The most accurate depiction of Britain in all media ever
After Shadow Hearts 1 it was on to the sequel! Called Shadow Hearts: Covenant in English, this is a direct sequel to the previous game in the series (and specifically a sequel the bad ending of Shadow Hearts 1). Though the first game came out in 2001, the sequel ended up coming out all the way in 2004, so a lot of time had passed in the gaming world by then, and the sequel to Shadow Hearts absolutely does its best to keep up with them (with varying degrees of success). It took me about 52 hours to get through the game in Japanese on real hardware.
Picking up about six months after the bad ending of the last game, Yuri managed to save the world but failed to save the love of his life. In these opening months of World War 1, Yuri (called “God Slayer” by those familiar with his deeds from the first game) is doing his best to find purpose protecting a small central European village from the ravages of the war. However, when an officer of the Vatican and a German minor officer come to that small village on the hunt for Yuri, he’s pulled back into a larger conflict whether he likes it or not.
I have very mixed feelings on the narrative of Shadow Hearts 2. Over the course of its two discs, though I more or less had a positive impression by the ending, the main takeaway I also left with was that the developers really just had no really great idea on how to make a sequel to Shadow Hearts. Almost the entirety of the first disc (which is 20~25 hours of gameplay, mind you) is spent effectively just getting the party together with very little in the way of actually meaningful storytelling. The villains of the first disc have quite little to do with the villains of the second disc, and it makes the first disc a real chore to get through for someone like me who was expecting something more, well, something more like Shadow Hearts 1.
The second disc actually starts to feel like what you’d expect a sequel to Shadow Hearts 1 to look like, but even then, just how much wasted breath we’ve spent getting here is dragging the story down all the way. Yuri already had his character arc basically completely finished in Shadow Hearts 1’s good ending, so a lot of the better bits of Shadow Hearts 2’s writing are just going over those same plot beats (and almost always more poorly than the first game did it), and the good writing that is there is often stuck between plot aspects (often borne from the careless use of fictionalized versions of real historical figures) that needlessly confuse and complicate the themes they otherwise seem to be going for.
In yet another step of being a quite poor narrative sequel, it does some really serious ret-conning of characters and events from the previous game that, while serviceable enough utilities in its own story, wind up coming off as extremely strange and outright wrong in regards to the story it’s allegedly building upon. Being that, like the first game, this is first and foremost Yuri’s story as opposed to each character having their own arcs that build towards a larger whole, Yuri’s story being so poorly paced and muddy makes for a much weaker story as a result. None of this is helped by just how clumsy and blunt this game’s writing is compared to the first either. Now, while I’m a firm believer that you absolutely don’t need to have subtle storytelling to have good storytelling, and quite often a blunt approach is simply better, the way Shadow Hearts 2 goes about this stuff feels more born from simple incompetence than a more distinct narrative choice. The story basically looks at the camera at several points to tell you Yuri’s Whole Deal as a character, and it comes off very unnaturally and at sharp contrast with how much more cleverly the first game handled such things.
While this game is a very similar mix of darkness & campiness that the first game has, it runs into the problem that a lot of its humor (though certainly not all) just isn’t that funny, either due to distasteful subject matter or just clumsy comedy writing. On that note, the homophobic stereotypes present in Shadow Hearts 1 are also even worse here and even more present, and this game manages to get in some pretty damn distasteful racist caricatures in the mix as well. In the end, it’s a very mixed bag that, while still quite decent in its own right, really aggressively fails to fill the big shoes its predecessor left for it despite sticking its own landing decently well.
Mechanically, while we’re still a turn-based RPG based around the sanity points and Judgment Ring system introduced in the first game, there’s quite a lot more here introduced to attempt to make Shadow Hearts stand out among the very competitive RPG crowd of the mid-life PS2. The biggest changes come from spell crests and the introduction of positional combat. For spell crests, instead of characters just having a list of spells they slowly learn things from as they level up as they did in the first game, now you collect crests over the course of the game that can be equipped to characters (other than Yuri, as he’s got his fusions still which level up just like they did in the first game as you infuse souls of defeated monsters into them) that give that character the spells associated with that crest. It’s very much like Materia work in many of the Final Fantasy games of the PS1 era, but a bit clumsier. It can be quite hard to keep track of what spells you have and where, and ultimately I just sorta stopped caring because the really just isn’t hard enough most of the time to encourage you to really get to grips with the crest system.
Then we have the position-based combat. Instead of the class “your row vs. their row” combat that the first game had, now your characters will automatically move about the battle to attack different enemies as you direct them to. We even have an FFX-style turn order timer to help you take into accordance what slower or faster attacks you’ll want to use or how you’ll try to delay or advance enemy attacks and such. If your allies happen to be (or are directed to) stand close to one another, however, they can do a combo attack, where you chain their attacks together regardless of where they are on the turn timer.
However, while the combo system can let you do some interesting things with turn order, given that you need to use a turn to set them up, it usually just adds up to a lot of extra button presses (though you can put together hot keys to activate them super fast if you want to, though I never bothered) for not much actual extra effect. Like with the spells crests, the difficulty of the game just never really pushes you to bother interacting with this system outside of disrupting when enemies try to do combos, which itself doesn’t really necessitate doing combos yourself. The difficulty balancing of the whole game is honestly quite poor, being very needlessly brutal through the first handful of bosses, and then being incredibly easy all the way through the end of the game. Shadow Hearts 2 has some very ambitious changes to the Shadow Hearts formula, but like with the narrative design, the mechanical design too just ends up feeling half-baked.
Lastly, we have the presentation which is also a very mixed bag. On one hand, by its own merits, Shadow Hearts 2 looks quite good for a mid-life PS2 game. It uses all of that space between its two discs to throw together a lot of good music, really good voice work, and some really impressive looking pre-rendered cutscenes (with the one of Yuri and the airship being a personal favorite). On the other hand, as a sequel to Shadow Hearts, the presentation of this game was extremely disappointing. Shadow Hearts 1 has a very distinctive art style very evocative of the creepy, atmospheric Koudelka that it’s a sorta-sequel to. Its more realistic character models add to that atmosphere just as much as its super creepy monster design does. Shadow Hearts 2, on the other hand, really drops the ball on that front.
We’ve completely abandoned the more realistic graphical style for a far more generic looking, anime-inspired art style that feels far more interested in chasing trends than it does being more Shadow Hearts. This is doubled down on even further in a way that doesn’t even matter for if you played the previous game are not, as this game just outright includes bits of cutscenes or screenshots of certain events that happened in the last game. But as Shadow Hearts 2 has a completely different art style than the first, these come off as incredibly dissonant and strange as the player (who may’ve never played the first game) is meant to understand that that tall, lanky guy in the coat is meant to be Yuri.
