Better known in the West as simply Soul Hackers when it was finally localized via its 3DS port, this is the sequel to the other SMT Saturn game, Devil Summoner. It was the next stop in my SMT series chronological playthrough after Persona 1, and I finally got around to playing it. I'd heard a lot about it, and conflicting things, namely that it was both far harder than Devil Summoner 1 and also that it was way easier, and I honestly can see where both of these opinions come from, but I'll get to that later XD. It took me around 45 hours to get to the end of the Japanese version of the game on real hardware.

Soul Hackers is, as the name suggests, a story about a group of hackers. You play a member of SPOOKIES, a hacker group living out of a supped up trailer truck in the new high-tech Japanese city of Amami. A true city of tomorrow, it contains the HQ of the tech giant Algon Soft, who have just launched their new VR world: Paradigm X. You hack into this world to get access to the very exclusive launch, and very quickly find yourself embroiled in a larger plot involving demons, devil summoning, and a quirky and playful demon named Nemisa who takes residence in your friend Hitomi's body.

I both like Soul Hackers' story more and less than Devil Summoner 1's story. On the positive side, I really like how there isn't some big bad demon behind everything at the end, pulling the strings of mortals to fulfill its wishes. In a much more straightforward and easily analogous to reality way, human greed for more capital and power (in this case coming from the tech sector) is what's plunged the world into peril via their misuse of demons. On the other side, you have the new cast of characters of the SPOOKIES. They're both a plus and a minus, as while they're a really fun cast of characters that add a lot to the character of the game and to the city, they're also not really given enough attention to really meaningfully add to the game outside of what they do for plot stuff. There's a few attempts here and there, but they come off as jarring more than anything else with how much they clash with the more somewhat wacky 'monster of the week' episodic nature of the dungeons you're going into and characters you're meeting (not unlike the more casual ghost-busting formula of Devil Summoner 1). It's something that isn't so much done badly so much as it left me wanting for more, so while Soul Hackers more or less has a better story on paper (particularly with its themes and how they're executed), I still prefer Devil Summoner 1's narrative.

The gameplay of Soul Hackers is the at this point very familiar routine of dungeon crawling while recruiting demons through bargaining and conversation all the way (and fusing them to get new stronger demons), but it's the final time a lot of its mechanics are actually done in one of (what I would consider) the mainline SMT and SMT-adjacent games. This is the last one to do first-person dungeon crawling, this is the last one to have magnetite as a mechanic, and this is the last one to use a demon loyalty system. Thankfully, they manage to end it all on a real high note, and it's one of the best executions of these mechanics yet. The dungeons are very well paced and have their difficulty balanced quite well (for the most part). They have very very little mean design and are generally very approachable and forgiving. They have healing spots and save points in more numerous locations than previous games, and the auto-map you can access even shows them on the map as well as traps you encounter, so you have far less cause to use the markers you can place on it (although the option is certainly nice).

The improvements to the demon loyalty system are well worth elaborating on, though. In the two Devil Summoner games, demons don't just join you: they have personalities. Different demon personalities will like to do different things (not be told what to do at all, prefer to heal, prefer to use physical attacks, prefer to use magic attacks, etc). In the first game, they had these personalities and it would dictate how they would fight if you let them pick their own moves, but to get them to listen to you and go against their natures, you'd need to ply them with gifts and alcohol, and it'd never go up any other way. In Soul Hackers, instructing your demons in battle actually makes their affinity for you go up, so getting loyal demons is WAY easier now. It makes the demon personality system actually a lot more fun to engage with, as even demons with inconvenient personalities can have those personalities changed to something else temporarily. I'm still not sure it's actually a good addition to the SMT formula, but this executes on it WAY better than the previous game did, and even if it isn't outright good, it's at least fun this time.

