A full narrated playthrough/discussion of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, released originally in 1997 for the Sega Saturn and later brought to America in 2013 for the 3DS.
Edit: Glad to see you guys here for Soul Hackers 2 - be sure you try this game out before it leaves the eShop, it's one of my favorites and the full thing can't be captured in a video alone. It's the shortest game I've played but somehow the longest video - I found a lot to talk about and that post game dungeon really busted my balls. Might be one of the best games I've played in a while, and it didn't destroy any of my hardware this time.
@@P1NKPVNK_ I'm trying to get DS Overclocked to run on my Android via Citra. I'm building a mid tier gaming computer soon though, so if the phone doesn't work, then I'll just use the PC.
@@Patrick-bn5rp you can play the og devil survivors tho, for the ds. any pc can run it, any cellphone can run it. the difference is no voice acting, and no demon compedium, which for me is not really a big deal so even tho i can paly overclocked i jsut went with the vanilla
Well, to be fair, the GOOD sword fusion swords aren't easy to find, and you can sometimes find better swords at the shop or in chests, like those that sweep the entire front row, or even all the enemies. I think my favorite is the Plasma Sword- entire front row, more powerful than the best fusion sword I could find at the endgame, ideal for most normal encounters, especially grinding for magnetite at the Primate Intelligence lab.
Tbf this is easily the weakest protagonist in the whole series. He just there as a beatstick/summoner compared to others who are the main damage dealers.
@@Rougealienpirate He also has to rely on attack items for elemental damage- which are pretty wimpy if you go by the conventional standard of "level up his STR and Luck." I think they scale off his magic attack power, but IDK for sure.
@@Percival917 Nope, there was a time where I was going to do an attack items and gun heavy playthrough (because guns don't scale off of your stats), and the molotovs were doing the same amount of damage to that relatively early ice boss despite putting something like 5 points into magic.
Why is it so hard to find one tho, I got lucky and found my little brother's one from like 7 years ago, so i took and now use it for myself so i cant realy complain but like, why are they so hard to get any other way
The dolphin dies because it absorbs too much of your attacks, overloads, and explodes. You basically force feed it magic until it chokes to death on it
Yep. And the only hint you get towards that is an NPC who says "Dolphins are notorious liars" and then the boss says "Har har, I like magic, feed me more." ...The tale of how I won that fight is by far the stupidest three hours I have ever spent in a video game.
WHAT!? I needed all of my mp to stay alive, because of him absorbing the magic attacks. At some point he ran out of mp himself and did near to no physical damage while I tickelt him to death with the low damage i did in over 2 hours. I scraped at rock bottom with my mp and item management.
@@Rellik165 That NPC and hint is actually one of the most random things in the game. He's a kid that suddenly appears after you defat the previous boss and he says "Did you know Dolphins are liars!? They are so crafty! What if they killed the Prime Minister!?" Not the exact quote, but its somewhat along those lines. It comes out of nowhere lmao.
You actually made me play this game, and I'm having a great time. Sometimes... unintentionally. Like my protag getting charmed, attacking himself under the effect of that charm... and dodging that attack. I wish I could have seen it happen in real life.
I like to imagine that at the last moment, he realized how much Nemissa would laugh at him if he actually did it, giving him the strength to step aside and throw his own aim off.
Good. Now more people can learn about the true secret origins of Mashed Potato Samurai. Also, "I can vouch for the viability of the sexy build" is so good out of context.
Also, I tried getting an iso for this game, but it's so infamously hard to get a decrypted one right now a friend had to give me their copy and a program to decrypt it-
@@ThatOneLegendEmerald Are you referring to the 3DS version or the PSX?, maybe the 3DS cause there's no translation for the PSX version, You confused me by saying ISO since ISO is only for Discs while ROMs are for Cartridges, but either way Ziperto literally has it dub and undubbed for the 3DS and you can find lots of the PSX version untranslated.
I only just now understand these jokes as of recent I used to think they were referring to SMT 2 Protagonist Aleph but now I know the truth and it's much more dissapointing
Technically 1 is Raidou and the other is Raido, alternate universe dude who actually talks and got into a lot more scraps that left him scarred (for note a "U" in Japanese is enough to have a completely different name, a common difference I've been told for name is "Yuki" meaning Snow, and "Yuuki" meaning Bravery or Courage)
@@theonlybilge yes, kind of, see Nocturne had 2 re-releases (only one made it out of japan) the first re-release "Maniax" included Dante and was the basis for US/European version, the second i cant remember the name of but that one included Raidou, this one didn't come out of Japan until the HD remaster
Marsh: "Atlus!?" Atlus: "Yes Marsh?" Marsh: "I don't think this battle can get any worse!" Atlus: "Nonsense! : )" *Raidou Duo Summon f$#@ing SOULLESS GOD OUMAGATSU* Marsh: "ATLUS NO!"
