getting.

This is what you get when you try to appeal to everyone but by doing so it appeals to no one

"there are 3 subway dungeons in this game!" *nocturne flashbacks*

I honestly feel like the problem with Soul Hackers 2 is the story feeling too rushed and feeling very linear. Beat a Dungeon, safe house, new Dungeon and repeat. It felt like there was no real exploration of the world, just ham fisted exposition.

@choco699

6 ай бұрын

might've been a while the real issue with Soul Hackers is there is no real "flow" to the game its shoving a bad copy of the smt formula into gameplay that doesn't fit the franchise my first thought when i started playing was... "why does it feel so stiff??"

@demored3017

5 ай бұрын

then every dungeon outside of the final dungeon was bland and lifeless

I have to say, the english voice actress, Megan Harvey, for Ringo is amazing. She adds the perfect mix of charisma, sarcasm, and care. It's _so_ hard to do right. She took a really mundane and uninteresting story, and injected a lot of life and interest into it. I swear, if she wasnt reading the lines, I dont think I would have stuck with it.

@FhtagnCthulhu

6 ай бұрын

This, 100%. She is carrying a lot of weight.

In short It's Persona without the heart.

Something that struck me during SH2's final dungeon was that P5S was a better cyberpunk game. SH2 barely does anything with its futuristic-looking setting, and the only part where the tech level matters at all is the finale, with the OMNI System suddenly becoming relevant. Said OMNI System is also a one-of-a-kind piece of outright magitech made by a Covenant holder, and is so powerful that the lack of a subplot involving espionage and/or government intervention with the thing is just silly. Meanwhile, P5S's EMMA is a souped-up version of modern convenience technologies that provides commentary on surveilance capitalism from the very beginning of the story, well before it becomes clear that it's actually the main villain. You could set SH2 in the present day and the only thing that changes is that you'd have to actually justify Aion instead of shrugging and saying "it's the future in a Megaten universe, of course there's a machine spirit".

@ryokiritani4187

Жыл бұрын

They somehow made a futuristic cyberpunk game, a genre that heavily criticizes greed and aggressive capitalism, with day 0 dlcs

@matteste

9 ай бұрын

Man, you really know you have screwed up your cyberpunk game when modern Persona can be considered more punk than it.

@skywoofyt5375

4 ай бұрын

​@@mattestetbf, societal reform (what the P5 crew were trying to do) is a VERY punk thing

@matteste

4 ай бұрын

@@skywoofyt5375 Now it would have been so much better if P5 "actually" tackled that topic rather than dancing around it. Like, it is trying to appear like this punk work, but at the same time it is like it is afraid to step on somebodies toes. The whole thing ended up more of a standard power fantasy than any kind of social commentary. And I think that is quite sad given that the early trailers for the game really seemed to imply it was gonna go full hog into that territory, only for it to turn into more of the same as the rest of the Neo-Persona games.

@skywoofyt5375

4 ай бұрын

@@matteste tbf the game was made in Japan so idk how much flak the upper class there would give Atlus for making an actually good commentary on their brutal and cruel system but yeah, i share in your disappointment, they did amazing with Royal's additional story tho

