Shadow Hearts: From the New World

"Loses the Shadow Hearts charm, but efficently utilizes the judgment ring"

Shadow Hearts: From the New World is the third installment in the critically acclaimed, yet poorly sold, Shadow Hearts series. Sad to say, but Shadow Hearts: From the New World has also fell under the radar resulting in the developers, Natilus/Azure, to disband. Even though Shadow Hearts 3 may be the last installment in the series, is the worth the purchase? Read to find out!

Story:

Unlike Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Shadow Hearts 3 does not have a direct tie-in to its predecessor. As a stand alone game, Shadow Hearts 3 tells the story of Johnny Garland, an ordinary sixteen year old boy who runs his own detective agency on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York.

On an ordinary day, a creepy short man strolls into the detective agency to ask Johnny to find a man. Happily accepting the request, Johnny soon finds himself involved in a case that he alone cannot handle. Along with a beautiful native American named Shania, who has the ability to fuse, and 5 other companions, Johnny begins his quest to save the world.

While I did not find the story particularly cliche, the story is laughable. Unlike the previous two installments had a rather dark tone with mature characters, the story in Shadow Hearts 3 has a much lighter tone with silly humor sprinkled across each scene.

The humor really takes away from the story because no one could take the story seriously when it's being told by characters who have ridiculous designs and voices. Barely do I ever comment on character design, but some designs are tasteless and completely unrealistic. For example, Shania, the main female character, barely has any clothes on and strips whenever she transforms into a demon. What makes this even worse is that besides Shania and Johnny, none of the characters really get any screen time so its not like the ridiculous looking cast has any personality to counterbalance the humor.

Even though the story is not memorable, by any means, it is presented and paced well. Fortunately, each location you, the player, go to looks absolutely beautiful.

Graphics:

From the character models to the locations, everything looks great. Unfortunately, the game does not support either progressive scan (480p) or widescreen (16:9).

The areas look diverse and what is unique about this series is how the world is Earth. Taking place within the twenties, locations such as New York City and Chicago look rather authentic. The downside is that these locations have very few places to actually visit. In fact, the only places you can really go are the places which trigger plot points.

The dungeon design is rather creative, as each dungeon has a unique feel and has plenty of puzzles. The downside to the dungeons is that there are many twists and turns that lead absolutely no where.

To emphasize the 1920's style, the sound track consists of Jazz, a popular musical style of the time.

Sound:

The soundtrack was pretty hard to form an opinion on. There were some tracks, like the battle theme, that is really good and memorable, while some tracks, like the one playing in Johnny's office, makes me want to rip my ears off. Unfortunately, most tracks fit in the latter category, but the good tracks are very good. I consider it a hit or miss.

During most scenes, the characters are voiced. The voice actors are not bad, but the script is pretty bad that the actors never really have a chance to flesh out several emotions. Most lines are delivered in such a dry, narrative way, with a stupid joke inserted here and there that I just did not care for any of them.

All of these flaws, though, will be forgotten once your team participates in battle.

Game play:

Using random encounters, 4 members will participate in battle; however, members who do not participate will also receive EXP, or experience points.

The Shadow Hearts series is known for the judgment ring. No matter what you do, whether it be selecting an attack, using magic, or using an item, a ring will then pop up. The ring will have either a blue or orange strike zone (orange for a normal attack, blue for magic) with a small red slice at the end. A dial will immediately spin. By pressing X, the dial will stop. To land an attack, the dial must land within the strike zone; however, if it lands within the small slice, then the attack or spell will do more damage. Some characters have one strike zone, while some have three. You can collect items along your journey to expand the strike zone or increase the number of them. Furthermore, if you really suck at using it, you can set it to auto where the computer does it for you. But… is that fun?

While in battle, you have the option to attack, use magic, item, and combo. Unlike Shadow Hearts: Covenant, comboing is a bit different because it requires stock. Underneath each character's Hit Points, or HP, is a yellow gauge that will fill when using an attack. When the gauge is full, a 1 will appear next to that character's name. In order to use a combo, you have to select combo with someone who has at least 1 in their stock gauge. After the attack, one of the face buttons will pop up, which you then need to press, and then after the attack, you can select another character to continue the combo. You can string a combo where all four could attack, if everyone has stock, which is necessary in order to beat bosses. However, if you miss pressing a button or time or hit the wrong button, then the combo will be broken. The stock gauge can go up to three so knowing when to use it is key.

Note, however, that the enemy can also use stock. This is when some of the attack or magic options come in. Attacks such as “Hard hit” will deplete enemy stock along with certain spells. The other attack option you have is “Double,” which also requires 1 stock. Double essentially lets someone perform two different moves, but they cannot be the same move. Eg. You can heal and then attack.

The battle tutorial does a fantastic job of explaining its mechanics. The game is no cake walk and realizing how and when to exploit the stock/combo system is essential to beat the game.

Besides battles, you will go around towns talking to non playable characters and buying new equipment.

Replay Value:

Like its predecessors, Shadow Hearts: From the New World has two endings. Also, there is a new game plus where you can get extra items and keep fusions from the previous play through.

The game will take about 20-25 hours to beat and add an additional ten if you intend to do all of the sidequests.

While there is some incentive to play through the game twice, both endings only require one play through. The story is not gripping enough to play through twice.

Closing Thoughts:

The game tarnishes what made Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts: Covenant unique, but Shadow Hearts: From the New World is a good game and worth the purchase now that it is worth a fraction of the price. The story may be a bit wacky along with the cast, but the game play is very polished.

Final Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/23/09

Game Release: Shadow Hearts: From the New World (US, 03/07/06)