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Fynn's Gaming Journal!
Inspired by Pumpkin's Video Game Diary, I've decided to have a journal of the video games I play as well.
The rules are generally similar to what Pumpkin does, if you're familiar with her Diary (and if you're not - what are you waiting for?) with the main difference being I'll be a bit more opinionated in my reviews :p I'll still try to avoid spoilers and give you warnings if the review does begin to stray into spoiler territory.
So here's how this'll go:
- I'll be writing reviews of games as I complete them. I'll begin this thread with a couple of reviews of things I've beaten recently - don't get used to that. I like to take my time with games, so this won't be updated too frequently.
- Feel free to hop in and discuss the games I review with me and others interested in the subject! This is what this thread is for.
- I will link the reviews in the first post. I'll also have a Currently Playing thing so that you know what you can expect to be reviewed next. I'll also do Pending Reviews for games that I've beaten but not written reviews for yet. I can get a bit slow with my writing, sadly.
- I will write a review for games I've replayed, but if I replay it again, I won't clutter this space with more reviews of the same.
- If a game has additional content that I haven't done yet but plan to return to one day, I'll write a full review of the base game first, and later do a follow-up review for the additional content after I finish that.
- Just like Pumpkin, I'm a sucker for good characters, so I'll list the characters in the order I rate them when I can. Sometimes, though, I'll play games with no characters or characters that just don't grip me at all, so then I'll either just skip the character section or make a Special Character Mention bit if there's one or two I did like.
- I will also post a verdict! There is no specific scale I have in mind, but I will sum up the review with a list of pros and cons, as well as specifying if I can recommend this game and if yes, to whom.
- Be prepared for ranting and gushing with some (hopefully) insightful analysis thrown in for good measure. Spoilers will be clearly marked!
Hope you guys have as much fun as I intend to have with this! Don't be afraid to contribute and I hope you can find a game that interests you from my list!
Currently Playing:
Icewind Dale II
Pokemon GO
Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius
Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Pending Reviews:
Fantasy Life (base)
SMT: Devil Survivor Overclocked
Pillars of Eternity (base)
Undertale
SMT: Strange Journey
Pokemon Black
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
THE REVIEWS
SMT: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers
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Neat! Looking forward to some of those upcoming reviews already~ :jess:
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Imagine you're in the 90s again. Aside from some questionable fashion choices like agent Dana Scully's gargantuan shoulder pads to The Rock's fanny pack, as well as the obsession with angels in various areas of pop culture, we had this weird trend involving technology. The Internet was in its infant years and at that time, it was a downright magical concept. With the Internet, you could do anything, go anywhere, influence the world however you choose, with characters often portrayed as traveling through cyberspace in a literal sense Hackers become wizards who can work miracles by cracking a code here and changing a source code there.
So now that you have that mental image, throw in some demons, government conspiracies, and Native American vision quests, and you've pretty much got Soul Hackers.
A 3DS port of a Playstation port of a Sega Saturn game previously only released in Japan, Soul Hackers is a loose sequel to the first entry of the Devil Summoner series, released on the Sega Saturn and later ported to the PSP, which has to this day not seen a release in the West. The Devil Summoner series is in turn a part of a larger metaseries that may be known to some of you - Shin Megami Tensei. There. Hope that wasn't too much to process.
Don't worry about that little "Japan-exclusive" detail - the story of Soul Hackers stands well enough on its own and requires no knowledge of the previous installment's plot to fully appreciate it, though there are a couple of nods to the first game sprinkled here and there.
In this game, you play as a silent protagonist who lives in Amami City - a city that up until just a few years ago was a quaint village, but has undergone a rapid technological development, causing it to become incredibly high-tech. It's so high tech that it has a virtual reality called "Paradigm X" that its citizens may access, as long as they have signed up for the beta in time. You start the game by breaking into the system along with your childhood friend/girlfriend Hitomi. After a number of flashy animations of you diving into the depths of cyberspace to secure your own ticket, you succeed by replacing some shmuck's name with yours. Talk about classy!
And you can do all of that because you're a part of a playful group of hackers called the Spookies, led by Spooky who has the voice of Liam O'Brian and looks like Fox "Spooky" Mulder from the X-Files. Subtle. Things start to get interesting as the group gets tangled up in a tangled web of conspiracies that seem curiously linked to Paradigm X and the mysterious gun-shaped COMP that Spooky finds. To make things even more interesting, while touring the virtual city you encounter a Coyote-looking being introducing himself as Kinap, while Hitomi gets possessed by Nemissa - a demon whose personality couldn't be more different than hers.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, really, as the story unfolds at a moderate pace, serving you bits of a very interesting plot at even intervals as you traverse dungeons. Of particular note are the Vision Quests, where you control other Summoners during the final moments of their lives, unraveling pieces of the underlying conspiracy. Throughout the game I felt constantly on edge, eager to find out what happens next, which is something I think every good video game plot should do. The characters, while they don't talk too much, especially compared to later Atlus titles, have very vibrant personalities that really make the world come alive, at the same time making you really care about what happens to them. Of special note is the relationship between Hitomi and Nemissa which develops throughout the game in a direction I didn't quite expect.