Saving this video to come back to after finishing the game, but I wanted to add my (mid-game) thoughts, which kind of turned into a novella, but anyway: I think SH2 is a solid mid-tier SMT game. It feels like the devs could have made a truly great game out of it, but were constrained by a lack of time, budget, staff, and/or other support. As it is, it's... fine. Decent, even. Fun enough. Probably worth its price tag. For perspective, I consider myself a fan of the idea of SMT, and a fan of the execution of modern Persona (3 through 5). I've tried other SMT umbrella titles (SMT3 mainly, but also earlier Persona games and a few other SMT spinoffs as well), and while I enjoyed the act of playing them for a short while, I never got hooked on any of them the same way. SH2, for whatever reason, be it characters, story, presentation, or something else, is sticking with me better. I think Persona's success (especially post P5) has been both good and bad for SMT as a whole. We have fewer games being made and fewer risks being taken: fewer new subseries, fewer sequels to existing subseries, and it's debatable how much Persona has to do with that, vs. games just being more complicated and taking longer to make nowadays. What Persona has done is raise the bar considerably higher to measure what "success" looks like for non-Persona games. That's bad because what would have otherwise been a success can now be seen as a failure, but good in that there's now more drive to make these new games better so they can hold their own. I'd like nothing more than for every new SMT game to stop being compared negatively to Persona. It's almost always people talking about plot and/or characters like those things are exclusively Persona's domain: SMT5 was judged for not having a focus on those aspects when SMT never really has historically, and SH2 is judged for being too similar to, but still worse than Persona, because it's trying to do more than SMT5 did but in a different way than P5. Story and characters aren't a Persona thing, they're a "good video games" thing, and they don't have to be ignored to have the world tone or strategic depth that longtime fans want. It doesn't have to be a choice between a hard-core game or a game with good writing, and a game that's both is going to appeal to more people than the same game with poor writing. Isn't that a good thing, shouldn't every Atlus fan want more fans throwing money at the people that make these games? They don't make more games unless they're making money, and they don't make money if they don't reach enough people. Tough dungeon crawling niche games don't have enough fans, but you can make that same game with a more interesting story or character cast and more people are going to want to try it. When I think about the future, I'd like a wealth of SMT style Atlus subseries being supported that each hold that SMT core, while each having their own unique style and standing on their own merits, appealing to different subsets of fans of this style of game. We don't need a bunch of different "Discount Persona" games, we need games to appeal to the non-Persona crowd that can still dip into some of the huge Persona customer base. And I think SH2 is hopefully the first step towards that. I have kind of started looking at SH2 the same way I do Persona 3. From what I understand, it's significantly different from the first Soul Hackers, and people are upset about that, or accusing Atlus of stealing the name of an existing property to try and boost sales. That sounds an awful lot like how different P3 is from the first 3 Persona games, and we all know how well that drastic change to the Persona formula panned out. P3, the first of its kind, became the template for the rest of its series. Innovation and evolution is good, and judging by Persona, there can be value in radically reapproaching an existing IP from a new direction. I don't think either SH2 or P3 is a masterpiece, but without P3 shaking it up, we never would have gotten P4 or P5. And it feels like right now, we're in charge of how Atlus acts in the future. If SH2 isn't viewed as a success by Atlus, we can probably say goodbye to lofty ideas of an SMT umbrella. Mainline might still be around, in its backburner capacity, but why would Atlus keep devoting time and resources to non-Persona, non-mainline games, when everything they make is judged unfavorably, compared to their golden child, money-printing Persona? On the other hand, we can back SH2 for what it is: a decent attempt at a revival, and give this game the attention and money needed in order to give this dev team a chance to show us what they can do when they're let loose with more at their disposal, whether that future game is Soul Hackers 3, a different subseries sequel like a new Devil Survivor or a sequel to TMS, or something entirely new under the SMT umbrella. I'm confident that Atlus is using SH2 as a trial run to decide whether new non-Persona SMT games are worth the investment, and accepting SH2 for what it is and supporting it is the only way we get to that bright future where SMT fans get lots of games again. Being grumpy that it isn't enough like Soul Hackers 1, or isn't enough like Persona, or is too much like Persona, is the path towards Atlus deciding it isn't worth it, and us only ever getting Persona games after this. I'm not suggesting we can't criticize it. I'll happily talk about both what I like about it, and why it falls short of greatness for me, and I think everyone should be doing that, to give Atlus some idea of what the fans care about and want. But when every review mentions Persona, and many boil down to "Persona but not as good," that makes Atlus think Persona is all anyone cares about anymore, and worse, it turns away potential sales from people who hear that and decide to just stick with Persona. Obviously nobody but Kotaku can be responsible for what Kotaku says, but we can all do our part to approach SH2 as its own new thing, discuss it on its own merits and flaws instead of through the Persona lens, and yes, buy it even if it's not a 10/10. Persona 5 broke the ranking scale in a lot of ways, and SH2 doesn't have to be at that level in order to be fun and worth playing.

@athorem

Жыл бұрын

Good read. Agreed

@Tech_Thrasher

Жыл бұрын

My thoughts exactly

@ultracapitalistutopia3550

Жыл бұрын

SH2's issues are not unique to Atlus/Sega. Square-Enix's recent new titles like Harvestella, Valkyrie Elysium and DioField Chronicles all suffer the same issue: small budget for a relatively small team to develop a console title, thus their gameplay loops dry up incredibly fast for the first few hours of normal playthrough. In the end, money talks.

@yareyarejose5080

Жыл бұрын

on one hand i kind of agree with you, on the other i see sh2 as more of a continuation of tokyo mirage sessions (same leads i think) and i would much rather avoid that. if sh2 is where smt games are going, then i want no part of that-i would rather it be the devil survivor games, which did pretty well.