Your narration is the embodiment of a brother that shares similar video game tastes, and also likes to watch you play while cracking some interesting quips and questions alongside you, enhancing the playthrough even further through the power of fraternal bonding.
The dolphin boss dies because you fill him with magic. Basically he absorbs so much of it he explodes. The boss hints at this with his dialogue during the fight, but not that well. Though if you kept the insulated jackets that you got before the warehouse dungeon you can put them on right before the fight and the boss can do basically nothing to you and Namissa. So you can just wail on him with physical attacks to slowly kill him and say fuck you to the puzzle
When I was at the dolphin I just autobattled with my over leveled zeed and Nemissa heal combo and killed it in 20 minutes if I remember correctly. I was just fed up with that Dolphin so much that I just said “fuck it, guess I’m autobattling”
@@ubermaster1 That may be true, but it's still pretty funny this random character happened to have the name of a well known game developer. Also, why would an English speaking person know what names are or aren't common in Japan?
After a horrible year in general, and getting dumped two weeks ago, I was definitely not in the mood for christmas but atleast Ive got quality content to watch. Thanks, Marsh. And happy holidays.
You can get Singh's demons by looking in the trash compactor close to the shuttle. His ghost gives you access to the saxophone comp and talks about his regrets.
Nishi transforms into Azazel! _I'm shocked!_ Seriously, I would have described his disguise as "a man who looks like Azazel." I was completely surprised that _his disguise was that bad._
I really love the Devil Summoner games because it's about how everything on the surface seem fine, but if you dig a bit deep you'll find out just how bad things are It's just like real life
A few things worth mentioning that weren't talked about. Very specific demons can be fused depending on if it's a full moon or new moon and this includes Zoma fusions. It gives you access to demons like Siegfried, Yoshitsune, and Jeanne d'Arc and many more. Specific demons associated with a type of weapon will often transform into that weapon if you use them in Sword Fusion. Sly Demons, when their loyalty is maxed can make use of the Mystic Change Feature at the Goumaden and become special Armor or weapons. All of which are very useful to have on hand. The downside of the Sword fusion is that you can only have one fusion sword at any given point in time, but there's a sword compendium that you have access to. The Elemental Muramasa Swords are for the MC only, the Ailment Muramasa Swords are Nemissa only and I don't recommend them for Nemissa but highly recommend them for your MC. There's also specific skills based on the moon phase which can be ignored, but learning them makes for an easier time. The best examples of this are Sneak Attack, which will hit the entire enemy party 4 times in a row on a new moon, and Crescent Slash, which hits 3 times on all enemies in a row on a waxing crescent moon but is most powerful on 3/8ths waxing. I believe I got everything I wanted to talk about that others in the comments may not have mentioned yet.
28:05 according to the megami tensei wiki, Sukeroku is actually Kyouji and when he says that finnegan has a nice body it's supposed to mean that he'd like to possess one like that in the future. I guess Rei just ditched the protagonist to be Kyouji's partner again. just thought you'd be interested to here this info. nice vid as always, Marsh.
My personal headcanon is that the protagonist is off on some other mission and Rei stayed behind to give Kyouji a hand. And the one we fight in the post-game is an illusion.
Once again a fantastic video, though I'd like to mention that the first Raidou to appear is very specifically Raido from the first Raidou game who's not actually Raidou but a more serious alternate universe version of Raidou. The other one being the real Raidou and their double summon is actually the final boss of the first raidou so that's cool.
28:11 Sukeroku was the name of a character quite popular in Edo-era theater. He was a dandy but still a bad ass. The stereotypical "Ladies love him, men want to be him" type nonsense. They called him "The Cherry Blossom of Edo" or something to that effect. The role was highly associated with the Icihikawa Danjuro lineage, iirc.
I remember reading somewhere that Sukeroku is supposed to be Kyoji's soul possessing the guy, like he does with the owner of the detective agency in Persona 2. But this was the megaten wiki so I'll take it with a grain of salt. Excellent video man keep it up!
