Shadow Hearts: From the New World

"The most underrated RPG franchise continues"

The Shadow Hearts series is probably one of the most underrated and unknown RPG franchises in history. When the first game came over to the states it was bashed by reviewers on the internet and magazines. Yet it somehow still managed to develop a cult following. And despite low sales, thankfully the series has continued to be imported for a third installment. Most fans of the series will not be let down.

Graphics/Sound (8/10):

There are no great graphical achievements in this game, but the graphics stand up as well as any another RPG on the Playstation 2. Cutscenes look nice, nothing to complain about there. Voice acting and music are a plus in this game.

Gameplay (10/10):

This is where the game shines. People who have played the series will know the Judgment Ring system ring away, and new players don't worry, it's not that hard to figure out. Basically any time you perform an action in battle a ring pops up with a line that spins around clockwise. The goal is to press the attack button when the ring lines up in orange colored areas of the ring that determine if you succeed or not. In addition, there are smaller red colored areas that are basically critical hit areas that will give you bonuses if you manage to hit the cursor in that area. This Judgment Ring system is even used to attempt getting a discount at the item/weapon shop. Battles are random, so that might annoy people that aren't hardcore RPG gamers. An introduction to From the New World is the Stellar system. This replaces the Crest system that was in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. This is how you assign magic spells to your characters. So a lot of the strategy comes from deciding who to give what Stellar Chart (which determines how many spells you can have, and how powerful) and finding the Stellars (spells) themselves. Another unique aspect of the Shadow Hearts series is sanity points. After each turn, a character will lose a sanity point. If a character's sanity point total ever reaches zero, they go insane and you lose control of them. This adds another element to gameplay, as in long boss battles you will have to worry about and keep an eye on sanity points.

Story (9/10):

The biggest knock on this game from fans of the previous games is that the story isn't as dark as the first two. I'll say that's a fair statement to make. Instead of a 20 something brooding anti-hero named Yuri, the main character is a young teenage boy named Johnny. The theme of the game doesn't really go as deep as the other two either. Despite all this, I still think the story of the game is excellent. Covenant took place during World War I, and this game starts in 1929 so it's been about a decade since the events of the previous game. The game basically has to traveling to all sorts of places around the country around this time period. Also if you are new to the game you will realize the game puts its own alternative history on a lot of well known events or people in history. Also, while it wouldn't hurt to play the other two Shadow Hearts games, the story isn't heavily tied to them so new players to the series can jump in rather easily. The cast of characters they have in this game each have their own unique history and add humor to the story in their own way. A lot of RPGs seem to suffer due to the fact there is always one character that no one really likes or cares about, but the Shadow Hearts series has never been that way. Each character is given their own side quest that you can work on throughout the entire game, so for people who like long games, this game will take at least 50+ hours of your time should you choose to immerse yourself in it that much.

Overall (9/10):

Bottom line, is this game as good as the previous games of the series? No, I wouldn't say it is. This game seems to lack the something extra those games had, mostly the dark/horror atmosphere those games had to them. From the New World has that kind of feel to it, but only to an extent. But From the New World is still a very good game. It might not end up being a classic, but it's certainly worth a single playthrough for any console RPG fan.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06