Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 30, 2021

  This game made me realise that I am as dumb as I look. Highly recommend it!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 10, 2022

  Really liked the first one. Pretty underwhelmed by this one.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 4, 2022

  Absolutely cringe in all the right ways - I very much enjoyed this sequel. While it does have links to the first Simulacra game, it stands alone on its own nicely. #getrexxed
• gamedeal user

  May 31, 2022

  The Simulacra games have been out for a couple of years now, I remember watching various YouTubers play them and being pretty intrigued by the format. You play a game where you're confined to a phone, yet you uncover more information than you could really imagine. This game further expanded on the research aspect of the first one, investigating 3 different colleagues of a murder victim. The story does not change too much with your choices of playing as a Junior Detective or a Journalist, but there are certain moments where the choice does effect your ability to acquire information. The videos and photos of the characters really immerse you into this universe that you're in, especially your interactions with Detective Murilo (who was in Simulacra's first iteration, but had a different actor I believe). The writers did a fantastic job with characterizing each one of them into being fleshed out people. While the dialogue is a little cringe at times especially with how the lines are delivered, most of the content you find really could just be located in someone's phone. Even the side characters that you must access for extra details are well done. Each piece of information (articles, social media posts, previous text threads, police records) is fully written out, which tells me that each piece was carefully attended to during development. There are less typos in this game too, Simulacra originally had a handful of them sprinkled throughout. The atmosphere the game creates while you play is fantastic. I played this both on my own and over call with friends, each time the knocking or breathing catching us completely off guard. The times that the phone malfunctions or becomes sentient are not too close together but happen often enough to keep you on your toes. The visual effects are great. My only complaints involve replayability and the sheer amount of research you have to do if you want every piece of information in the game that will help you get the "true" ending. The game does offer a NG+ that has "fast mode". This does help, greatly in fact, but there are still moments in the game where you have to watch unskippable video content or phone calls. I think if you're in NG+, you should be allowed to skip this content and still maintain the same experience as if you had not. While I mentioned before that every piece of information is well thought out, there is a MESS of things you have to go through to find what you need. Going through each time to acquire posts and photos and numbers to unlock later chat options is extremely tedious, especially when you're trying to get all of the endings. Between what you need there is also a lot of fleshed out nonsense like the promotional Kimera account that posts blurbs from those who took its deal. They serve no purpose other than to clog the feed, same with certain Jabbr posts. If there was going to be extra content gathering in the social media feeds, I think I would have preferred to see a new take on what we experienced in the first game where the main character (in this case the deceased) would make social media comments or posts while you're working to find things out. Lastly, I enjoyed the extra bits of humor inserted into the plot. Murilo's inability to figure out his phone, sending you random videos and butt dialing you. If you yourself comment on things with the character's account and use profanity, you receive an email from IRIS warning you of your language. Even calling emergency services earns you a scathing text from Murilo demanding to know why you'd do such a thing with the victim's phone. It's things like that, that make the game worth playing. Despite the few flaws listed, I really enjoyed the game and have played it through a few times. I only have one ending left to get at the time of writing this review! Would def recommend.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 17, 2022

  This game is great at showing that social media sucks and you should stay out of it. 10/10
• gamedeal user

  Jul 5, 2022

  SIMULACRA 2 review ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Pros: +Phone simulator +Choices Matter +Multiple endings +Nice story +Greater and better than the first game ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Cons: -You would want to get a guide to know how to get the best ending (unless you are an absolute chad and look through everything) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Do I recommend SIMULACRA 2? Yes
• gamedeal user

  Sep 13, 2022

  Even though I like this kind of games and the concept is just brilliant, I do not recommend this one. The save system is completely broken - you cannot save manually, instead the game automatically saves at checkpoints. BUT. But you do not know where those checkpoints are and when the game last saved your position so it happened to me several times that when I needed to quit I lost an hour or even more of progress. With need of going through everything over again. This is a game killing bug which spoils whole gameplay. (Or maybe it is not a bug but a feature lol, still is it game killing for me)
• gamedeal user

  Dec 18, 2022

  I liked this game. It's not a direct sequel to the first game (although there are some references) so you can play this one before the original without being lost. Gameplay is similar to the first game in that you're going through someone's phone and trying to find/restore information while weird things keep happening. Most of the characters are hiding something and it's your job to figure out the truth. Puzzles aren't too hard, but the game has a hint system in place if you're struggling. The characters are better developed than the ones from the first game. The dialogue makes sense and there aren't a lot of spelling and grammar errors apart from the usual "text speak." You can unlock different endings based on your choices and some of those choices can ruin, end, or save certain characters' lives. I really liked the music! It matches the atmosphere perfectly. The only downsides to this game (in my opinion) are that you need to play the game at least twice to unlock all the achievements and playing the game multiple times gets annoying because you can't skip or speed up dialogue. The game autosaves, but it only keeps up to three saves, so you can't just jump back and forth throughout the story if you missed something. If you're looking for a mystery game with a creepy twist, you should enjoy this game a lot,
• Hashirama Sonju

  Apr 2, 2023

  As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the original version of this game, I must express my disappointment with this iteration. While there were some redeeming qualities, such as the unique game concept and the unforgettable Rex's song, the overall experience left me dissatisfied. Regrettably, the characters were not as engaging as they were in the previous installment, and the game quickly becomes repetitive. Even in the pursuit of alternative endings, the player must sit through non-skippable cutscenes, which can detract from the replay value. Although the game's price is reasonable, it fails to live up to the high expectations set by its predecessor. In retrospect, had I known what to expect, I would have abstained from purchasing it.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 31, 2020

  I REALLY liked the first Simulacra so I was incredibly excited for this one to drop, despite not really enjoying Pipe Dreams. I have to say, I find it very hard to recommend this game for any reason. I went into this expecting a compelling story that makes you feel like you really have to dig through someone's phone to find details about their life and oddly their death, I expect some level of horror, Instead, I got something that tried to expand in different directions, but the wrong direction across the board. It's also incredibly disappointing to see the template stay pretty much identical from Sara is Missing > Simulacra > Simulacra Pipe Dreams > Simulacra 2. I get Sara is Missing was kind of proof of concept, but really the story elements, the jump scares, they're all horribly reused. Horror - This game lacked a single creepy moment, jump scare, or even cool detail at all. The phone glitches and you literally click to progress the spoops. I mean...what? Might as well be a power point presentation. Scares should build atmosphere, jump scares should distract you so much you get focused and suddenly a jump scare knocks you out of your seat, and this game just doesn't check any of those boxes which is a shame considering the first one did it so well. I attribute this to the scare tactics being reused from the first game, but somehow more poorly executed in this one. Story - You kind of see where the story is going an hour into it. The next few hours is just spent waiting for it to unfold. It doesn't subvert your expectation at any point really. The only level of engagement I got from this was like when someone starts to tell you a story and then they trail off. You don't necessarily care about the story, but you kinda just want an ending because you've sat through so much of it. The live action bits in this game are pretty terrible. The acting in this is VERY cringe and even down to the way it's been shot is kind of odd. The first game used live action moments as like a person recording a video in their home or something casual so you're not expecting a performance, but it uses the texts, emails, and phone calls as it's main story telling elements. This game tries to convince you these characters are "influencers" and while they're not necessarily trying to tell you they're good ones, it's just so incredibly cringey to watch, it's not enjoyable. If they just stuck to primarily texts as the delivery, I feel like that could have carried this game further. TLDR; Reused structure and gameplay from all previous Simulacra related entries, poor acting, bland story, odd cinematography choices, nonexistent horror elements.