@BladeMasterIcarus

Жыл бұрын

@@ultracapitalistutopia3550 A small dev team can put out a good title with some of those constraints though. I believe the problem was going into a persona style level of gameplay for the direction. I don't believe that a small dev team could make a persona style level game on a small budget with publisher constrains. Now that is impossible for Atlus to make a cheap like persona on a SH2 budget due to any persona like game requiring more resources. A better direction that steered any from too many persona like gameplay elements in favor of developing more to establishing the game's core identity. The game needed to become more than just a discount persona.

It really feels like they designed the main character first and worked everything else around Ringo, and it all feels kind of cheap.

Everyone should play Devil Survivor 1. It's easily one of the top Atlus games that isn't just Persona. If anyone has the opportunity to play Devil Survivor 1, do so. Play 2 if you really liked 1.

I remember talking to a friend about our expectation for Soul Hackers 2 before the release. We joke about how the game will be like persona with varying levels of character development.

I just wish it kept the same specifically 90s cyberpunk aesthetic of the first game.

It's soul hacking time

i love to watch ppl nerd and give information abt games and anime. it’s so helpful with my stress when i’m going through stuff. thank you for this video

I"d say the dumbest thing about this game is how they for some unknown reason made it a default option for the game to have "loading times" so you could read the "tips" between locations. I played through the whole game before realizing there was the option to turn off this lag between going to zone but because of the loading screen I lost the desire to play through the game again to see other routes/scenarios. It just mystifies me that they would have an option that makes it appear that their game had bad optimization when the reality was the game was able to seamlessly load between locations.

@Madokaexe

6 ай бұрын

Wait, are you for real? I didn't know that lol

Hot take (apparently?), Randomized dungeons are some of the most fun parts of persona games. P3 Tartarus, and P5 mementos were very fun imo, though p5 floors were a little too short.

@mikeb497

4 ай бұрын

Randomized dungeons never seem to add anything significant. It always felt lazy. I'd rather take handcrafted dungeons over randomized any time of the day. The only good parts of mementos and tartarus was the dialogue between the party members

Style over Substance: The Game

@Chelaxim

Жыл бұрын

It barely had style

@ArshadZahid_nohandleideas

Жыл бұрын

@@Chelaxim that too, but I can at least see others being into it, mayhaps tea (comma) bubble himself?

Dunno, I as a Persona fan, always wanted to P-Studio and RGG Studio collab into one game series, that similar to Rockstar Games "BULLY", but more mystical.

@ChrisStoneinator

Жыл бұрын

Actually the best request from a Persona fan I've ever seen, that would slap

@RaspyCh

8 ай бұрын

Finally, a good wish/request from a persona fan

Plot sounds really convoluted, thanks for your review, good work

Hey man good video! It reminds me of going to some random restaurant and getting a pretty good stake I appreciate it

I think the biggest issue with it was it needed more time to develop the ideas, as you said things get set up then resolved moments later, if this was a longer game with more fleshed out dungeons with a better/more relaxed pacing, it could have been a lot better. Same goes for the combat, the idea of stacks and sabbaths are interesting, yet I think they should have expanded on it more, let people go crazy with it, allow for people to gamble there stacks between turns to rack up higher ones, or have more skills that rely on it~ Good ideas, just not explored enough~

Let's just hope that Atlus is willing to give them the Persona treatment and take in player feedback and come up with some sort of a remake like Golden or Royal did.

Figue simping Raven for literally no reason. Man... the ending was so trash. But the bad ending is a little better.

@GilgaMax305

Жыл бұрын

Omg bro, I agree...It felt so random, when Figue suddenly gives so much of a shit about Raven. There wasn't a good enough reason for her to lose her shit because of Raven's death. Terrible writing

@juanhurtado7244

Жыл бұрын

@@GilgaMax305 Yeah! was mission accomplished world saved, and she charge for a quick soul hack. So many random "plot twists".

@stevendelancy6421

Жыл бұрын

Ok glad am not the only one who thought I miss something... Maybe a hint?

@kichiroumitsurugi4363

4 ай бұрын

@@stevendelancy6421 Well, it exists...in one of the DLCs

I personally enjoyed the game and characters.

@pobbityboppity1110

27 күн бұрын

Gottem

The game might not be amazing, but Shirow Miwa's character design doesn't miss I love their artstyle and how they do colors.

