Soul Pirates 2 It sees players trying to save the world with the help of demons that the player can summon, but the futuristic turn-based RPG rarely rises above the sum of its parts. Although technically the latest entry in Atlus’ larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise, Soul Pirates 2 It differs from both the main Shin Megami Tensei titles as well as the Persona sub-elements. It shares some similarities like summoning demons and the like, but remarkably it has a lot of science fiction undertone with premise about technology, humanity and the way the two intersect. However, unfortunately, this intriguing hypothesis is not enough to advance Soul Pirates 2 Beyond just fine.
The game begins with players wearing the shoes of Ringo, the personalized agent of Aion, which is essentially a giant, emotional digital conglomerate. She and Figue, a similar agent, are tasked with stopping the apocalypse despite the fact that Aion does not traditionally interfere in human affairs. But troubled times demand desperate action, and so the two must get their newly created hands dirty in order to make things right.
Only, things don’t go well, and suddenly Ringo finds herself forced to use Soul Hacking to bring back three different people – Devil Summoners, all of them – who are connected to her quest. Arrow, Milady, and Saizo were different types of Devil Summoners before their deaths with different ideas about the fate of the world, and while soul hacking connects them to Ringo, it doesn’t completely change their views.
In terms of actual gameplay, this narrative idea allows Ringo to explore the memories of those three characters through Aion’s Soul Matrix, which is basically just a digital dungeon that unlocks skills for Ringo and each individual character as the player delves deeper. The closer the player gets to each character, the higher his spirit level, and the higher his spirit level, the deeper the team goes into the dungeon.
Unfortunately, the Soul Matrix is a very repetitive and lengthy attempt. It’s basically just a bend and twist in turning nothing but paths, demons, and stairs down or up. It’s an incredibly stressful experience for a place that aims to gain new levels and abilities, making an already boring grinding process all the more dull.
It also doesn’t help that dungeons outside the Soul Matrix are equally repetitive and boring. The first 10 hours or so of Soul Pirates 2You can expect plenty of wandering around an abandoned subway line before then…walking around another deserted subway line.
But if you really want to know what’s going on with Arrow, Milady, and Saizo (and live to fight later), the Soul Matrix is an absolute must, and other dungeons are required by the story. Locking Memories and Markup Key items behind dungeon levels also sets up some weird beats with some items coming in too soon or too late to have a real impact.
The combat, fortunately, is at least interesting. Demons can be summoned and assigned to many characters, providing different abilities and resistance, and weapons – called COMPs – can be upgraded regularly with items from defeated demons. Battles usually start with randomly generated puzzles, roaming dungeons and running to the player or with the player running towards them, and then it all depends on the turn and about who can defeat the other first.
Unlike many other video games in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, hitting weaknesses during combat simply doesn’t allow for an extra role. Alternatively, hitting a weak spot with an ability that adds to the stack to attack is at the end of the player’s turn where several demons that are with the player’s team can join together to launch an all-out attack. This is called the Sabbath, and there are even some abilities that only fire during the Sabbath or cause some kind of effect on stack, enemies, etc. It’s a relatively simple mechanism to understand that can be complex to master, and it certainly adds intrigue to every fight.
The mystery underlying Soul Hackers 2’s core is promising and its battles are powerful, but frequent dungeons combined with serious speed issues make it hard to actually enjoy. The music and artistic direction, as is typical of Atlus games, are excellent, but behind this style, unfortunately, there is not as much substance as one might hope is worth the time invested.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Soul Pirates 2 It is scheduled to release on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC on August 26. The publisher provided a PlayStation 5 review code for the purpose of this review.
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