Shadow Hearts: From the New World

"An unashamed masterpiece of lunacy and greatness."

Bored of RPG's, are you? Bored of those whining heroines who exist to prattle on about love and fishes and fishes in love? Bored of those silent protagonists who, despite their humble origins, turn out to be legendary swordmasters and BRAVELY RISE UP against the evil corporation/religion that's harassing everyone around and undoubtedly ends up SAVING THE WORLD?

I am, I can tell you. Which is why the inspired lunacy that runs throughout the latest Shadow Hearts game is a much dose of delicious medicine for RPG fans everywhere, even for those too obtuse to look at anything that doesn't have Square-Enix in the title.

The game opens up with our plucky young hero Johnny Garland bemoaning his fate as a detective in New York City, having only just got the first decent case he's ever had - a standard missing persons hunt for your standard bail jumper. It' becomes slightly less standard when the bail jumper is suddenly munched by a monster and a Native American princess comes crashing through the skylight in an attempt to kill it off.

The storyline isn't exactly linear (or even coherent half the time) but this doesn't detract from the experience at all. In fact, the near-spontaneous changes in direction and tone arguably improve the game. I mean, how many times have you been playing through an RPG and suddenly thought 'by the Gods in Heaven, how dreary and cliche is this story? And why have I been chasing this effeminate bad guy gimp for the past twelve hours of my life?'

Trust me, that's not going to happen here. Whether you're siding with Chicago mobsters in a bid to finish off a rival group or gallivanting around the inside of a secret Government base in Roswell after one of your soon-to-be party members is mistaken for an alien you're simply not going to have the time to get bored of the storyline.

Shadow Hearts: From the New World also retains the wildly popular Judgement Ring battle system from the previous games, and changes a few things on the way. Characters no longer have to line up for a combination attack - an all new stock gauge is in place that allows characters to use up one stock to perform a variety of actions such as taking two turns at once or teaming up with their friends and going to town on the enemy - who also have a stock meter, so keep your eyes on them or you'll have the same done to you.

As with the previous games the battle system is a joy to experience, although the addition of attack heights is probably going a mite overboard. It's not a bad addition, as such, but it does smack of being just a wee bit unnecessary. Random encounters are often enjoyable to play through and rarely grate as you go around exploring - even if one or two of the dungeons are sadly 'go to A, find key, go to B' affairs that, while still good fun, seem to have been designed to pad out the length of the game more than anything else.

On the visual front the graphics are decent, though probably nothing to write home about. They're your standard PS2 RPG graphics, and while they get the job done it would be nice to see these fantastic character designs have just a tiny bit more detail on them. Again, however, they're nothing to sneeze at.

The music, on the other hand, is masterful. Shadow Hearts has always been known for having incredible and unique music playing throughout your adventure, and this is no exception - with one exception. The New York town music is absolutely atrocious, and thankfully doesn't crop up as the standard town music for the rest of the game. As mentioned, however, the rest of the soundtrack is pure bliss to listen to. Dead Fingers Talk is one of the best battle themes to hit an RPG in years, and many of the other tracks are every bit as enjoyable to listen to. In the same vein, the dubbing has been handled exceptionally well. Some characters may feel a little miscast in their roles, but the majority have been nailed perfectly.

Shadow Hearts has always been known to offer something slightly different from your usual RPG, and even from other games in the same series. The series has lost much of the darkness that made the original game such a unique and vastly underappreciated masterpiece, but it has gained some incredible humour that is actually funny in stark contrast to the efforts of certain other titles out there. It's for this reason, along with the near-perfect gameplay, tons of sidequests and captivating gameworld that Shadow Hearts: From the New World HAS to be bought and played to the brink of death by any self respecting RPG fan. This is a series that deserves to sell bucketloads, and it's up to you - yes, you - to go out and make this a stunning commercial success the likes of which the world has never seen.

I mean, if an American Ninja named Frank who frequently talks about himself in the third person, turns everyday objects such as bus stops and fish into makeshift swords and muses about throwing 'beautifully streamlined' atomic bombs straight out the window as soon as he finds them can't lure you in, well... there's simply no hope for you.

Masterful.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/06