This'll do over Majin Tensei for the time being. Especially after the trip that was Megami Tensei II. Nice to see that Masahiro Sakurai has a future outside of churning an infinite amount of characters for Smash, good on him. "Sexy gives her and Electric and Almighty build" - Ah, now I see we're playing by Dragon Quest 4 rules with the sexy Heroine getting Raidein / Gigadein and the almighty Gigaslash. I suppose even the more edgy and alternative cool guys at Atlus couldn't help getting charmed by Dragon Quest after all. Love the Evangelion reference with the "Pardigm X" logo, kinda makes me wonder if Kazuma Kaneko was riding high on that sweet Eva crack at the time and if that helped him agree to do full-on mecha designs later for Banpresto. 7:24 WHAT? Nishi is the villain? Preposterous! Next thing you'll be telling that with a hairstyle like that he's Lucifer or something. Ah, I see that this game is also the origin story of Hitomi Tanaka, what with you choosing the sexy personality. As for Finnegan, I think he's a reference to James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, since he seems to favour electric type abilities as a way to tie him to the poem and the sound the thunder makes during the titular wake, as a hundred lettered word. Also "Gomaden", the 90s really were trippy for Japan it seems. As for the japanese voice actors, a lot of them were selected with reverence since many, like Dr.Victor were references to something, which is why his japanese voice actor is Banjou Ginga, the voice actor of Doctor Ban from Galaxy Express 999 who himself is a reference to Victor Frankenstein, not unlike the Dr. Victor charcter in the MegaTen games. Yeah, they went THAT deep. 28:17 - OH MAN, I wonder who that mysterious Sukeroku guy is. We'll probably never of him ever again. And I do not know if it's deliberate or not but putting Dolphin rape and the weird insinuations Nemissa makes in a back-to-back manner, makes me wonder if Atlus was on a high that day after watching Eva and playing Rance or something. As for the villain, I think this is the only japanese game EVER, to have native american gods and spirits as demons and bosses in a game, especially Manitou, the almighty Totem of the world. Heck, the entire game is basically "what if the Native American / Algoquinan(?) legends came to Japan and made you enact the Kinap legend, except Kinap himself assumes the forms of the Great Totem(Coyote, Rabbit, Vulture etc)" As for Raido, he isn't silent because he isn't the character you play as(at least for Raidou 1). You play as Raidou Kuzunoha the XIII, the scarred one is Raido Kuzunoha the XIII, an alternate universe Raidou that is basically slightly more badass due to having battle scars. Come Raidou 2, Raidou also starts "speaking" and the double team from alternate universes becomes iconic. I guess Kaneko really loved this idea after working on Super Robot Wars Alpha 3. "Souless God Ohmagatsu. Yeah, Souless. Whoever made this is definitely lacking one." *Kazuma Kaneko laughing in the background intensifies*
Gotta say the fact the supernatural blends in with the mundane makes this game one of my favorites of all time. It's not exactly a new concept, but the way the game blends the cyberpunk metropolis setting with the esoteric nonsense of megaten is beautiful.
A personal advice from me to anyone who tries the Game, the guys who give you the COMP upgrades will eventually sell you a program that allows you to recruit Dark demons, which is really neat in my opinion.
@@gabrieldevoogel6225 Been a while since I played, but I think Dark demons (as in Dark-chaos, Dark-neutral and Dark-Law) are the only random encounters that are non reclutable by default.
@@estanislaojosegadea8253 cool, also do you think it’s worth is to run a Nemissa build outside of sexy? Because you get more almighty skills on that path but the others are still good seeming when I see the skills they have
@@gabrieldevoogel6225 Honestly, I went blind on My first run and used the fire one, which was pretty cool. My favourite is still the sexy one since I never use Insta Death spells, but it all depends on personal opinion.
Playing this game, I find it kinda busted that the add-on for more rare items is as good as it sound, it actually give you the rarest drop from any demons extremely easy, I was able to get a lot of weapon drops, ended up selling them for more money to buy even more stuff. Also, the demons in this game actually have more dignity than those in smt 4, they actually feel bad after scamming you and join you if you found them later. This game was so fun to playthrough, thanks Marsh for this great video!
Zeed is actually a very useful party member, I beat the game using MC, Nemissa and Zeed only for the non boss fights. If you fuse Zeed during a new moon, it reverts back to the Dolly Kadmon. This helps not only to reset Zeeds skills, but quickly and easily bring Zeed up to MC and Nemissa's levels.
Second video of yours I’ve seen, love this casual ‘let’s sit down and talk about this game’ style of reviewing (as opposed to the stuffy formulaic approach of typical journalism)
The first Raido is actually the alternate reality one you can face as an optional boss in the Raidou Kuzunoha games. Raidou, the MC we're used to playing as, is still silent just like 'kyouji'. You can tell from the scar on Raido's face.
