I'm confused about why SH2 is SO bad

Hey everyone!

I spent all of 2024 playing Atlus RPGs. I started with Persona 3 Reload (119 hours - didn't end up enjoying Episode Aigis) when it came out, then finally got around to playing and beating Persona 5 Royal (138 hours). Moved onto Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance (95 hours), and I just wrapped up Metaphor: Refantazio (110 hours) two weeks ago.

I added my hours to show that I really enjoyed all four games, and beat all of them around 95-100% completion. After beating Metaphor, I was looking through Atlus' recent games on Steam and saw that Soul Hackers 2 was on sale for more than half off! Although the reviews were very middling compared to the other Atlus games I had just finished, I thought the deal was good enough to warrant giving it a try.

I'm sure you've all heard the complaints before, but seriously, what went wrong here? Apparently they added a bunch of additional features since launch, like including the run option (which is insane to me that it wasn't in the base game, it's still too damn slow!) and being able to speed up battles. The gameplay, which is why I love Atlus games, is by far the most dumbed-down I've ever seen. Literally hit weaknesses and you get a Sabbath boost, that's it. You can also just hit enemies and run away? What is this game design?

After playing four of my favorite games of all time back-to-back, it was just shocking to see the lack of quality control on this title from Atlus who has, at least in my opinion, been knocking it out of the park the last decade. Did we ever get a follow-up from Atlus explaining why this game was so bad compared to the rest in their catalogue? Were they really just throwing in the towel?

EDIT: okay maybe “bad” was the wrong word. “Uninspired” or “underwhelming” were probably better choices