A lot of SH2 just felt incomplete to me. Some really intriguing character and story moments got dropped midway through. Atlus has never been great with plot consistency, but the whole covenant arc felt like a trainwreck. Arrow not losing the covenant when dying would have stopped any party from completing their set. Covenant holders sensing other ones didn't seem to work for Figue for no clear reason. Not sure if they wanted to foreshadow Aion actually being the reason everything turns to shit

The bad ending is more satisfying tbh.

Is it just me or does SH2's visuals look like it could've ran on vita? Really makes you wonder why there wasn't even a switch port.

@TheHeartThatRunsCold

Жыл бұрын

Well there were reports of optimization issues on PC, that probably has something to do with it. Something about how this game runs just doesn't utilize hardware properly, and they'd have to do a great deal to make Switch performance feel decent enough.

@hypotheticaltapeworm

Жыл бұрын

@@TheHeartThatRunsCold I think he's playing the XBox One version with a bad capture card so it looks kinda crunchy.

@zombiethieves3736

Жыл бұрын

@@hypotheticaltapeworm He said he was playing on an old laptop with low settings.

I hate the fact that atlus constantly ignores their older series in favor of persona spin offs, and when they finally take the time to make something for their older fans it's either a persona remake or a cashgrab like soulless hacks 2 or a an unfinished game product of development hell like smt5.

Soul Hackers 2 tone sucks especially when compared to the first game. I actually want some of what Soul Hackers 1 was, except better executed on modern consoles. More inspiration from mainline SMT than Persona too.

I feel like Atlus should have more time to make a story to make sense, gameplay, characters, style all that also the release date I feel like November or December should be those months to have more time also. If they were doing the persona stuff wait for the development of those games and finish the main project which is Soul Hackers 2

This game would be way better if it wasn't named Soul Hackers 2. They made a devil summoner game and you can't even summon/see your demons. If they named this shit idk "Ringo" i think i would've like it more

Persona without Person.

@nevergonnagiveyouupnevergo2795

5 ай бұрын

a

I Don't know why this video was in my notifications. But good video Essay.

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

thank you

The story sounds like they made up stuff as it went along and didn't revise their writing afterward. Meaning it sounds like a first draft

My favorite moment is when they’re examining a stalker board or something and and red dudes there (can you tell I was invested) and the green lady I think (mind you both are there) says something like “*gasp* they’re following you” like no shit dude there’s a board full of photos of the guy and your both there and he’s like “*gasp* for real!?!” Like yeah. Yeah dude. For real.

I still can't help but love this game. It's just... Really is my kind of a game. Can't quite put my finger on the reason why.

@tteister

6 ай бұрын

I personally have a love/hate relationship wt the game and for me the main reason I keep coming back to it is that I find it SO beautiful. It's just so pleasing to look at a it and listen to it

@azure4622

6 ай бұрын

Everyone has that one game, for me it's starbound, i would never recommend it or call it good but i can't help but keep it as a favorite of mine.

i do like Soul Hackers 2 i just really HATE the fact that certain DLCs are locked behind digital pre orders (Rip Physical fans like myself) and locked behind the deluxe edition. It’s such a bad business practice

As someone who played Tokyo Mirage Sessions and every other SMT game and spinoffs including Personas my main gripe was I hated stacks instead of press turns the COMP system was cool but it felt like mirage sessions system a bit but that system was actually super fun and the abilities you get were crazy like ignoring affinities to activate a 12 person chain of amazing idols kicking ass with a fire emblem twist it was great anyway TLDR: This game felt like they didn't utilize the mature cast or setting to it's full potential what I mean by that is everything I encountered in this game didn't feel innovative or as stylish as Atlus's other titles. I mean it's placed in a cyber punk setting but none of the cities are cyber punk at all and most just look like regular old settings. I got bored but finished the game out of obligation and min maxing

What upsets me most about SH2 is that it’s just made with such little care. Why even invest any time at all if you’re going to half ass it? The answer is probably money, obviously, but that kind of proves my point: they made this game with no passion. And I’m sure some developers within this team really cared, but the higher-ups especially didn’t. And it’s been like this with Atlus for years now. SMT V had a decade long cycle and yet felt aimless and had shockingly little content. Other than Strikers all the persona spin-offs were lame or cashgrabs. And the enhanced releases all suck. I miss old Atlus