The last positive mechanical thing I wanna mention is the way your GunCom (your gun-shaped portable computer) works. It's what you use in the Devil Summoner games instead of the arm-mounted Power Glove-like computer of previous SMT games to summon and interact with demons. But in this game, you can install software onto it (apps in the 3DS version) and this software allows you to get certain abilities when you're out in about. These abilities can range from giving you a mini-map to preventing back attacks to giving you better/more likely item drops to even being able to save anywhere. The apps are a really cool and good idea with giving the player more choices on what kind of run they wanna do. Do you wanna err on the side of caution and use 2 of your 5 app slots on being able to save anywhere, or would you rather have no back attacks and the ability to recruit dark-type demons in those slots instead? It's a great addition to the game's formula, and I'm almost a little sad it never got the chance to come back (because they both stopped using this style and the new Soul Hackers coming out is pretty clearly just gonna be another Persona game).

On the more negative side of things, the game's balance is good and the information provided you is too, but not always. Bosses in particular can be really brutal roadblocks at times, and a lot of that has to do with the spell set you give Nemisa. Now unlike the first Devil Summoner game, where they made it very explicit when you were deciding your female partner's spell list and what you were giving her, in this game there is strangely 0 indication that you're doing that. This wouldn't be quite so much a problem if her electric skillset weren't SO much better than the ice or fire ones, as TONS of bosses are strong against or outright absorb ice and/or fire while comparatively very few do that for electricity. Your demons are useful, sure, but Nemisa is one of the most hilariously powerful human companions ever in an SMT game, and she's where the bulk of your damage output will come from, so making it so easy to screw yourself into a MUCH harder time is something I have a hard time forgiving the game for given how the first game very deliberately avoided doing that. It's not a huge gripe, but it's something to be aware of for sure.

The presentation is once again excellent. Tons of demon sprites have been reused from Devil Summoner 1, but a lot of them have been changed or upgraded too, and I was pretty surprised at just how many new or altered demons there were. Character designs are very pretty, and the environments and battle animations have also gotten a big graphical upgrade as well. This all comes at the cost of some longer load times, unfortunately, but I didn't find them too painfully long myself. The music is also once again excellent, having a more upbeat and funky OST than earlier SMT games, and it's a soundtrack I dig a lot~.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. Out of all of the old SMT games I've played, this is easily the one I recommend the most. It's got a good story, fun characters, good balancing, and good dungeons, and it's even available on (mostly) modern hardware via the very good 3DS port! If you were gonna give any older-style SMT game a try, this is definitely the one I'd recommend first and foremost with just how approachable and forgiving it is.

I haven't been introduced to Atlus until the DS generation, so going back to playing their older games starting with Soul Hackers on the 3DS in 2016 was eye-opening to say the least. Let me preface by saying I have no problems playing "old and dated" games, but there's a lot of things wrong with Soul Hackers that I legitimately don't get how the game is perceived to be "good".

Sure, Kazuma Kaneko's art is amazing (I prefer Persona 2-era onwards though) and the game's premise was interesting. But those aren't enough to redeem the flaws that makes the game mediocre. Dungeons are very badly designed, and the demon loyalty system is garbage. Story ends up being very lukewarm as well. What confuses me is none of its peer JRPG series that I adore like Breath of Fire, Suikoden Final Fantasy or even Dragon Quest had this much fundamental flaws.

I've yet to be proven wrong at this point, but old Atlus is pretty much throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Which is good because they've figured it out in Nocturne and I've always enjoyed everything they've released onward.

A 2019-era me rambling review:

More of a “Persona 0” than Shin Megami Tensei If….

What do I mean by this? Well for starters alignments are replaced with a Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy-esc straightforward story and set specifically within a location focusing on multiple characters changing over the course of the plot. SMT if… was interesting because it brought the school premise but Soul Hackers from a writing perspective was the refinement of the formula (boy isn’t it weird how Shadows appear in this one).

The only real difference between this and Persona is that the gameplay here is more fun than you’ll ever get in Persona 1-4 (I have not played 5 at the time of me writing this).

This is the fabled "Persona with adults" and it's amazing.

Awesome soundtrack and atmosphere. Gameplay is actually surprisingly cool and a clear evolution of the SMT 1&2 battle system.

Nemissa my beloved.