Shadow Hearts: From the New World

"An underrated game that deserves some recognition. I recommend this game. RPG fans will enjoy it."

Shadow Hearts: From the New World is a turn based RPG that sticks solely to the RPG genre. If you're familiar to any of the other games in the series, Shadow Hearts or Shadow Hearts: Covenant, prepare to fit yourself right at home. If you're new to the Shadow hearts series I suggest you play the earlier games because they were both great games.

Graphically the game's environment looks great mainly because most of it is pre-rendered. However don't expect to see anything looking like Resident Evil Remake (GC) or Onimusha (PS2). The pre-rendered backgrounds in some areas lacked the necessary details and look watered down and pixilated. The character renders look great and so to do the enemies and bosses. The cut-scenes look great but again, the backgrounds in some looked awful and incomplete. The FMVs were great, just what you'd expect from the series and an RPG as a whole. The battle graphics look acceptable, but again, it lacked the necessary details to make the graphics stand out.

The sound in the game was great. The game also does a good job of not saturating with unwanted cut-scenes. The game has full voice acting and very few cut-scenes were done without the voices. The audio and sound effects were also acceptable. One flaw was that after a battle, the character who dealt the finishing blow would have something to say at the end. While the do say a couple of different things, it does get repetitive after a while.

The combat system has returned from previous games, the infamous judgment ring. You time the ring and hit the marker at certain points in order to attack…or do everything in battle in fact. It's not as complicated as it sounds and it's quite easy to get used too. As a result, random battles don't get repetitive and luckily, this game doesn't annoy you with constant unnecessary random battles. This is a huge advantage for gamers to properly explore the environments. In battles you can normal hit, combo-hit, double hit, or double combo hit enemies. Using the strategies at the right times will make enemy battles and boss battles a lot easier. When used effectively, you can take a boss out in as little as a single turn, but just as you can perform those moves, so to can enemies and bosses. The game's dungeons are unique and each has their own unique puzzles to solve, the deeper you get into the game, the tougher the puzzles and longer the dungeon so one place is never like the previous.

Unfortunatly this game falls shot from the previous games in the series in terms of length. You can complete this game's storyline, level up a bit and do some of the side quests within 25 to 30 hrs. If you don't attempt any of the side quests, you can complete the game in around 20 hrs. If you do decide to do some of the side quests expect to spend no more than 40 hrs on this game. Shadow Hearts: From the New World is a 25 plus hr RPG.

Do I recommend this game? Of course I do. It is unique and no other RPG out there is quite like this one. The length of the game may not be like previous games in the series, the Shadow Hearts feel is there. Buy this game. It is underrated but you will enjoy it.

Gameplay 9
Graphics 8
Sound 8
Value 7
Tilt 10
Average 8.8

Difficulty: Easy
Learning Curve: 0 to 30 Minutes
Time Spent: 40 to 100 Hours

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/06