Soul Hackers 2 is like the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Megaten. I don't think I've fully processed that it exists, even like a year and a half after finishing it. I think of this game often. It just confuses me - it's like the ultimate monkey's paw. They made a sequel to a 1997 Sega Saturn game that offers basically nothing to someone who loved the original, aside from some terminology carried over.

This game is fine - and I think that's what makes me so bitter towards it. They specifically selected one of the most unique, rough around the edges Megami Tensei games and sanded all of the interesting features down into something more digestable for general audiences. Things like demon loyalty and zoma fusions had so much more potential, but instead of exploring that they were just stripped and replaced with a combat system reminiscent of modern Persona. Dungeon design is repetitive, as is the music. They added in a pointless mascot character, there's nostalgia baiting content locked behind a paywall, and even the game's special Jack Frost variant was only obtainable by pre-ordering.

So many things about this game just reek of marketability and someone in a suit making the decisions, which is pretty funny considering it spends time critiquing capitalism and exploiting nostalgia.

Ringo is a very cool character. There are some standout tracks in the OST too. It's just not enough to justify the rest of the game for me. Some people see that this game is functional and has characters and argue its reception was unfair. I also knew people who saw Crystal Skull as their first Indiana Jones movie who said the same thing.

Un jeu qui respire l'amour pour son matériel d'origine, à savoir l'univers RoboCop de Paul Verhoeven, mais souffrant bien trop de tares techniques pour proposer une expérience totalement plaisante au joueur.

Le titre est victime d'animations d'un autre âge et de cinématiques frôlant parfois le ridicule rappelant les heures les plus sombres de la PS2. Malgré un mode performance activé les chutes de FPS sont aussi trop nombreuses pour être oubliées, et l'action en devient ainsi parfois horrible visuellement.

Rogue City s'amuse également parfois à rester sous les 60 images par seconde ou encore à faire cracher votre console plusieurs fois sans réelles raisons...

Le sentiment de jouer Alex Murphy sauve néanmoins le tout et la violence qui se dégage des affrontements reste un gros plaisir, remémorant ainsi les films décomplexés des années 80/90. Le tout accompagné d'une histoire réellement sympathique s'imbriquant intelligemment entre l'épisode 2 et 3 de la franchise, et mettant en avant plusieurs personnages et échanges intéressants. Le scénario propose par ailleurs quelques phases d'enquête certes anecdotiques mais agréables, permettant au passage de découvrir toutes les facettes du métier de son protagoniste, et ceci sans oublier une mise en avant des traumas d'Alex Murphy suite à sa dualité robot/humain avec son homologue RoboCop.

Au final le jeu est imparfait mais demeure une expérience sympathique débordant de bonnes idées comme d'une réelle volonté d'aborder toutes les qualités de son univers éponyme. Une production prouvant au passage la montée en puissance de son studio même si il s'agit d'une progression qui se fait petit pas par petit pas.

Un FPS en somme aisément recommandable pour les fans de la franchise ou amateur de shooters bourrins mais pas au-delà d'une trentaine d'euros.

Look at all of you. Complaining about superfluous issues in your vidya. "Waaah, the story's unengaging! The aesthetics aren't as good as nocture/sj/whatever! They changed the gameplay! Too few save points! It looks ugly!" WHo fucking cares bro. This shit is the best playing megaten and it aint even fucking close. Does anything else really matter?

Perhaps blowing my load a little because I haven't fully completed it, but I think I can safely say this is the best game it probably could have been. Top notch gameplay, basically every change made to the battle system from 4 is objectively better (them removing smirk entirely, changing how light/dark attacks work, changes to buffs/debuffs, STATUS AILMENTS BEING ACTUALLY USEFUL).

And sure, maybe the story isn't as engaging as your personas and the like, but you know what this game has that those dont. Fucking cutscene direction. God, after playing FF10 and this I have no idea how the fuck people ever put up with peesona 5's decade long cutscenes of models standing there and doing absolutely nothing but a couple of stock animations. Jesus, jrpg fans have been putting up with that kind of shit for too long.

Anyway. Game's fun. Aesthetic's cool. Doi's design work has increased tenfold from 4a and SJR. I like running around the mountains collecting shit. Sidequests perfectly alleviate any need of grinding while giving you fun new content. Ratio. L. You fell off. Stan Bladee.