One of the best examples of how unsure and self-conscious this game is can be shown in how the game so readily ruins a great original idea. There are some parts of the game where Yuri fills his new companions in on events that happened in the first game. This is portrayed in pre-rendered cutscenes of crappy drawings of events from the last game to try and get across that Yuri isn’t too great at portraying this stuff to his friends. It’s a great little touch and quite funny too. The only thing is that, I guess just in case the player is completely incapable of abstract thought, is that you have a picture-in-picture in the corner of that cutscene as it appeared in the first game, both completely ruining the stylistic choice of the crappy drawings as well as confusing the player with depictions of characters and places that look nothing remotely like how the game they’re playing looks.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. I think I’d more easily give a simple “Recommended” to this game if it weren’t letting down its predecessor so aggressively. Shadow Hearts 1 is a really excellent game, but god damn does its sequel fail to live up to it in just about every way it conceivably could. Shadow Hearts 2 very frequently feels like a game very afraid to be its own thing. From the presentation to the narrative, so much of it feels absolutely terrified of not living up to the standard of either contemporary games or the original Shadow Hearts, and the whole experience suffers significantly as a result. This is absolutely a case where Shadow Hearts 2 is far from a bad game, but at the same time, it’s also a game I have a very hard time recommending as strongly as either of its sibling games.
Picking up about six months after the bad ending of the last game, Yuri managed to save the world but failed to save the love of his life. In these opening months of World War 1, Yuri (called “God Slayer” by those familiar with his deeds from the first game) is doing his best to find purpose protecting a small central European village from the ravages of the war. However, when an officer of the Vatican and a German minor officer come to that small village on the hunt for Yuri, he’s pulled back into a larger conflict whether he likes it or not.
I have very mixed feelings on the narrative of Shadow Hearts 2. Over the course of its two discs, though I more or less had a positive impression by the ending, the main takeaway I also left with was that the developers really just had no really great idea on how to make a sequel to Shadow Hearts. Almost the entirety of the first disc (which is 20~25 hours of gameplay, mind you) is spent effectively just getting the party together with very little in the way of actually meaningful storytelling. The villains of the first disc have quite little to do with the villains of the second disc, and it makes the first disc a real chore to get through for someone like me who was expecting something more, well, something more like Shadow Hearts 1.
The second disc actually starts to feel like what you’d expect a sequel to Shadow Hearts 1 to look like, but even then, just how much wasted breath we’ve spent getting here is dragging the story down all the way. Yuri already had his character arc basically completely finished in Shadow Hearts 1’s good ending, so a lot of the better bits of Shadow Hearts 2’s writing are just going over those same plot beats (and almost always more poorly than the first game did it), and the good writing that is there is often stuck between plot aspects (often borne from the careless use of fictionalized versions of real historical figures) that needlessly confuse and complicate the themes they otherwise seem to be going for.
In yet another step of being a quite poor narrative sequel, it does some really serious ret-conning of characters and events from the previous game that, while serviceable enough utilities in its own story, wind up coming off as extremely strange and outright wrong in regards to the story it’s allegedly building upon. Being that, like the first game, this is first and foremost Yuri’s story as opposed to each character having their own arcs that build towards a larger whole, Yuri’s story being so poorly paced and muddy makes for a much weaker story as a result. None of this is helped by just how clumsy and blunt this game’s writing is compared to the first either. Now, while I’m a firm believer that you absolutely don’t need to have subtle storytelling to have good storytelling, and quite often a blunt approach is simply better, the way Shadow Hearts 2 goes about this stuff feels more born from simple incompetence than a more distinct narrative choice. The story basically looks at the camera at several points to tell you Yuri’s Whole Deal as a character, and it comes off very unnaturally and at sharp contrast with how much more cleverly the first game handled such things.
While this game is a very similar mix of darkness & campiness that the first game has, it runs into the problem that a lot of its humor (though certainly not all) just isn’t that funny, either due to distasteful subject matter or just clumsy comedy writing. On that note, the homophobic stereotypes present in Shadow Hearts 1 are also even worse here and even more present, and this game manages to get in some pretty damn distasteful racist caricatures in the mix as well. In the end, it’s a very mixed bag that, while still quite decent in its own right, really aggressively fails to fill the big shoes its predecessor left for it despite sticking its own landing decently well.
Mechanically, while we’re still a turn-based RPG based around the sanity points and Judgment Ring system introduced in the first game, there’s quite a lot more here introduced to attempt to make Shadow Hearts stand out among the very competitive RPG crowd of the mid-life PS2. The biggest changes come from spell crests and the introduction of positional combat. For spell crests, instead of characters just having a list of spells they slowly learn things from as they level up as they did in the first game, now you collect crests over the course of the game that can be equipped to characters (other than Yuri, as he’s got his fusions still which level up just like they did in the first game as you infuse souls of defeated monsters into them) that give that character the spells associated with that crest. It’s very much like Materia work in many of the Final Fantasy games of the PS1 era, but a bit clumsier. It can be quite hard to keep track of what spells you have and where, and ultimately I just sorta stopped caring because the really just isn’t hard enough most of the time to encourage you to really get to grips with the crest system.
Then we have the position-based combat. Instead of the class “your row vs. their row” combat that the first game had, now your characters will automatically move about the battle to attack different enemies as you direct them to. We even have an FFX-style turn order timer to help you take into accordance what slower or faster attacks you’ll want to use or how you’ll try to delay or advance enemy attacks and such. If your allies happen to be (or are directed to) stand close to one another, however, they can do a combo attack, where you chain their attacks together regardless of where they are on the turn timer.
However, while the combo system can let you do some interesting things with turn order, given that you need to use a turn to set them up, it usually just adds up to a lot of extra button presses (though you can put together hot keys to activate them super fast if you want to, though I never bothered) for not much actual extra effect. Like with the spells crests, the difficulty of the game just never really pushes you to bother interacting with this system outside of disrupting when enemies try to do combos, which itself doesn’t really necessitate doing combos yourself. The difficulty balancing of the whole game is honestly quite poor, being very needlessly brutal through the first handful of bosses, and then being incredibly easy all the way through the end of the game. Shadow Hearts 2 has some very ambitious changes to the Shadow Hearts formula, but like with the narrative design, the mechanical design too just ends up feeling half-baked.
Lastly, we have the presentation which is also a very mixed bag. On one hand, by its own merits, Shadow Hearts 2 looks quite good for a mid-life PS2 game. It uses all of that space between its two discs to throw together a lot of good music, really good voice work, and some really impressive looking pre-rendered cutscenes (with the one of Yuri and the airship being a personal favorite). On the other hand, as a sequel to Shadow Hearts, the presentation of this game was extremely disappointing. Shadow Hearts 1 has a very distinctive art style very evocative of the creepy, atmospheric Koudelka that it’s a sorta-sequel to. Its more realistic character models add to that atmosphere just as much as its super creepy monster design does. Shadow Hearts 2, on the other hand, really drops the ball on that front.