@demi-fiendoftime3825

Жыл бұрын

SMT V had its writers leave 2 years into development and they were left without a writeing team and basicly what notes they left were stitched together. The big Problem with modern atlus is most of the veteran staff moved into studo Zero to work on Project Re:Fantasy and most of the young blood wants to work on the series that put Atlus on the map not the other franchises and since the veterans are takeing their sweet time on their new project theirs nobody to realy properly manage the rookies. Hell Persona 6 is probably going to be a very different animal from 3-5 as the entire core staff that made that version of persona is working on Project Re:Fantasy now. It's the same problem Game Freak had had since gen 6 and that is the veterans wanted to experiment and make things outside their core money makeing franchise as they were board doing the same thing again and again so they left the rookies to do their job for them while they do whatever they want resulting in the quality of the games dropping like a rock as the rookies don't have the same experience the veterans have and they don't even have many supervising them to point them in the right direction something that was only recently fixed when Nintendo put their foot down after the flop that was little town hero and told the veteran staff to get back to work on pokemon and that's why Legends Arceus turned out well as it had more experienced devs working on it for the final leg of development. The same problem is happening at atlus and sega needs to tell Studo Zero to shit or get off the toilet and actually help the new kids make stuff on their level of quality instead of piddleing around on one project for over 5 years with nothing to show anyone and a Catherine remaster. Soul Hackers 2 and SMT5 are good but very flawed games and you can tell just by playing them that these were made by inexperienced newbies and not the people who have been working on SMT and persona between Nocturne and P5 and its high time Atlus Adresses this problem and it's probably the reason the writeing team for 5 left

@aquano1972

Жыл бұрын

@@demi-fiendoftime3825 I hope at least Re Fantasy will be good at least

@nicolasteixeira6448

Жыл бұрын

@@demi-fiendoftime3825 I can see Atlus making Persona 6 a Persona 5 Royal - 2, I don't think they will change or upgrade regarding a lot of stuff P5R had like the combat system, social link or slice of life stuff. They will probably pick everything they had going for P5R, port it to Unreal Engine and develop a new and good story on top of that with good characters, that is if they don't copy the same character tropes they did with P5 or mix said tropes with P3, 4 and 5 characters (at least a Makoto type character is a guarantee, considering how popular she is in Japan and in the west), and in the end it will sell well, make the company happy and a lot of the Persona playerbase that started with 5 happy too. Maybe they will try a higher bet with 7.

I asked my mom for this game on my birthday and to this day I still feel bad for not finishing it cause I dropped it cause it’s of the soul matrix it although I’m debating on going back and giving it another chance after the recent update

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

you could beat the game without finishing the soul matrix if you feel you have enough skills on your party members. you just won't get the "good" ending.

Thanks for recommending this game to me. I’ll buy it when it’s on sale. Really wish it released on the switch for portable play. Wish u well

Omg I'm close to the end

God ringo's design is fantastic though

I will say this game made me retroactively enjoy SMT5 more, so that's nice

You do mention how they wanna use nostalgia for the first game but it barely has anything to do with the first game at all outside of a few returning characters

I like how Digital Foundry called this game a “Persona lite” and everyone got SO MAD IMO it’s entirely accurate

Where Soul Hackers 2 went wrong was it's existence.

I legitimately believe that the only appealing aspect of Soul Hackers 2 is the music. that being said, *I can't find it anywhere!*

1:59 Funny, I was just thinking about that.

I played it last month together with the lost numbers dlc and had previously planned to get the good ending and all trophies. In the end I had 40 out of 47 trophies and not the good ending because no guide had said anything about 100 for all of them and I was too broken by the teleporters in the Soul matrix to replay the necessary part for all of them.

I feel like the game was a half baked SMT story concept with half baked Persona gameplay mechanics.

Man, I remember the song from 23:55 but I can't remember where from. Feel like I spent a lot of time hearing it.

I never understood why people want persona but with adults. Is it cause we've had most of the games mostly consist of teens and they're tired of it? Or is it a more lewd reason cause fan service and such??

@matteste

4 ай бұрын

I think is a bit of that first thing, but also they want the games to deal with adult topics and themes, things that are relatable to an adult audience. This is most likely due to the fact that most who were introduced to Persona back in the day are now adults.

@lawrencelopez9839

3 ай бұрын

having the cast in school does limit the plot and people you can meet in some aspects. All adults were teens once so anything with teens will be relatable. But how many games where the points are 'authority sucks', 'teens saving the world', 'everyone wants to gossip about you', and 'there's a non-human mascot trying to find out what it means to be human' do people need?

soul hackers 2 is the reason why we cant give anybody outside of the protagonist, the wild card buff, lol and there are wayyy too many things to upgrade for a game that is ungodly short and passionless

I noticed that some of your videos are missing like the video essay on the first Soul-Hackers is their a reason?