I didn’t know it was so hard to find, I found it at a flee market for 30$, the lady selling it probably didn’t even know what it was. The cover was faded from being out in the sun for so long.
@@chaosgreyblood La Llorona just has a bit more impact for me, everyone in my family knew the story, and my uncles were always telling stories of hearing her at night or coming face to face with her. (They probably didn't.) I do love Quetzalcoatl though, especially the humanoid design.
This game... I remember being excited about it, back in the 90s, when it was orginally supposed to come out on the PS1... Before the dude who was in charge of Sony's American branch decided he didn't want 2D games on the system and it got cancelled. When it finally came out on the 3DS, I had to get it... And I loved it, although it also felt a little bittersweet. Since it was a game that I loved, even in 2013, but had I played it when it came was supposed to come out... Well, it likely would have been my favorite game of all time.
i go back to this video every now and again. one of my favorite games vibe-wise, along with suda51's silver case and this is such a comfort watch. love your work, marsh
I have the game, but didn't feel very confident to finishing it. Thanks to your help, I have plenty of notes in order to breeze through it! I very much appreciate the work you have to endure for these reviews.
I just beat the game yesterday. I started it over two years ago. Been watching your playthrough every so often, catching up with what I've already played. Great video!
I like watching videos like these as a story recap right after I finish a long playthrough. Now I'm ready for soul hackers 2 later this year. Great video marsh.
Hell yeah, I can't wait to watch. I finished Soul Hackers for the first time around the time when you put out your Devil Summoner video, and it has honestly become one of my favorite games of all time. Just a shame it is so criminally short. Oh, and Carol J is amazing and needs his own spinoff.
Man, I was waiting incredibly impatiently for this video. Thanks to you I played Megami Tensei 2 and loved every second of it. Thank you a lot, very much looking forward to your SMT 1 vid!
I dont care what anyone else says, this was far ahead of its time as a game, and still is, its so intresting the concept of cyber meetings or whatever the game explores, sure its a bit influenced by ghost in the shell and stuff, but the concept of the game is its own thing, and even more impressive when it first came out, its intresting as art the themes it exlores not just as a game
Great stuff Marsh, love Soul Hackers and I'm glad you did too. You're getting better with your reviews and I look forward to seeing you cover more. You're mic sounded better in this one too.
Just finished this game a few days ago and thought it was pretty great, definitely has some of the most insane concepts of any megaten game I've played. My favorite interaction in the game is with the kid in front of the dolphin painting who tells you that dolphins are dangerous liars who could be capable of assassinating the president. Such a bizarre way to hint at its weaknesses but the line stuck with me. Adding the primate research lab on top of that gets this an A tier from me right off the bat.
33:55 I discovered while replaying the game that there's an actual in-game explanation of how this boss works. Basically in the previous paintings, if you talk to random demons, one of them is like "Hey! I heard of a demon that can absob any attacks! But if it absobs attacks, can he do it forever? Doesn't he have a limit or something? What happens if he absorbs too much?" and that can VERY EASILY be missed if you don't talk to them at all or if you dismiss it as idle banter. The strat for this guy is to spam low cost spells and have the protagonist throw molotov cocktails (which count as magic attacks) until the dolphin explodes. I think the idea is great but they should've added some lines when he's a quarter full or half full so the player knows that he's doing something right. The strongest point of the Zoma is that it doesn't cost MAG to summon or keep so it's a free demon that you can upgrade when fusing it with stronger demons. For instance if your Zoma has like 10 STR and you fuse it with a demon that has 80 STR the resulting Zoma will have 80 ish STR. Also Ginko is voiced by Tara Platt AKA Mitsuru from P3 or Edelgard from Fire Emblem 3 Houses.
Couldn't be happier seeing this! Just finished NG+ last night! Too coincidental! Keep up the great videos man you've gotta be my favorite megaten youtuber!
28:04 - He must be saying he has a nice body as a joke about possessing him. Really caught off guard by the things you call unimportant. Never got a single encounter in the primate intelligence lab because of the "unimportant" EL-115. :p
This game is incredibly fun and stylish. I am really glad to have played it. It's a great introduction to classic SMT without having to jump to a SNES title.
Marsh, I just clicked on this video. But I have been waiting for this video since I subbed. I've always been curious about the stylish cyberpunk SMT game and it's original version. I always thought this game just looked neat. So uh thanks :)