We’ve completely abandoned the more realistic graphical style for a far more generic looking, anime-inspired art style that feels far more interested in chasing trends than it does being more Shadow Hearts. This is doubled down on even further in a way that doesn’t even matter for if you played the previous game are not, as this game just outright includes bits of cutscenes or screenshots of certain events that happened in the last game. But as Shadow Hearts 2 has a completely different art style than the first, these come off as incredibly dissonant and strange as the player (who may’ve never played the first game) is meant to understand that that tall, lanky guy in the coat is meant to be Yuri.
One of the best examples of how unsure and self-conscious this game is can be shown in how the game so readily ruins a great original idea. There are some parts of the game where Yuri fills his new companions in on events that happened in the first game. This is portrayed in pre-rendered cutscenes of crappy drawings of events from the last game to try and get across that Yuri isn’t too great at portraying this stuff to his friends. It’s a great little touch and quite funny too. The only thing is that, I guess just in case the player is completely incapable of abstract thought, is that you have a picture-in-picture in the corner of that cutscene as it appeared in the first game, both completely ruining the stylistic choice of the crappy drawings as well as confusing the player with depictions of characters and places that look nothing remotely like how the game they’re playing looks.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. I think I’d more easily give a simple “Recommended” to this game if it weren’t letting down its predecessor so aggressively. Shadow Hearts 1 is a really excellent game, but god damn does its sequel fail to live up to it in just about every way it conceivably could. Shadow Hearts 2 very frequently feels like a game very afraid to be its own thing. From the presentation to the narrative, so much of it feels absolutely terrified of not living up to the standard of either contemporary games or the original Shadow Hearts, and the whole experience suffers significantly as a result. This is absolutely a case where Shadow Hearts 2 is far from a bad game, but at the same time, it’s also a game I have a very hard time recommending as strongly as either of its sibling games.
Super fun game and a worthy sequel to the original.
It dropped the cool horror elements, but the grand scale story it told was just as good.
It dropped the cool horror elements, but the grand scale story it told was just as good.
Too many random encounters. I wish the environments were full 3D with an adjustable camera. This feels like a PS1 game with updated graphics and highlights how stagnant most JRPGs are.
I would consider playing a remake that addresses these issues.
I would consider playing a remake that addresses these issues.
Shadow Hearts Covenant is the type of game that swings for the fucking stars. So absolutely confident in everything it's going for from combat all the way to the endearingly messy but wonderfully heartfelt storytelling.
A story of people doing their best to make it and find their own happiness in a cold world that just keeps throwing ordeal after ordeal at them. In a world that does nothing but take how do you continue on giving yourself to others? Ya just do. Everything about Yuri's story hits for me in just such a special and specific way. Grief is rough and its easy to get lost in. Support systems are important and can help you from ending up completely losing yourself within it.
I love that it even touches more upon the bad people justifying horrible shit to themselves deal that Koudelka strives at and Shadow Hearts stumbled with and nails it pretty hard here (Koudelka still the GOAT at it tho).
I love everything about this games Trigun ass vibes, the warm summertime glow of some of the locations, how beautiful the world is represented. How endearing mostly the entire cast is. Joachim especially is a fucking standout character. Like this game is absolutely not great with queer rep (the man festival is pretty fucking yikes dawg) but Joachim is like a shining beacon of hope within the messiness of it all. He's such a loveable gay himbo and I absolutely want to protect him at all costs, he gets so many fun bits and jokes, so many wonderful character moments. It's definitely a step forward from the first game even with, again, how bad the man festival specifically is (though it's at least thankfully optional).
The music yet again slaps hard as fuck. Complimenting every location and moment almost perfect. My favorites in particular being The Fate Cluster Amaryllis and Evil Gate Opener. It just strikes on so many wonderful levels though I do think that the game's implementation of these themes is a little messy. The dungeon music is fairly uniform in a way that's a little boring after the 5th time you've heard it and the town themes, while VERY good, suffer from unfortunately the same problem. Still amazing but just wish they used a lot of the tracks in much better ways like the first time around.
The combat, oh dear sweet jesus, the combat is so fucking good. They took the rough but fun systems of the original and put them completely within your hands. Every aspect of it is customizable and tweakable to make the game as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. Like I hear FTNW only improves on it and I seriously cannot even imagine how yet and that only gets me more stoked because for me it's so fucking excellent!
The dungeon design would be fine if it weren't for how horrible the map system is honestly. There are some standouts like Mirror Castle but this game would seriously benefit from having a real map and it boggles my mind that it just only has a minimap for navigating around. It's so bizarre especially since the dungeons can loop you around and shit. It's faiiiirly annoying but I can deal with it!
Something about this whole experience hit me in a way that I don't think I'll ever be forgetting anytime soon. Everything about it vibed with me in such a specific way that the first game just didn't at all. This is absolutely one of the best sequels ever made that I've experienced so far at least and I'm so hopeful for Penny Blood if this is the framework they follow (though hopefully with far better queer rep/something more along the lines of Joachim or something.) It's messy, it ain't perfect, but fuck it I love this game a ton. Captured everything I wanted the first game to be and more while also getting me to care far more about aspects of the first that I didn't fully before. Absolute banger.
Karin deserved so much better though like holy shit why did they do THAT.
My full analysis on it is now up if ya wanna check it out!
A story of people doing their best to make it and find their own happiness in a cold world that just keeps throwing ordeal after ordeal at them. In a world that does nothing but take how do you continue on giving yourself to others? Ya just do. Everything about Yuri's story hits for me in just such a special and specific way. Grief is rough and its easy to get lost in. Support systems are important and can help you from ending up completely losing yourself within it.
I love that it even touches more upon the bad people justifying horrible shit to themselves deal that Koudelka strives at and Shadow Hearts stumbled with and nails it pretty hard here (Koudelka still the GOAT at it tho).
I love everything about this games Trigun ass vibes, the warm summertime glow of some of the locations, how beautiful the world is represented. How endearing mostly the entire cast is. Joachim especially is a fucking standout character. Like this game is absolutely not great with queer rep (the man festival is pretty fucking yikes dawg) but Joachim is like a shining beacon of hope within the messiness of it all. He's such a loveable gay himbo and I absolutely want to protect him at all costs, he gets so many fun bits and jokes, so many wonderful character moments. It's definitely a step forward from the first game even with, again, how bad the man festival specifically is (though it's at least thankfully optional).