Story aside, Soul Hackers may seem like a regular dungeon crawler, but it has aged surprisingly well. The 3DS port doesn't really change much from the original, even keeping most of the basic UI with minimal use of the upper screen's 3D, but overall the old-school 3D animations add more charm than any newly made cinematics could have. All the dungeons are in first-person with some really impressive 3D backgrounds and drawing distance, barely showing the game's age. The press-turn system that has made SMT so popular in the West is nowhere to be seen, so battles are played out in a regular turn-based fashion. Your party can consist of up to six party members, including your protagonist (who is a purely physical fighter this time - he will learn no spells whatsoever, so don't even bother investing in his magical stats), Nemissa (now she is your magic juggernaut if you build her right), and up to four demons received either through negotiation or fusion, as expected from an SMT game.
I don't recommend filling your party up to the brim with demons, as there's a couple of things you should keep in mind. Soul Hackers is unique in that it's a, um, "newer" game in the SMT series in tone, being lighter, easier, and a bit less dreary than mainline SMT games, but it retains several elements from the older games that haven't been seen since. One such mechanic is Magnetite, the demon currency, which can not only be used to negotiate with demons, purchase them from the compendium, etc., but it also drains with every step you take depending on which and how many demons you have summoned. Each demon has an individual Magnetite cost that determines how much Magnetite you will lose for having them in your party with every step. If your Magnetite is down to zero, your demons will start taking damage until they die. And you don't want that.
Another returning mechanic is demon alignment. Your human characters don't have alignments, but all your demons do. Besides the regular law, chaos and neutral alignments, there are also two "extreme" alignments. You have to be careful what alignment the demons you have in your party so far have, because that will influence what other demons you can summon. For example, neutral demons will be okay with any other demon, while lawful demons will tolerate all demons aside from extremely chaotic ones, and extremely lawful won't let any shade of chaos enter their party. It may seem difficult to master, but there's actually enough demons of each alignment to build a strong, reliable party whichever alignment you like better.
Demon negotiations play out in a similar fashion to later SMTs, allowing you to either ask a demon to join you or give you something. Sometimes you'll need to try several times to get the result you want, but taking a risk may pay off handsomely, so don't stop negotiating! A unique feature to the Devil Summoner series is the loyalty system where your demon likes you more and more if you have it use abilities that correspond with its personality, resulting in a more obedient demon that is even better in battle. It's good to keep in mind what your demons like to do, as demons with full loyalty are an incredible asset to your team.
Early on you'll get access to a unique demon that bypasses not only the loyalty system, but also drains no Macca. It may seem weak, but stick with it, as you can fuse it with other demons to make it become more powerful, changing shape in various ways along the way.
Keep your Zeed happy and you'll get by no problem. Although, as I mentioned before, the game isn't really difficult. It may be more challenging at certain points to those unfamiliar with this particular subgenre, but the 3DS port graciously allows you to change the difficulty level at any time with no penalty whatsoever!
Here are the character, listed from my favorite to least favorite:
http://statici.behindthevoiceactors....6.91_thumb.jpg Hitomi (voiced by Cassandra Lee Morris) - your childhood friend, heavily implied to be your girlfriend is a sweet, caring individual who is all to excited to be a part of Spookies.
http://statici.behindthevoiceactors....91.9_thumb.jpg Nemissa (voiced by Laura Bailey) - a demon who possesses Hitomi. Direct, rash, and proud, she seems to be a polar opposite of Hitomi, but they actually share much more in common than you could expect. She takes control of her body during battles.
http://statici.behindthevoiceactors....28.7_thumb.jpg The Protagonist - though silent, there's a lot to like about the protagonist. After all, it's you! Though he does have some amusing responses to demon conversations, and I have to admit, I love the devil-may-care attitude his character portrait is radiating. Dat buzzcut. Dem bandaids. Unf!
http://statici.behindthevoiceactors....29.7_thumb.jpg Spooky (voiced by Liam O'Brien) - your Mulder-looking leader of the Spookies who may be just a tad bit too curious for his own good.
http://statici.behindthevoiceactors....ckers-1.22.jpg Six (voiced by Sam Riegel) - one of your seniors at the Spookies, he tries to act cool, but has a curious tendency of losing his temper because of a certain younger member. Has a mysterious past.
https://shortcut-test2.s3.amazonaws....gawa-lunch.jpg Lunch (voiced by Todd Haberkorn) - a genius hacker who always tinkers with the hardware. Doesn't get along with his father.
http://statici.behindthevoiceactors....ckers-8.41.jpg Yuichi (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) - the youngest hacker in the group who thinks hacking is all about fun and can get pretty reckless when trying to prove his worth to his fellow Spookies.
All in all, I really enjoyed Soul Hackers. It was quite short and easy for an SMT title, but it added to its relatively light character. It's surprisingly easy to get into for such an old game, and the characters of Hitomi and Nemissa, with their turbulent but ultimately sweet friendship was nothing short of fantastic.
THE VERDICT
+ Great characters
+ Intriguing storyline
+ Fun demon conversations
+ Easy to get into for a MegaTen game
- Some dialogue recordings are much more annoying than others
- The game can get too wordy at times, and there's a bunch of features that are pretty redundant
- Sometimes getting demons to do what you want them to may be difficult due to loyalty system
- Ending is a bit underwhelming
I RECOMMEND THIS TO: people who are looking for a nice throwback to 90s era cyberpunk or want to get into the SMT series after Persona
FYNN'S FINAL ONE-WORD VERDICT: TUBULAR!
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Seems pretty complex and I am not a fan of the style, but I will probably give this a try!
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I mean, yeah, it's obviously not for everyone, but it's certainly less challenging and daunting than most SMT games, which makes it one of the better entry points into the series proper.
It's also much less spooky-scary, though it does have its dark moments.
