Shadow Hearts: Covenant

"Buy. This. Game."

It's not often that I feel compelled to give a perfect 10 rating for a game. They usually have some flaw—bad camera angles, button mashing, repetitive enemy encounters, etc. When I picked up this RPG, I thought it would be similar to its predecessor (great but not perfect). Shadow Hearts 2 has exceeded all of my expectations, however, and I'm here to tell everyone about it.

The story takes place in real historical time. You have to suspend disbelief for several plot oddities—like the fact that monsters run rampant across Europe, where you start, or when Anastasia, the famous Russian princess, joins your party and can dish out damage sure as any other character. They also make references to several other historical people (Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Bacon, who I didn't even know was an actual person until some research). Even some of the enemies are playfully named. I remember when I first encountered a bug enemy in a cellar—the developers named it Gregor, which is made of win. MADE. OF. WIN.

The creators safeguarded SH2 from becoming a button masher in two ways. First, there's a thing called the Judgment Ring. It makes sure you pay attention to the commands you give by pulling up a spinner with certain areas you must hit within a given timeframe. This game element is not much different from its SH1 predecessor. Each area has a “strike” section that can dish out additional damage if you manage to hit it. This is something you get very used to, rest assured.

The second safeguard is the fact that, in addition to the typical HP and MP, there's a third stat on the battle screen called SP. Simply put, one SP is subtracted from a character's total each time he or she uses a turn. When that character has no SP left, he or she will go berserk and will therefore be uncontrollable. Fortunately, this can be replenished with items. This is a nice realistic twist in my opinion, because you'd think that fighting a bunch of twisted-looking monsters would eventually take a toil on anyone's mental state. SP is renewed for each battle, and you are never really overwhelmed by it. This element is also from SH1.

This leads me into my next topic: gameplay improvements from SH1. The developers have now included a horizontal list on the battle screen of which character/enemy will go when. This is VERY helpful to time attacks and combos (will get to those soon). It's also a HUGE relief because it will indicate when your character is scheduled to go berserk. In SH1, I felt it was easy to forget about when that would happen, exactly. Thanks to this new system, I didn't forget about something so important.

Even better, you can now distribute magic between your characters!! Remember how in SH1 when a certain healer, or THE certain healer I should say, was often unavailable for important boss battles? Those days are gone! Everyone can customize which magic they use. By the way, character elements are back again. One can even change his element.

The judgment ring itself is also customizable. You can expand the hit area and strike area. You can equip additional effects, such as poison or even death. You can even add or subtract the total number of hit areas a character has. So that's another great option.

Two final things about gameplay: Yuri can, once again, fuse with a monster's soul. He has so many monsters available that there are some you probably won't even use. Great for variability. Also, the developers introduced something new: combos. Basically you can group your characters together and attack one after another to stack up the damage. At the end of that combo a character can even use some powerful magic only available for strong combos. This new element is a double edged sword however, since enemies can also perform combos.

The game's graphics leave me with no complaints. Because the enemy encounters are more spread out than other series' encounters (a fact I really enjoyed), I was able to really take in the scenery around me without interruption. The character facial expressions are well defined. The game has a plethora of cutscenes and FULL FMV sequences (did I mention this game is divided into two separate discs? Because it is). Which reminds me: remember how in the first game, once you left for Europe, you left for good and couldn't come back to get stuff from China? Well in this game you can travel basically back to the very first area if you want to.

The plot itself isn't your standard RPG fare. It makes you think, especially towards the end, about what's REALLY important in life. It can make you laugh and cry. There is one powerful cutscene in particular—every single person who has ever finished this game knows exactly which movie sequence I'm talking about—that can move even a person with a heart of stone. I wished I could've given the voice actor of Yuri a pat on the back after watching that, because I believed he nailed his character's emotion perfectly. The voice acting in general was of superb quality.

SH2 also, like SH1 and Koudelka, has multiple available endings. The difference this time is you don't have to find an obscure item or go on a side quest for a specific ending. No matter which ending you get, there's a really weird and revealing scene at the end (won't give anything away) that will probably make your brain spin. You might want to replay the game to catch all the subtle hints they gave. You might even want to replay the FIRST game to see what they said about it then, as well.

The game's music is wonderful. The soundtrack varies from fast-paced violins to quiet village piano music. You don't ever really get tired of it, either. Although, it is true that for most of Europe that the town music is the same.

I also thought it was great how the game developers themselves made small jabs about the quirks of the RPG genre within the game. For instance, there's a thing called the Ring Soul that starts out as a very official-sounding spirit that bestows gifts to you. However, thanks largely in part to Yuri, we learn that he has an entire background of his own.

As if all that wasn't enough, the creators also added a New Game Plus mode. All your fusion monsters, abilities, etc, etc, will carry over to the next game. And once you beat the game, a theater mode will be unlocked, so you can watch all the SH2 clips you want.

But for every game there must be some pitfalls. Even though I'm giving this a perfect 10, it has some flaws. However, I'm mostly being nitpicky with it. First, although the voice acting is really great, the dubbing is kind of really lacking. The lips do not at all move with the words. However, we as RPG players are mostly used to this by now, aren't we?

Secondly, the game is a lot easier than SH1. Now, don't get me wrong. I've always loved the fact that you don't REALLY really need a walkthrough for this series. You can manage. However, this time the developers basically took the challenge out (as far as boss battles are concerned). You can use four people in battle instead of three. They allow you to have up to three accessories. There're all sorts of supportive magic you can cast, and if you are hard pressed for time, the game is abundant with things called “keys” that will allow you to attack multiple times. Not even the side boss battles were very challenging (I just used keys if I wanted to finish something quickly).

I also found it strange that one of the characters enters your group only AFTER the first half of the story. He's not even featured on the bio page with the rest of the characters you can control. He can change into monsters just like Yuri, but there's only two available for him! It's almost as if he was added as an after thought sometime during the production of the game.

But none of these things really hold the game back. It's still very enjoyable and still worth the price. Also, you might be wondering if you need to play SH1 first to understand the story. The answer is yes. Although they give a brief recap of what happened, a lot of the plot is based on what happened previously. Besides, SH1 is a great game in general to play. However, not many people know there was a predecessor even before SH1, called Koudelka (which I mentioned earlier). You do NOT need to play that game to understand the Shadow Hearts series. Anyway, if you are an RPG gamer, this is certainly one to pick up. It's truly a shame that this series is not as popular as it could be.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/09, Updated 07/15/09

Game Release: Shadow Hearts: Covenant (US, 09/27/04)