The music yet again slaps hard as fuck. Complimenting every location and moment almost perfect. My favorites in particular being The Fate Cluster Amaryllis and Evil Gate Opener. It just strikes on so many wonderful levels though I do think that the game's implementation of these themes is a little messy. The dungeon music is fairly uniform in a way that's a little boring after the 5th time you've heard it and the town themes, while VERY good, suffer from unfortunately the same problem. Still amazing but just wish they used a lot of the tracks in much better ways like the first time around.
The combat, oh dear sweet jesus, the combat is so fucking good. They took the rough but fun systems of the original and put them completely within your hands. Every aspect of it is customizable and tweakable to make the game as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. Like I hear FTNW only improves on it and I seriously cannot even imagine how yet and that only gets me more stoked because for me it's so fucking excellent!
The dungeon design would be fine if it weren't for how horrible the map system is honestly. There are some standouts like Mirror Castle but this game would seriously benefit from having a real map and it boggles my mind that it just only has a minimap for navigating around. It's so bizarre especially since the dungeons can loop you around and shit. It's faiiiirly annoying but I can deal with it!
Something about this whole experience hit me in a way that I don't think I'll ever be forgetting anytime soon. Everything about it vibed with me in such a specific way that the first game just didn't at all. This is absolutely one of the best sequels ever made that I've experienced so far at least and I'm so hopeful for Penny Blood if this is the framework they follow (though hopefully with far better queer rep/something more along the lines of Joachim or something.) It's messy, it ain't perfect, but fuck it I love this game a ton. Captured everything I wanted the first game to be and more while also getting me to care far more about aspects of the first that I didn't fully before. Absolute banger.
Karin deserved so much better though like holy shit why did they do THAT.
My full analysis on it is now up if ya wanna check it out!
on the one hand, it's a true hidden gem with an amazing story and a killer soundtrack. on the other, one of your party members is a gay vampire pro wrestler whose personal sidequest involves defeating 100 diaper-wearing men named after curries at a pro-wrestling event called "The Man Festival," which ends with said gay vampire pro wrestler earning the prize of getting to bottom for the previous winner, and idk about you, but that's exactly the kind of queer representation i can get behind (dumb, horny)
Much bigger and better-looking than the first, but comes off as overly silly, and literally undoes SH1's conclusion. Still one of the better PS2 JRPGs, thanks to a unique setting, wacky side-quests, great monster designs, and a wonderfully engaging combat system.
1915: The Age of Turbulence. War has begun.
With the mediocre sales of the original Shadow Hearts, it's still shocking to me how they got enough money to expand on the original tenfold.
This game is absolutely insane. It's like the devs took Shadow Hearts 1 and said, "how do we make this the best fucking RPG of all time"
To be honest, I dislike turn-based JRPGs for the most part, but this series is the only one that I have thoroughly enjoyed all games.
There is an overwhelming amount of main and side content, an absolutely amazing and charming cast, fit with great worldbuilding, gameplay and music.
It's quite baffling how they managed to cram this much content, considering how tight the original Shadow Hearts was with its budget, and lack of content.
There's a lot of things I want to say about this game. I think I could make a book if I wrote it all down. But I'll keep it short and simple.
The story is a huge part of this game that is a bit too complicated and confusing. The game being two discs, and switching the main antagonist/protagonist too many times and introducing a lot of unimportant plot points doesn't help this.
There's a lot of loose ties from SH1 they could have cleared up, or some story points in the game that are dropped really early or just don't make sense at all.
However, due to the game taking a shift in tones (from SH1's gothic horror vibes to a more comedic, lighthearted story), which isn't bad for the most part, but it's very hard to take the game seriously when it tries to be.
That's not to say this change is bad. The main cast are great, and even if they're a bit too goofy, it's just great to see an enjoyable cast all the way.
This also might sound weird but apart from Yuri, Karin and Kurando, none of the main cast feel..... important? Like they are there, mostly for comedic value, but story-wise they don't bring anything to the table. You just help them out in their country on Disc 1 and they help you on your adventure.
I also love the fact that they brought back Sargeant Kato from the first game. Him and Yuri have such a glow-up from the first game to second, and his ideals and reasons for destroying the world actually feel reasonable. Plus, his cape makes him look badass, so that instantly tops any other villain you try to argue is better.
Despite the shift in tone, the worldbuilding in this game is even greater than the first. The sheer amount of detailed locations compared to the first is simply amazing, combined with their historic settings (which for the most part are quite accurate, they did their research) and the traveling is something I just adore with these games.
The music is great in this game too. It perfectly captures the vibes of every location (except for that one theme that plays throughout every fucking dungeon ever) and they all sound great, especially the boss themes. (shoutout to Ladder to Heaven and the 3 Karmas)
The gameplay takes a massive step forward from the first game, bringing back the engaging and unique Judgement Ring, along with some new mechanics, like full customization for the Judgement Ring, having a full action grid, new special moves, Fusion monsters for Yuri and Kurando, and my beloved Combo system.
They take some getting used to at first, but it can get really addicting as the game progresses.
My only complaint with it is that the game is wayyyyyy too easy. Thanks to a certain exploit with Fusion monsters, you can get one of them to buff attacks by over 150%. Now if you were able to have everyone lined up in a full combo, and time all the attacks perfectly, you can achieve colossal damage, making a lot of boss fights easy to cheese through in this game.
The SP meter also makes a return, but it isn't that much of a threat as it was in SH1. It's too easy to deal with, if you deal with it at all, since a lot of battles end before you're even able to get the SP down to half.
The game also has to pull a lot of weird and freaky shit out on us for no reason. For example, Joachim, the cool vampire wrestler who picks up random chunky items to use as weapons, yeah he's actually gay, and his side quest is full of annoying gay stereotypes, along with him getting fucked in broad daylight, in front of a child???????? yeah. it's fucked up.
I still don't rock with the fact that Karin basically is Yuri's mother, as in the ending she time travels to meet Yuri's father, and they proceed to have Yuri, but then he meets Karin again a few decades later, effectively keeping the entire world in a loop. It's shit like that that keeps me up at night, I don't like it.
Overall, this game has a wild, overbloated story that is kinda paced bad, has a lot of freaky moments, a story that's hard to take serious at times, and a gameplay system that is broken and wayyy too easy.
Despite all this, it still manages to be the BEST RPG on the PS2. Actually, scratch that, it still manages to be one of the best PS2 games, and the BEST RPG EVER.
I know this game is hella weird, but it's 100% worth your time.
With the mediocre sales of the original Shadow Hearts, it's still shocking to me how they got enough money to expand on the original tenfold.
