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In Japan, Square has the Final Fantasy series, Enix the Dragon Quest series, and Atlus the Shin Megami Tensei (Digital Devil) series. Digital Devil games are very popular! There were at least 4 versions that I can remember for the Super Famicom. Then, when 32 bit hit the market, Devil Summoner and Persona were released to continue the tradition.

Devil Summoner had some early problems with load times on the battle scenes but overall was a pretty good game. Soul Hackers is leaps and bounds above that initial effort. It is the same setup with overhead maps of different parts of a large city where you enter buildings and the game switches to first person "corridor" exploration. The battle scenes are random and load very quickly with a Dragon Quest perspective ( you can see the monsters in front of you but your character is not visible). The monsters are strange, as usual, and you can interact in an attempt to get them to join your party or just waste them. As with the other DD games, you can mix captured monsters together to make new monsters. One additional important note: the battle scenes come up at nice pace for the game. So many games wear you out every two steps and you never get to explore the scenery. Not so in this game. You actually have time to look around before getting into battle.

The graphics are very good for this series. No one has every done smoother first person graphics than Atlus. As you move down the halls, the scenes are smooth and very realistic. Please be aware that this is not FF7 quality graphics. The graphics are appropriate for the game and then some.

The sound track, as usual, is terrific. It just the right blend of rock, classical RPG, and eerie monster music.

The only reservation I have is that this series doesn't appeal to everyone in the US. It is set in a futuristic environment with lots of emphasis on high tech gadgetry. I enjoyed it on Super Famicom and continue to explore the secrets of Soul Hackers as I end this review!