I agree with pretty much everything you said in this, game was pretty meh. But the whole time I was thinking how did you miss the skill expansion. It’s in the upgrade shop, how did you spend time jamming to the background music and miss that. Inflicted paralysis on my brain

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

the skill expansion is actually gotten through talking to the ringo apparition at the entrance of the soul matrix, not the COMP Smith (which i never did and feel dumb about still).

@threatdownSA

Жыл бұрын

@@bubbletea_ now i feel dumb about being wrong. missing those makes way more sense to me

just like what certain youtuber said we're our own biggest enemy

Something I wondered while playing the game is that there's the entire idea that a covenant leaves a body if the person holding the covenant dies, right? That's like the main driving force for all the murder in the game. So why did Arrow not lose his covenant when he died at the beginning of the game?? Am I missing something? Or is that just a massive plot hole?

Truly a game of all time

Game was great, it's obvious it was built around the excellent combat system which is great if you take the time to unlock it all and master it. You really need to focus on making your stack as big as possible to make fights super quick. If it was taking you 20mins on any fight you were doing it wrong.

optimistic part of me hopes they listen to the feedback and make new spin-offs based on the feedback pessimistic part of me thinks that it might be the end for spin-offs due to low sales let's hope the optimistic part wins

@connorharnage6697

Жыл бұрын

For most companies I'd say the second one is more likely but this is Atlus we're talking about so I think that optimist option would be more likely

I always wanted a game were you just control 4 persona instead of playing as yourself and you are like a persona trainer or something. Ah Pokémon like game but with story and shin Megami gameplay with fusions and a bigger persona variety. For me that is how soul hacker should be, a Pokémon like game were you can have 4 different persona at the same time, so this would increase the difficulty and keep while having all the amazing gameplay mechanics from shin Megami and persona. I find this concept impossible to fail to be honest, this would be an amazing game.

As an adult that never played Soul Hackers before...I quite enjoyed it...but in the future I hope it's able to get more support the same way Persona would grow up to be. There really is potential for this series.

Interesting

The arrow guy looks like dante from that hated devil may cry reboot

This game is basically FF13.... but with no love or care put into it

@a_brodo3158

4 ай бұрын

How so?? I genuinely see no parallels at all other than the weapon upgrade system at a stretch?

That was the plot? What in the world...they must have really rushed this game. Makes no sense considering they wanted this to be another pillar franchise for them.

Too bad you only control 4 people instead of 6 slot parties like in the first SH1

Yep the soul matrix thing is one of the main reasons I quit after like 2 hours of play.

I enjoyed this game but I have also enjoyed, Persona games, the SMT games and spin-offs. I don’t understand the whole battle between Persona people vs SMT people. Let’s give them both love ❤

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

i agree.

@lemonlime8949

4 ай бұрын

You don’t understand it because you don’t see how Persona damaged everything else.

@personamaven9466

4 ай бұрын

@@lemonlime8949 You are right, I don't understand. I feel like SMT is harder than Persona games. You have to put more time and energy into your gameplay. Persona is more laid back and fun. I honestly love them both and I don't see how Persona ruined SMT. To each their own.

@lemonlime8949

4 ай бұрын

@@personamaven9466 dw I’ll explain. You’re absolutely right that persona is more laid back, with its slice of life anime style to it. Ever since Joker joined smash bros it has led to an influx of insufferable weirdos (which is what a lot of the smash community is) and sadly they’ve got their hands on the gem that is persona. The fanbase has never been as terrible as it is nowadays. That doesn’t change the fact that Persona is still amazing, but when you see what’s happened to the fanbase, as an SMT fan you can’t help but be incredibly scared the same thing will happen to your games.

@personamaven9466

4 ай бұрын

@@lemonlime8949 Thank you for the explanation and now I understand what you are saying. Not a smash fan myself but I do know the community you speak of. I can't say they are all bad but like with everything there are the norms and then there are the exceptions. I just want to keep loving and playing the games I'm passionate about.

Played soul hackers 2 for a few hours bc it is on gamepass in prep for persona 3 reload, it has cool aesthetics and I like ringo

@lemonlime8949

4 ай бұрын

Play smtv

@NepheneeGyattRizz

4 ай бұрын

​@@lemonlime8949SMT V is so mid

@lemonlime8949

4 ай бұрын

@@NepheneeGyattRizz gameplay wise, no, story wise, sure.