This game is absolutely insane. It's like the devs took Shadow Hearts 1 and said, "how do we make this the best fucking RPG of all time"
To be honest, I dislike turn-based JRPGs for the most part, but this series is the only one that I have thoroughly enjoyed all games.
There is an overwhelming amount of main and side content, an absolutely amazing and charming cast, fit with great worldbuilding, gameplay and music.
It's quite baffling how they managed to cram this much content, considering how tight the original Shadow Hearts was with its budget, and lack of content.
There's a lot of things I want to say about this game. I think I could make a book if I wrote it all down. But I'll keep it short and simple.
The story is a huge part of this game that is a bit too complicated and confusing. The game being two discs, and switching the main antagonist/protagonist too many times and introducing a lot of unimportant plot points doesn't help this.
There's a lot of loose ties from SH1 they could have cleared up, or some story points in the game that are dropped really early or just don't make sense at all.
However, due to the game taking a shift in tones (from SH1's gothic horror vibes to a more comedic, lighthearted story), which isn't bad for the most part, but it's very hard to take the game seriously when it tries to be.
That's not to say this change is bad. The main cast are great, and even if they're a bit too goofy, it's just great to see an enjoyable cast all the way.
This also might sound weird but apart from Yuri, Karin and Kurando, none of the main cast feel..... important? Like they are there, mostly for comedic value, but story-wise they don't bring anything to the table. You just help them out in their country on Disc 1 and they help you on your adventure.
I also love the fact that they brought back Sargeant Kato from the first game. Him and Yuri have such a glow-up from the first game to second, and his ideals and reasons for destroying the world actually feel reasonable. Plus, his cape makes him look badass, so that instantly tops any other villain you try to argue is better.
Despite the shift in tone, the worldbuilding in this game is even greater than the first. The sheer amount of detailed locations compared to the first is simply amazing, combined with their historic settings (which for the most part are quite accurate, they did their research) and the traveling is something I just adore with these games.
The music is great in this game too. It perfectly captures the vibes of every location (except for that one theme that plays throughout every fucking dungeon ever) and they all sound great, especially the boss themes. (shoutout to Ladder to Heaven and the 3 Karmas)
The gameplay takes a massive step forward from the first game, bringing back the engaging and unique Judgement Ring, along with some new mechanics, like full customization for the Judgement Ring, having a full action grid, new special moves, Fusion monsters for Yuri and Kurando, and my beloved Combo system.
They take some getting used to at first, but it can get really addicting as the game progresses.
My only complaint with it is that the game is wayyyyyy too easy. Thanks to a certain exploit with Fusion monsters, you can get one of them to buff attacks by over 150%. Now if you were able to have everyone lined up in a full combo, and time all the attacks perfectly, you can achieve colossal damage, making a lot of boss fights easy to cheese through in this game.
The SP meter also makes a return, but it isn't that much of a threat as it was in SH1. It's too easy to deal with, if you deal with it at all, since a lot of battles end before you're even able to get the SP down to half.
The game also has to pull a lot of weird and freaky shit out on us for no reason. For example, Joachim, the cool vampire wrestler who picks up random chunky items to use as weapons, yeah he's actually gay, and his side quest is full of annoying gay stereotypes, along with him getting fucked in broad daylight, in front of a child???????? yeah. it's fucked up.
I still don't rock with the fact that Karin basically is Yuri's mother, as in the ending she time travels to meet Yuri's father, and they proceed to have Yuri, but then he meets Karin again a few decades later, effectively keeping the entire world in a loop. It's shit like that that keeps me up at night, I don't like it.
Overall, this game has a wild, overbloated story that is kinda paced bad, has a lot of freaky moments, a story that's hard to take serious at times, and a gameplay system that is broken and wayyy too easy.
Despite all this, it still manages to be the BEST RPG on the PS2. Actually, scratch that, it still manages to be one of the best PS2 games, and the BEST RPG EVER.
I know this game is hella weird, but it's 100% worth your time.
The fact this game combined history with an RPG made it a standout for me. One of the best JPRGs of the PS2 era.
Best JRPG in PS2
This review contains spoilers
A bittersweet sequel in a few ways. The gameplay is polished, the length is increased, visual presentation received a much-needed improvement, voice acting is better and more abundant but still not great. A lot of improvements were made but at the cost of the horror theme that made the first game stand out so much from the rest of the genre which is a big hit. The story also unfortunately meanders starting around the halfway point and Kato's late shift into the villain role really hurt his quality as an antagonist. It would've been better if he was the antagonist from the start instead of nicolai since conceptually he's a much better antagonist due to his connection to the first game and its contrast with yuri's own personal conflicts. The lighthearted tone that permeates the story in place of the horror aspect isn't actually that bad and the characters are pretty likable with fun interactions but the cost feels much too great. Karin's role as Yuri's love interest doesn't feel very believable considering how few romantic scenes they had and it just comes off as awkward with Yuri's residual feelings for Alice taking a front row seat later on in the game.
In some ways, this improves on the original, but in others not so much.
I find the combo system and the lack of pre-rendered backgrounds everywhere are a welcome change, but I really disliked the shift from gothic horror towards a more comedic approach, which just came off as lame and unfunny 100% of the time. It ends up causing a huge tonal clash when it expects you to suddenly take it seriously in dramatic moments. The result for me was just not caring at all about what was going on in the story, or about the characters themselves, which I found to be almost universally annoying.
There's some really terrible dungeon design at parts here as well. Some of them felt like a chore at times in a way the original never did for me. The SP system also seems much more lenient than the original, I basically never paid any attention to it and never really suffered any consequences because of it. I guess that could be considered a good thing since it was kind of irritating to manage before, but It makes me wonder why they even included it in the first place.
One thing that didn't change is how tiresome the judgment ring system starts to become over time. It's especially noticeable here since the game is a good bit longer.
I find the combo system and the lack of pre-rendered backgrounds everywhere are a welcome change, but I really disliked the shift from gothic horror towards a more comedic approach, which just came off as lame and unfunny 100% of the time. It ends up causing a huge tonal clash when it expects you to suddenly take it seriously in dramatic moments. The result for me was just not caring at all about what was going on in the story, or about the characters themselves, which I found to be almost universally annoying.
There's some really terrible dungeon design at parts here as well. Some of them felt like a chore at times in a way the original never did for me. The SP system also seems much more lenient than the original, I basically never paid any attention to it and never really suffered any consequences because of it. I guess that could be considered a good thing since it was kind of irritating to manage before, but It makes me wonder why they even included it in the first place.
One thing that didn't change is how tiresome the judgment ring system starts to become over time. It's especially noticeable here since the game is a good bit longer.
