Devil Hacker
Gail Elfert
Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers[a] is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Atlus. The game is the second installment in the Devil Summoner series, itself a part of the larger Megami Tensei franchise. Originally published by Atlus for the Sega Saturn, it was later ported to the PlayStation in 1999 and Nintendo 3DS in 2012.
Soul Hackers takes place in the fictional Amami City, a technologically-advanced Japanese metropolis. The main protagonist, a member of a hacker group called the Spookies, gains access to the closed beta for Paradigm X, an online game designed to connect the citizens of Amami. While in there, the protagonist encounters supernatural forces, then must work with the Spookies to investigate attacks by demons across the city. Aiding him is Nemissa, a demon who possesses the body of his friend Hitomi Tono.
Development of Soul Hackers began in 1996, after the success of the original Devil Summoner. Original producer Kouji Okada and character designer Kazuma Kaneko returned to their respective roles. The first two versions of Soul Hackers were never released overseas, but the Nintendo 3DS version was localized into English. The game has generally garnered a positive reception, although some reviewers criticized the visuals and music. A sequel titled Soul Hackers 2 was released in August 2022.
Soul Hackers is a role-playing video game. Players navigate dungeons in a first person view, in which they solve puzzles and fight enemy demons in turn-based battles.[1][2] The player always has one or two human characters in their party, and also has the ability to summon up to four demons who fight on the player's side.[1] Players get access to demons by choosing to speak to enemy demons, and negotiating with them; negotiations can involve answering questions, intimidating the demons, or giving them items they want. Players are able to fuse several of their allied demons into one single demon; the resulting demon inherits abilities from the demons that were used to produce it.[2]
In battles, players have to manage allied demons differently depending on their personalities, their alignments, and their abilities: for instance, friendly demons prefer to use healing or defensive magic, while sly demons prefer to attack enemies on their own.[1] If players give a demon an order to use an ability it does not want to use, there is a risk that it will refuse and do something else instead, or that it does not do anything at all.[2] Demons with differing alignments can refuse to co-operate with each other.[1] In order to prevent this, players can build up the loyalty of their allied demons;[2] this is done by giving them gifts or letting them choose their actions in battle on their own. By participating in battles,[1] or by trading for it at a special market place,[3] players are able to get magnetite, which is used as fuel for demons; if players run out of magnetite, any currently summoned allied demons start to take damage.[1]
The game takes place in the small fictitious harbour town Amami City in Japan. The company Algon Soft has made Amami its headquarters, which has led to the technology in the city quickly being upgraded; Algon Soft has connected every home and business in the city to its new network in order to demonstrate how a "city of tomorrow" could work. The Japanese government is impressed, and grants Algon Soft permission to expand the network across the rest of Japan in the coming years.[4] It also takes place in the virtual world Paradigm X on Algon Soft's servers,[5] where the citizens of Amami can visit virtual attractions.[1][2][6]
The player character is a young man who is a member of the hacking group Spookies, which was founded by a man who calls himself Spooky. The other group members are Six, Lunch, Yu-Ichi, and the player character's friend Hitomi Tono.[2][4][7] The group mainly hacks the city's network for fun or to play harmless pranks, but Spooky holds a grudge against Algon Soft.[4] Among other recurring characters are the demon Nemissa, who possesses Hitomi,[8] and Kinap, who teaches the player character to enter the souls of people who have recently died.[6]
Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is the second entry in the Devil Summoner series, which forms part of the larger Megami Tensei series: as with other entries, its narrative takes the form of a modern-day detective story as opposed to the series' more prevalent post-apocalyptic settings.[8] Soul Hackers began development in 1996 after the commercial and critical success of the original Devil Summoner. Original producer Kouji Okada, and character and demon designer Kazuma Kaneko returned to their respective roles. The initial concept was thought up based on the internet boom fuelled by the recently released Windows 95 operating system: Okada and Kaneko saw the potential dangers of the internet being used as means of control and the crisis that ensued when something went wrong with a widely used system. The initial world view was created by Kaneko, while writer Shogo Isogai was responsible for the detailed story scenes. A lot of work went into properly balancing the gameplay.