It's a low budget, low effort, premium priced piece of Atlus shovelware. Cel shading doesn't disguise the fact they've been using the same demon models since Nocturne in 2003. That's almost two decades of literal asset flipping. Let's not even mention the UI is recycled straight from SMTV and the corridor-box-corridor dungeon "design". Do better, Atlus.

@a_brodo3158

4 ай бұрын

They haven’t though?? They replaced the demon models in persona 5 and even replaced some of them for this game too

You are the awesome soup

What’s the song at 2:29?

I picked up a physical copy of this for PS5, but might leave it unopened due to i have a feeling this didn't sell super great. I will instead probably play this on my xbox game pass since they added it there at some point, but in your opinion would you say this or P3P would be best to go to next I know both probably have their faults :P though I also need to pick SMT5 back up on my switch as I had started it and put it down. Too many RPG's out there and just not enough time in the day when you're plowing through 100+ hour games. So far I've beat P5 & P4G, eventually plan to replay through P5R, but still going to take a little more time before i hit that I think.

Spoilers ahead!? Damn, i'll have to wait and come back to write a complaint with the new bubbletea video.

it was an alright game, idk if I will go back and play it like I did with P5, P3, SMT3. If it is on a good sale I would say pick it up. Then again I also had no hope or expectation for SH2

BUBBLETEA , I have one very important question to ask you. Can you please tell what was the song in the conclusion time stamp of the video Best version of every persona game? I know it's some kind of a remix of whipping all out from P3 . BUT I CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE :((((((((

@bubbletea_

Жыл бұрын

it's from persona 3 dancing. it's literally the first result when you search "wiping all out remix" on youtube.

@justnickplease5756

Жыл бұрын

@@bubbletea_ thank you very much, my bad for not seeing it, but of course the part I like starts at 1:20 and I skipped over the song 😔

Figue is like a bad version of Dr. Maruki. 🤣

Mom can we have Phyconauts? No son we have Phyconauts at home. Phyconauts from home: Soul Hackers

IGN: *Soul Hacker 2 is Soul Hackers without the heart*

ANOTHER seris spinning off from another? But that was what Persona was to Shin Megami Tensei!!

I wish we got Devil survivor 3 .

Good Video. I have this to say though: This game is getting major flack from the community for things that SMT V did way worse. This game's story wasn't the best ever but it was better than SMT V's story. But in stark contrast to the way people judge Soul Hackers 2, due to the fact that SMT V doesn't spend as much time on its story there are a lot of fans treating SMT V's lackluster story like it doesn't matter to the overall quality of the game. Megaten fans treat mainline SMT with a weird double standard where they look past a lackluster story if the game is fun. I know for a fact that Megaten fans don't do the same for non-mainline. Even though it was convoluted and messy, the journey in Soul Hackers 2 didn't feel pointless. The journey in SMT V did feel pointless. The entire time you're being an errand boy for the Prime Minister and Bethel until the final part of the game where it feels like the game is saying "Okay, all that stuff from before didn't matter. You can pick your ending now". And as far as the characters go, there is really no contest. Which character is better: Ringo or Yuzuru Atsuta? Saizo or Ichiro Dazai? Soul Hackers 2 wins and it's not close. I wish megaten fans who excuse SMT V's lackluster story would apply the same fine-toothed comb that they're using to find faults in this game's story to the stories of mainline games including V.

@ShaimingLong

Жыл бұрын

For me, I feel both were a bit of a let down, but for different reasons. SMT V definitely does have that long fodder of doing inane jobs like it's a form of filler to get you up to level for the final act where things at last get interesting again (the beginning being the only time prior for me). Even then, the endings felt a bit too blatant with the law/neutral/chaos choice. I much preferred SMT III and to a lesser extent IV, where your choice was built from interactions with the pillar characters through the story. Gave me too much of a Mass Effect 3 vibe, even if there was a fourth ending to kind of make up for that basic trinary choice. With Soul Hackers, I think it was the combination of the blandness of the dungeons along with being a bit too much like Persona with the gameplay. It was easy becoming over powered, but I liked having a little army of demons in the first game. The trailer even made it appear to have that kind of battle system, though I was expecting it to be closer to SMT V by having a few rather than five active at once. Sure the story was rather cheesy and didn't make all that good use of the cyberpunk setting, but at least it was character driven which does seem to be Atlus' wheelhouse these days. Plus the dub was surprisingly good, the actors seemed to into playing their roles. I was expecting a much more average performance given it's been a long abandoned sub series, not even trying to leverage the Persona or SMT name.