The most amusing factor is how many historical liberties that game takes just because it can. Female commanders in WWI Germany? Why the fuck not? My team is made of said commander, anastasia romanova, a gay himbo vampire, an old lewd man who likes to play with his puppets (and made me go from EEEW to "oh no, I'm sad now" for at least ten minutes), a future gold digger but it's okay because the guy is into it, a white wolf whose name is Blanca but who is still a guy wolf and who fights battles against other dogs and wolfes and one of them is a toy dog and none of this makes sense. Ah yes. And Yuri. He is almost the normal one in the team. But I guess that goes to the samurai we pick up in the last forth of the game. The guy Anastasia Romanova flirts with constantly.
It was weird.
It's a wild ride of a story whose beats are sometimes hit or miss but did manage to make most of it's characters sympathetic to me (or at least for ten minutes).
I also loved the soundtrack.
It was weird.
It's a wild ride of a story whose beats are sometimes hit or miss but did manage to make most of it's characters sympathetic to me (or at least for ten minutes).
I also loved the soundtrack.
Buried underneath layers of erraticness and occasionally messy storytelling, Shadow Hearts: Covenant has an underlying core of conviction and passion that extends to every facet of the game, from the sometimes cheesy but incredibly endearing dialogue and interactions between its lovable characters, to the intense gameplay backed by a fantastic soundtrack, this game simply pulls no punches and delivers one of the most charming and entertaining games I've had the pleasure of playing. As a sequel Covenant aims to carve out its own identity by foregoing the horror and heavy gothic atmospheres that its predecessors, both Koudelka and Shadow Hearts, thrived on in favour of a grander, yet more light-hearted story that continues the blend between cosmic horror and alternate history.
First and foremost, the Judgment Ring maintains itself as one of the most engaging and inventive ideas for a combat system to revolve around, and one that I had a blast using again. It acts as an anchor to the games combat, with its presence extending into almost every other mechanic the game has to offer, and the way the new features in Covenant complement the ring just works so well. Extensive ring customisation is available for each party member, altering risk and reward, a combo system is introduced that allows you to chain attacks to deal more damage at the risk of losing your characters turns and crests store a variety of spells that characters gain access to by equipping them. In addition, the grid system has been changed to now encompass the entire stage fights play out on, with positioning taking a dynamic approach as almost every attack and hit taken will shift you or your opponent's position, keeping the fights constantly moving and fast-paced. With all of these changes, every fight in the game is exciting, intense and hectic aided by the soundtrack in battles designed to evoke those same feelings, it all just comes together so well and the only thing I could wish for is the game having a higher difficulty.
In parallel to its predecessor, the story of Covenant once again takes place in the continental area of Eurasia, as you'll be tasked with navigating through many towns and cities across the story. Where Shadow Hearts began with the entities operating in its world shrouded in mystery and our cast progressing one step at a time, slowly unravelling the truths behind it all, Covenant establishes clear villains and ideals in its opening hours, and raises the stakes to otherworldly levels much faster throughout its narrative. Antagonists are better explored with stronger motivations, both Europe and Asia are given equal focus with story elements centered around their unique culture that is mixed with the overarching plot, the addition of consistent voice acting in the in-game and FMV cutscenes, that are of much greater quantity, and a more meaningful approach to the games themes really raises the story.
The continued interweaving of history with Covenants own lore and topics allows for unique What Ifs? to be proposed and explored, providing some really interesting story concepts to be executed with villains and party members that are so distinctive that you simply will not find anything like them anywhere else. Covenant also continues to explore topics that Koudelka and Shadow Hearts brought to the table, such as the pervasive unjust cruelty of the Vatican found in every corner of the story, execution, torture, lies and deceit that underpin several major events throughout the games and imperialism is also touched upon on again in a far more impactful way. Many themes from the beginning of the series are also present, such as self-sacrifice, overcoming trauma, and not stagnating by moving on from the past.
"The future I want is the one that I create for myself. Even if it costs me my own soul.”
Where I think the narrative is at its apex though is in the more personal, grounded and poignant scenes that delve into the characters, particularly Yuri and Karin, which allow for the game to put its aforementioned themes on full display. What sets the cast of Covenant apart from other games for me is how they’re able to bring together a group of characters with such rich individuality while simultaneously creating an incredibly charming group dynamic, and it was really surprising how much I ended up liking all of them. Yuri remains a standout character who embraces many of the games themes, his transition from stagnation through fixation on the past shifting towards looking to the future through the support system Karin provides is simply fantastic, and the continued use of the graveyard and usage of monsters souls for his fusion to do good juxtaposes nicely with the games cruel world. The individuality of each character extends beyond personality and into gameplay as Covenant has some of the most diverse and varied gimmicks between its characters, all of which are well thought out and make switching between party members both super worthwhile and fun, as they are all so unique to begin with.
Shadow Hearts: Covenant has no right being as good as it is, and yet it exceeds expectations and genuinely has one of the biggest leaps in both technical and visual quality I’ve ever seen from a sequel. I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of the game, the music is utterly divine (shout out to Ladder to Heaven, The 3 Karma and Deep in Coma), dungeons can range from utilizing intuitive puzzles to just being borderline mazes, various towns and cities bathe in warm colours and lighting that when intertwined with the peaceful music create such a very soothing vibe in these downtime moments… it's all just surreal even despite how messy it can get there is still so much heart in this game. Such a rewarding experience in spite of its occasional offensiveness and shortcomings, as Covenant is much more than the sum of its parts and something that will stick with me for a long time.
First and foremost, the Judgment Ring maintains itself as one of the most engaging and inventive ideas for a combat system to revolve around, and one that I had a blast using again. It acts as an anchor to the games combat, with its presence extending into almost every other mechanic the game has to offer, and the way the new features in Covenant complement the ring just works so well. Extensive ring customisation is available for each party member, altering risk and reward, a combo system is introduced that allows you to chain attacks to deal more damage at the risk of losing your characters turns and crests store a variety of spells that characters gain access to by equipping them. In addition, the grid system has been changed to now encompass the entire stage fights play out on, with positioning taking a dynamic approach as almost every attack and hit taken will shift you or your opponent's position, keeping the fights constantly moving and fast-paced. With all of these changes, every fight in the game is exciting, intense and hectic aided by the soundtrack in battles designed to evoke those same feelings, it all just comes together so well and the only thing I could wish for is the game having a higher difficulty.
In parallel to its predecessor, the story of Covenant once again takes place in the continental area of Eurasia, as you'll be tasked with navigating through many towns and cities across the story. Where Shadow Hearts began with the entities operating in its world shrouded in mystery and our cast progressing one step at a time, slowly unravelling the truths behind it all, Covenant establishes clear villains and ideals in its opening hours, and raises the stakes to otherworldly levels much faster throughout its narrative. Antagonists are better explored with stronger motivations, both Europe and Asia are given equal focus with story elements centered around their unique culture that is mixed with the overarching plot, the addition of consistent voice acting in the in-game and FMV cutscenes, that are of much greater quantity, and a more meaningful approach to the games themes really raises the story.
