Shadow Hearts: Covenant

"If you don’t get this game i personally will come to your house."

The sequel to Shadow Hearts has finally arrived and fulfilled all my needs for a RPG.
This is probably the best RPG that I played this year and to find out why well read on.

Story: 10/10

Unlike the Final Fantasy games this is a direct sequel. Once again you play the role of Yuri (bite me). In the gorgeous intro movie German soldiers search a village and ending up in a church. In the church the German soldiers are attacked by a demon and so begins a new tale.

Although the story is linear, you can easily get hooked up to the amount of sub-quests. It's set in the world war but don't expect you characters get encounter the war. Every playable character in this game has his/her own personality and the amount of dark humor made me LOL. They are very catchy. The dialogue and setting in this game shines dark, but look it at the bright side. Yuri is grown but still the same Yuri what you saw in the previous Shadow Hearts.

Gameplay: 10/10

What truly makes Shadow Hearts Covenant unique is the Judgement Ring. It's still turn-based like other RPGs, but don't aspect to command to attack like in other RPGs like Final Fantasy or Wild Arms. In Covenant whenever you take a turn and command attack or magic, the judgement Ring appears on the screen and makes a spin. There are highlighted areas on the ring and in order to succeed a command you must press X in these highlighted areas. Also there are red strike areas on the ring which make the attack or magic more powerful. Every ring is unique to a playable character and what a new and warm welcome is is that every ring is customizable. Throughout the game you also gain items to make your ring better and better. Also when you shop in a town the judgement ring determine the price for an item. So when you miss the area on the ring you pay the full price and if you do it right you gain points and when you have enough points you even can get a good discount.

Also worth mentioning is the magic. Throughout the game you obtain crest or must search for it. Every crest has magic build in it and in order to use it the crest must be attached to the character. You also get a mini-game where you must put the crest in the right spot in order to make them more powerful.

Every character has also an unique fighting mechanism. Yuri for example can not use crest, but can transform in a demon. The old geezer must search for awkward dolls. This is purely a bless in a RPG. You can also make combos what is called affinity. If you affinity with other playable characters is high you can hurt a enemy even more.

The encounters in Shadow Hearts aren't ridiculous high and you also have a bonus-system. If you hit the strike areas correct in the battles you gain more experience. The dungeons are in the beginning a little boring because they are dry. With dry I mean you only have to run around searching the right spot. Now naturally you must do this in every dungeon but later in the game you get puzzles for some distraction. Also you can find different treasures in chest in each dungeon. In towns you also can buy armor/weapons.

Every character has his/her own sub-quest later in the game. Like I said you can easily get hooked to this sub-quest because they are enormous fun.

Sound/Music: 9/10

Shadow Hearts Covenant has excellent music. The music really helps to put the mood of the game. The only downside is actually that there isn't much variety. Also the professional voice talent for the characters is well done.

Graphics: 9/10

The graphics are good. In some dungeons they are a good appeal to your eye's. Don't aspect the quality of Final Fantasy, but they are good enough to help the mood of the game combined with the music.

Playtime/Replayability: 10/10

If you just follow the story you can beat this precious RPG in 35-40 hour and that is exactly good for a game. But the amount of mini-quest is just so good in Covenant that I even left the story in the freezer for a while and focused all my attention to the sub-quest.

Overall: 9

Still reading. Don't waste your time any more and get this game as soon as possible. If you loved Shadow Hearts 1 the sequel won't disappoint you. I strongly advice this game to every RPG lover. You can't go wrong with this game.

Final Conclusion:

What can I say more. I can praise this game even more, but I think I made my point clearly in my review.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/05