@athorem

Жыл бұрын

@@ShaimingLong I'm a bit surprised with the comparison with Soul Hackers 2's gameplay to Persona. Maybe you could say it's similar to Persona Q or the old Persona games with every character being able to switch personas/demons. But the Sabbath system was more of its own thing

@ShaimingLong

Жыл бұрын

@@athorem Oh, yeah I should have been clear on that. I did mean the early games with everyone equipping whatever demons you had available, so your characters tended to change skill sets often. I had forgotten PQ let you do that, actually. I have mixed feelings on the Sabbath system, I generally preferred the press turn system, but then I much prefer it over the all in system. It also gives quite a nice little dopamine hit when you end up with a large stack and you get to see your little horde just nuke your foes!

Fixing Soul Hackers 2 1. Make playable characters look better. Compared to older Devil Summoner games, Soul Hackers 2 characters look gaudy. 2. Add some environmental challenges and design on the soul matrix dungeons. The soul matrix looks boring, really. 3. More challenging gameplay. You can punish enemies because of their weaknesses, but they can't do the same? They are demons and devil summoners!

@kichiroumitsurugi4363

Жыл бұрын

Yea, at least the summoners should be able to use a Sabbath on you as well - would make things like Kaburagi and Iron Mask much harder too

Pretty much all you say sounds good to me XD

I agree that the majority of the fan base for smt are adults. It honestly would expand the world if you played as an adult in the adult world instead of school. Could even have a funny moment where you run into a phantom thieves esq group and make fun of their ambiguous ideologies. Like playing adachi but your a good guy.

@nickelakon5369

6 ай бұрын

Most of the older megaten games were about adults, or at least college aged characters. But atlus seemed to have decided with smt iv final that they want to go with highschool aged protags from now on, they even changed the ages of that cast during development, nanashi was originally shown to be at least flynn's age.

@pablocasas5906

5 ай бұрын

The thing about Shin Megami Tensei's fanbase being mostly adults is kind of ironic considering that the last 2 mainline SMT where released on both the Nintendo 3DS and Switch, which many people consider consoles that target a more younger audience, and it wasn't until recently that Atlus decided to port 3 mainline Persona games to the Switch, while Shin Megami Tensi V is still stuck on the Switch without any news if it's going to get ported to the PS5 or Xbox

@kichiroumitsurugi4363

4 ай бұрын

@@pablocasas5906 Well, that aged well

@pablocasas5906

4 ай бұрын

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 yeah, I'm glad that more people will be able to experience SMT V, it seems the reveal trailer for Vengeance amassed over 2 million views so I hope that the game will be successful. The regular version managed to sell over a million on Switch alone, I don't know if people will double dip on Switch, I'm not expecting a Persona 5 Royal situation, but this could be an important moment for the SMT series On the other hand, just a couple of weeks ago the Persona team got interviewed and they asked them why they didn't make a Persona 3 Reload version for the Switch and they answered that they never intended to release the game for the console, they didn't mention that it couldn't be done due to hardware limitations and it seems they said a port could come later, they just didn't think about it. Considering that the Switch has sold over 140 million units, 32 million in Japan alone, one would think they would've wanted to capitalize on that user base. We'll see if P3R will be ported to the Switch or if it's going to arrive to the Switch's successor

I feel like the main reason this game doesn't click with me is that It tried to do what smt 4: apocalypse tried and that was try to combined both aspects of Main line Smt and Persona despite the two being different ends of the spectrum when It comes to story, characters and gameplay in Smt case it focused more on the combat and dungeon crawling gameplay and the story being more focused on the ideologies and the world it self rather than the characters while Persona focused more on the day to day life gameplay and the story focusing on the characters and the situation they get caught up in what I'm saying is that atlus tried to appel to both fans that are on two end of the spectrum but didn't do too well. But that's my opinion.

@nr2676

Жыл бұрын

Even funnier, they did that even earlier with TMS and Devil Survivor 2, like Atlus / Sega higher-up's always telling them to make a game for Persona and SMT fans for better sales. Every Megaten player know it would never work, but that studio trying to do this THIRD time in row !!! Zero creativity.

@alejandrouscanga1004

Жыл бұрын

Funny enough I checked out the interviews for apocalypse and it turns out this there a bit of a debate between the older staff and the younger staff with how the game should be made the older staff want to do what they usually do with smt while the younger ones wanted something more 'sweet'

@nr2676

Жыл бұрын

@@alejandrouscanga1004 You mean anime tropes ?

@alejandrouscanga1004

Жыл бұрын

I think the appropriate term that some fans from the smt community called it diet persona