The continued interweaving of history with Covenants own lore and topics allows for unique What Ifs? to be proposed and explored, providing some really interesting story concepts to be executed with villains and party members that are so distinctive that you simply will not find anything like them anywhere else. Covenant also continues to explore topics that Koudelka and Shadow Hearts brought to the table, such as the pervasive unjust cruelty of the Vatican found in every corner of the story, execution, torture, lies and deceit that underpin several major events throughout the games and imperialism is also touched upon on again in a far more impactful way. Many themes from the beginning of the series are also present, such as self-sacrifice, overcoming trauma, and not stagnating by moving on from the past.
"The future I want is the one that I create for myself. Even if it costs me my own soul.”
Where I think the narrative is at its apex though is in the more personal, grounded and poignant scenes that delve into the characters, particularly Yuri and Karin, which allow for the game to put its aforementioned themes on full display. What sets the cast of Covenant apart from other games for me is how they’re able to bring together a group of characters with such rich individuality while simultaneously creating an incredibly charming group dynamic, and it was really surprising how much I ended up liking all of them. Yuri remains a standout character who embraces many of the games themes, his transition from stagnation through fixation on the past shifting towards looking to the future through the support system Karin provides is simply fantastic, and the continued use of the graveyard and usage of monsters souls for his fusion to do good juxtaposes nicely with the games cruel world. The individuality of each character extends beyond personality and into gameplay as Covenant has some of the most diverse and varied gimmicks between its characters, all of which are well thought out and make switching between party members both super worthwhile and fun, as they are all so unique to begin with.
Shadow Hearts: Covenant has no right being as good as it is, and yet it exceeds expectations and genuinely has one of the biggest leaps in both technical and visual quality I’ve ever seen from a sequel. I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of the game, the music is utterly divine (shout out to Ladder to Heaven, The 3 Karma and Deep in Coma), dungeons can range from utilizing intuitive puzzles to just being borderline mazes, various towns and cities bathe in warm colours and lighting that when intertwined with the peaceful music create such a very soothing vibe in these downtime moments… it's all just surreal even despite how messy it can get there is still so much heart in this game. Such a rewarding experience in spite of its occasional offensiveness and shortcomings, as Covenant is much more than the sum of its parts and something that will stick with me for a long time.
Quite different than expected but not bad at all. The game was partly very silly and stupid in its storytelling, I had actually expected something serious/gloomy and was somewhat disappointed. The characters are very charming but sometimes also really badly written. When the game takes itself seriously, the story is really good (all the scenes between Yuri and Alice are fantastic). Gameplay is fun, the Judgement Ring is so simple and ingenious, it makes every fight exciting. The game has lots of optional content and really good music. The ending was a bit problematic story-wise....? I thought it was a bit weird, but hey, Japan I guess?^^
Fun if at times too erratic in both the encounters and the story. The rings system is something other rpgs should copy.
fuck your own mother
They don't make games like this anymore
Damn, that's a good game. Gee whiz, sure loved that game!
This review contains spoilers
There’s a lot of wackiness and humor in the game, but it’s ultimately a story that hammers home the theme of dealing with past traumas, and moving on from them while accepting yourself in the process. The difference between Yuri at the beginning of SH1 compared to Yuri at the end of this game is like night and day — he’s gone from a traumatized child of war and abandonment to an optimistic and genuine man, who openly accepts his mistakes and learns to love and live his own way in spite of it all. We see his various subtle changes and points of growth throughout the game, with the support of characters like Karin, Jeanne, Ben, Roger, and Alice especially. There’s just something really beautiful about that imo, and his ending with Alice in the game (and basically any other scene with Alice) is always a tear jerker to me. You even meet back up with Kato from the first game as the main villain and see that he deals with the same internal struggle as Yuri, which creates some interesting parallels between them. The two maintain a mutual respect for each other, but they also have two different ways of dealing with their trauma, so they accept they’ll have to fight. Kato’s motives on wanting to reset the world ended up actually making sense, and it seemed clear that things would’ve gone quite differently if he was able to make the same connections with others that Yuri did. I just ended up really loving it all and it’s still a story that resonates with me.
I feel like I should mention that I really dig a lot of the game’s comedy, as well; in a lot of ways this game seems like it’s parodying other JRPGs at several points. The party is about to fight a powerful ancient oracle at one point, and all they can focus on is the fact that it’s floating on a pillow. Or there’s one scene with Veronica where one of your party members has to get tortured, and you can pick their dialogue options as it happens, and there’s all kinds of stuff you can say. Also, as you explore different areas in the game, Joachim will occasionally find random things lying around to pick up and use as his primary weapons, akin to how you would find weapons in other RPGs. Only this time, the other characters will openly acknowledge how bizarre that actually is.
Combat is really amazing and engaging and never got old. I think I ran from just one random encounter through the entire game, but aside from that I fought them all because it was that much fun. There’s just an endless amount of customization. You can increase the hits of your judgement ring, expand the strike/hit areas to make them wider, add status effects to your physical attacks, make the ring spin slower, or make it completely invisible for extra damage. There’s even different types of judgement rings altogether, including an automatic one if you don’t want to engage with the timed button pressing at all. The magic system is equally customizable and fun to work with, especially when you expand your collection using Solomon’s key. Every character has a distinct role in battle — Joachim is a tank, Blanca and Lucia are support characters, Yuri and Kurando are all rounders, Gepetto is a mage, Karin and Anastasia are a bit more complicated but with a good magic setup, you can make anyone into anything you want. In battle itself, you can see the turn order unlike the first game, and you can execute combos, which are really satisfying to pull off and have lots of risk and reward to them.
Every one of your party members also have their own side quests devoted to them, which also provide some nice side stories and allow you to unlock new abilities/weapons for them. My favorite was Blanca’s wolf bouts, which consist of him fighting one on one with rival wolves to unlock new abilities, including one wolf who… is a parody of Terry Bogard. God I love this game.
OST absolutely SLAPS and I still listen to it on a regular basis. The battle themes are especially amazing here, like Astaroth’s theme, Hardcore to the brain, Ladder to heaven, and the 3 karma. But there’s also lots of more sweet and relaxing pieces, like Town of twilight, Karin’s theme, Village of the dog god, and old smudged map. The majority of it fits every scene/location it plays in, and there’s very rarely any forgettable music. And Getsurenka is such a beautiful ending song, I especially love its use of leitmotif. Yasunori Mitsuda returned to work on a couple of songs in this game and this turned out to be some of his finest work ever imo, I ended up feeling pretty reminiscent of Chrono Cross. Overall, of the 3 SH games (4 if we count Koudelka) this one easily had the best music.