[9] Future Persona character designer Shigenori Soejima was responsible for sub-character designs, item graphics, and designing the main character's dialogue portraits.[10] Instead of restricting the narrative to a single perspective as with earlier Megami Tensei games, the team experimented with detailing different protagonists' points of view.[9] For some of his character designs, Kaneko incorporated a "devil" motif into their clothing: he would later use similar design motifs for the character Isamu in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne.[11] Kaneko's design for Nemissa was inspired her depiction as a self-centered childlike character.[12]
The main protagonist was not a trained Summoner as opposed to the first Devil Summoner, but his use of the GUMP symbolised the passing of responsibilities related to the Kuzunoha line. Amani City was not based on any real city: it was born from Okada's wish to create a city on the opposite side of Japan to the main setting of the first Devil Summoner, and from the concept of a futuristic city. Their initial version of Amani City was much smaller than the version in the final game. The character of Kinap was incorporated due to Kaneko's interpretation of the representation of Native Americans in North American movies, where they seemed both spiritual and upright. His Japanese name, "Redman", was a symbolic representation of his origins. The main antagonist Manitou was drawn from the similarly titled Native American concept, which to Isogai was analogous to major deities from other religions including the Abrahamic God: its human shape represented the extent to which humanity had warped it. Multiple other elements of Native American folklore were also included. The character of Dr. Victor, a helper from Devil Summoner, was brought back in a redesigned form, along with new assistant Mary. Her gradual "awakening" to consciousness through her questline was compared by Kaneko to the attainment of gnosis.[9] The music was composed by Shoji Meguro, Toshiko Tasaki and Tsukasa Masuko.[13] For his work, Meguro focused on emphasizing the game's cyberpunk setting and haunting atmosphere, creating the effect by hybridizing jazz and techno styles. Meguro composed around fifty pieces for the game, and was given less creative freedom than his work on Maken X. He also had far less memory space to work with, which he felt cheapened the effect. The project as a whole was exhausting for him.[13][14]
Soul Hackers released for the Sega Saturn on November 13, 1997.[15] A supplementary disc titled Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers - Akuma Zensho 2 released on December 23 of the same year. The disc release contained a postcard entry for a draw from one of 1000 copies of an extra dungeon.[16][17] Due to its popularity, a port to the PlayStation was released on April 8, 1999. A version for Sony's budget series release following on July 27, 2000. The PlayStation port contained additional features including new story events, added features such as a Paradigm X casino, and a version of the Devil Zensho 2 dungeon.[18][19]
A port to the Nintendo 3DS was announced in 2012 for release on August 30 of that year. Directed by Kazuyuki Yamai, the port was based on the PlayStation version while featuring further enhancements and adjustments, including full voice acting and gameplay elements unique to the platform.[20] Masayuki Doi designed a new demon for the game, while Eiji Ishida acted as art director. Original writers Masumi Suzuki and Yusuke Gonda returned to write new material.[21] A new opening movie was produced by animation studio Satelight, who had become famous in Japan through their work on Macross Frontier. The opening's theme song, "#X", was written by Yamai and incorporated the themes and motifs of Soul Hackers. The song was composed and arranged by Ryota Kozuka, and translated into English by Toshihiro Takeuchi. Singer Wink Wink both sung the song and assisted with the translation.[20][22][23] The port released digitally on the Nintendo eShop on December 25, 2014.[24]
The game was announced for a North American release in December 2012 for the following year, adopting the Shin Megami Tensei moniker.[25] It was published on April 16, 2013 by Atlus USA. It later released as a digital download on July 2.[26][27] Soul Hackers was one of ten original Megami Tensei titles to be rated "M for Mature" by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.[28] In Europe, the game was published by NIS America. Originally announced for release on September 13, 2013, it was later pushed back a week to September 20. Its digital release came the following week on September 25.[29] In 2021, Atlus' parent company Sega Sammy Holdings listed Soul Hackers as one of several "dormant" intellectual properties that could be considered for getting remastered, remade, or rebooted.[30]
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