YMMV / Soul Hackers 2

• Annoying Video Game Helper: One of the most consistent complaints about the game upon its release was the fact that Mimi just won't shut up, whose shrill voice constantly repeats lines as soon as anything happens. So often in fact that the lines can end up overlapping. The party banter during combat can similarly fall into a similar situation as every action leads to someone saying something.
• Contested Sequel: While few fans would call the game outright bad, opinions on the game's merits compared to the original range so widely in both criticism and praise, it's likely no two fans will come away from it feeling the same way. The setting in general divides opinions between those who like its new ideas and themes while still remaining futuristic, while others feel it does little to work off of what the original game established, let alone as part of the Devil Summoner timeline beyond a shared concept or two. The gameplay's original take on turn bonuses divides those who think it's fun to Stack attacks and rank up huge damage potential, some find it fun but shallow, and others dislike it or think the Demon Loyalty mechanics could've been reintroduced instead. The list goes on. About the only things most can agree on are that Ringo continues series tradition of having fun and charming female lead characters, on top of being a neat twist on a Shin Megami Tensei protagonist that can talk, and that the soundtrack and dungeon design is generally a letdown compared to the original.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The game has received praise for its plot and characters, both of which are fairly original by MegaTen spinoff standards, while its main criticisms come down to bland and repetitive dungeon design, a battle system unsure of whether it wants to be more like mainline SMT or Persona, and Annoying Video Game Helper issues.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When it is revealed that Iron Mask was killed and replaced by Raven, Milady has mourn the fact the man she loved is dead. Milady’s English Voice actor, Erica Lindbeck, lost her boyfriend, Billy Kametz, two months prior to the game’s release to colon cancer.
• Heartwarming Moments: Saizo’s possible future where he and Ash are together again and had a kid. They’re still summoners but seem to have broken free from the summoner’s karma and have their own happy ending together. The sheer happiness Saizo feels seeing this likely future for him and Ash radiates from his grin.
• Magnificent Bastard: Raven, aka "Iron Mask", is a traumatized veteran from Yatagarasu overseeing the Komodori Orphanage and motivated to create a world without conflict by using the Covenants. To do this, Raven murdered the original Iron Mask and stole his identity to join the Phantom Society and use his knowledge of Yatagarasu to organize an operation that kills Arrow—Raven's top student—and the majority of Covenant holders. While heroine Ringo revives the majority of his victims, Iron Mask kills the legendary Mangetsu Kuzunoha and orders the demon Zenon to devour his body to prevent Ringo from resurrecting him. When Ringo's team decides to attack Iron Mask during a Full Moon, when Zenon is at his weakest, Iron Mask lures them into a trap before torturing Ringo to force her sister Figue to give her Covenant, failing only thanks to a combination of Figue's unique nature and Mangetsu's hidden discoveries. Ultimately, the unmasked Raven asks the protagonists to avoid involving the Orphanage on their fight and dies congratulating Arrow for surpassing him and Milady for avenging her lover.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • It didn't take long for Beatles jokes to be made when the protagonist's name was revealed to be Ringo.
  • Ringo is a VTuber^explanation Ringo's character design reminded some people of VTubers. Her being the face of the promotional campaign and directly addressing the players and being designed by a hololive designer definitely didn't help.
• Older Than They Think: This isn't the first game in the franchise to have a non-silent protagonist with a canon name. All three Majin Tensei games have protagonists that speak, and the second and third games give their protagonists canon names.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Figue's feelings for Raven become this as the game goes on. What starts off as a minor potential romance between two allies of the main characters gradually overshadows all other plot points, and once Raven is revealed to be the game's Big Bad Iron Mask, Figue becomes so focused on the man she fell in love with at first sight, that she becomes the game's Final Boss once Raven is killed.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general opinion on the game is that the characters are overall fun and likable, the game has some nice visuals and music, and the story has good moments, but the gameplay is fairly mediocre due to awkward design choices like dungeon design, and what feel like dumbed down mainline mechanics held back by not having the same depth that the game seems to assume they have. The story is also seen as being only "okay" due to some plot issues later, such as the motivations of the villains. That, and the implementation of Day 1 DLC caused the overall reception to be mixed and likely contributed to the game not meeting Sega's sales expectations.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The overall art style and modern aesthetic were not received well by some fans. The biggest criticism towards it is that it doesn't fit with Megami Tensei at all, resembling something like Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth or a FuRyu game instead with some also going so far as to compare the character designs to Vtubers.
  • The reveal that the gameplay will use a party of humans rather than demons with them simply being relegated to special attacks earned ire from fans as it makes the game just seem more like Persona 5 than anything from the Devil Summoner subseries. The fact that there are all out attacks triggered by hitting weaknesses and the combat UI looking almost identically to P5 only exacerbated this, and it further wasn't helped by the fact that the first couple of DLC outfits revealed dress the party members up like the Phantom Thieves.
  • Similar to Shin Megami Tensei V, the promotion for this game includes demon showcase videos. The difference this time though is that many of them, instead of showing demons, show various shops, items, and in-game locations with fans starting to get tired of it. They fear that it is indicative of the demons being treated as more of an afterthought.
  • And if we're at the daily videos, the ones featuring locations tend to consist of a shot of the place then the rest is stock footage of the characters eating that comes in about two possible camera angles. Heck, even the shot of the storefront started to repeat in the item ones after a while. Making some people question how much content even is in this game demon or otherwise.
  • While pay-walling recruitable allies was done before in Persona 5 and its Updated Re-release Royal with Personas from 3, 4, Arena and its sequel, the Launch DLC pay-walls fan-favorite demons such as Satan, Mara, Pixie's Soul Hackers design, and Nemissa, a move that has not gone over well.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Unlike the Devil Summoner tradition of having character cameos in the form of boss battles, this game has no legacy Superboss to speak of. Even fan favorites Raidou and Nemissa are nowhere to be seen, aside from the latter being an exclusive DLC demon.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The loading screens bring up things such as rampant corruption, class struggle and environmental disasters. Things common in cyberpunk. In the actual game however this never comes up. Not in the main story, nor the world, nor even from any kind of NPC dialogue. The whole plot thread is little more than a case of Informed Attribute.
• Uncertain Audience: This has been pretty much the most significant concern surrounding the game. While the game is part of the Devil Summoner series and is considered a sequel to Soul Hackers, most of the gameplay elements, such as the battle system and the relationship system that works exactly like the Social Links, are something that's normally seen in the Persona series, which makes fans wonder who's the target audience for this game: Devil Summoner fans or Persona fans. This is to an extent acknowledged In-Universe, particularly the matter of equipping demons like Personas rather than outright summoning them with Arrow claiming that "Summoner history goes back a long way. This is like tossing out everything our forebears built up, and that's not a great feeling." in regards to the new style. Interestingly, the original Soul Hackers was named as such specifically to separate it from the main Devil Summoner, as while it took place in the same world, it was very different in all other respects. This has led to a common sentiment that this game should have been its own separate sub-entry in the Devil Summoner series rather than having the Soul Hackers name tacked on given its nature as an in-name only sequel.

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