Basically my only gripes with the game are that there’s two dungeons that sucked, Tiffauges Castle and the Battleship Mikasa. Almost every other dungeon has a puzzle that’s fun and interesting, and just worth engaging with, while not being too difficult. The two aforementioned dungeons however, had extremely confusing design and the actual puzzles don’t make much sense, so they were pretty frustrating until I just looked them up. I think an overhead map, which was only added in the 3rd game, would’ve helped a lot.
To put things simply though… I can’t even fully describe why every last thing about this game clicked with me so much, but I’ve done the best I could in this college essay I’ve written here. Shadow Hearts Covenant is a masterpiece, go play it (emulate it, don’t be an idiot like me and buy an absurdly expensive physical copy of it).
I feel like I should mention that I really dig a lot of the game’s comedy, as well; in a lot of ways this game seems like it’s parodying other JRPGs at several points. The party is about to fight a powerful ancient oracle at one point, and all they can focus on is the fact that it’s floating on a pillow. Or there’s one scene with Veronica where one of your party members has to get tortured, and you can pick their dialogue options as it happens, and there’s all kinds of stuff you can say. Also, as you explore different areas in the game, Joachim will occasionally find random things lying around to pick up and use as his primary weapons, akin to how you would find weapons in other RPGs. Only this time, the other characters will openly acknowledge how bizarre that actually is.
Combat is really amazing and engaging and never got old. I think I ran from just one random encounter through the entire game, but aside from that I fought them all because it was that much fun. There’s just an endless amount of customization. You can increase the hits of your judgement ring, expand the strike/hit areas to make them wider, add status effects to your physical attacks, make the ring spin slower, or make it completely invisible for extra damage. There’s even different types of judgement rings altogether, including an automatic one if you don’t want to engage with the timed button pressing at all. The magic system is equally customizable and fun to work with, especially when you expand your collection using Solomon’s key. Every character has a distinct role in battle — Joachim is a tank, Blanca and Lucia are support characters, Yuri and Kurando are all rounders, Gepetto is a mage, Karin and Anastasia are a bit more complicated but with a good magic setup, you can make anyone into anything you want. In battle itself, you can see the turn order unlike the first game, and you can execute combos, which are really satisfying to pull off and have lots of risk and reward to them.
Every one of your party members also have their own side quests devoted to them, which also provide some nice side stories and allow you to unlock new abilities/weapons for them. My favorite was Blanca’s wolf bouts, which consist of him fighting one on one with rival wolves to unlock new abilities, including one wolf who… is a parody of Terry Bogard. God I love this game.
OST absolutely SLAPS and I still listen to it on a regular basis. The battle themes are especially amazing here, like Astaroth’s theme, Hardcore to the brain, Ladder to heaven, and the 3 karma. But there’s also lots of more sweet and relaxing pieces, like Town of twilight, Karin’s theme, Village of the dog god, and old smudged map. The majority of it fits every scene/location it plays in, and there’s very rarely any forgettable music. And Getsurenka is such a beautiful ending song, I especially love its use of leitmotif. Yasunori Mitsuda returned to work on a couple of songs in this game and this turned out to be some of his finest work ever imo, I ended up feeling pretty reminiscent of Chrono Cross. Overall, of the 3 SH games (4 if we count Koudelka) this one easily had the best music.
Basically my only gripes with the game are that there’s two dungeons that sucked, Tiffauges Castle and the Battleship Mikasa. Almost every other dungeon has a puzzle that’s fun and interesting, and just worth engaging with, while not being too difficult. The two aforementioned dungeons however, had extremely confusing design and the actual puzzles don’t make much sense, so they were pretty frustrating until I just looked them up. I think an overhead map, which was only added in the 3rd game, would’ve helped a lot.
To put things simply though… I can’t even fully describe why every last thing about this game clicked with me so much, but I’ve done the best I could in this college essay I’ve written here. Shadow Hearts Covenant is a masterpiece, go play it (emulate it, don’t be an idiot like me and buy an absurdly expensive physical copy of it).
While this game may not have the atmosphere of the first, its gameplay is markedly improved in every aspect, and for me this was a joy to play through. While I generally think this game's attempts at humor were also better than the first game's, that's not saying much as I maybe laughed two or three times as compared to the one time during the first Shadow Hearts. I'm not really a fan of some of the more insidious tropes they rely on, either. Mostly that's what prevents me from giving it a full 5 stars.
Shadow Hearts is a JRPG that is all about politics and religion, of course, what JRPG isn’t? Covenant has a very interesting story with memorable characters, however, the pacing is a bit off. You play as Yuri, a young man stricken with a curse called the Mistletoe. This locks out his inner powers inside his heart and you are trying to find a cure for it. Along the way, you meet many people with various abilities for combat. The story is a bit involved and complicated, but it is interesting. I could try to explain it, but it would take nearly 3-4 paragraphs just to do that.
Some scenes can be a bit weird and kinky
Let’s start with the combat. Shadow Hearts uses a ring system where a needle spins around a ring and you press X when it falls in the yellow and red areas. Each character has different sized hit areas and different amounts. You want to try to get it in the red which is a strike zone which does extra damage, but it can be hard because some character’s strike zones are small 2 pixel slivers. You can acquire expansions for these areas and you can customize your ring. Once you get good you can increase the number of hit areas, but they become smaller. This ring is used for everything from items, special attacks, and magic. In Shadow Hearts, you can do combos with characters by watching your battle turns at the top. Use a four player combo and you can do massive damage and special combo magic attacks. One thing I really like about this game is that you aren’t stuck with specific characters that only do magic. Everyone can do it because you use magic crests which have different magic attacks that are both offensive and defensive. Some character just has more MP than others. This means your heavy hitter can also cast Raise Up without compromising anything.
Covenant is mainly comprised of boss battles. They are very frequent but are the most fun in the game. Each is different, some are weak to combos, special attacks only, some are just weak to physical damage. However, the ring system makes you solely responsible for whether or not attacks hit or miss. If you don’t focus and miss part of the ring you don’t attack. This also makes the combat more engaging because you aren’t just flipping through menus. Yuri has an ability to switch between fusion forms which are elementals. This allows you to target a weakness on the fly. However, everybody has SP which are sanity points and deplete with each turn. When you run out characters go berserk and JRPG players know that is not a good thing. You have to use Pure items to restore these points, but this only becomes an issue early in the game. Once you level up enough you get enough SP that it won’t run out before a boss battle is over.
Blanca’s Wolf Bout side quest isn’t worth finishing
The amount of grinding in the game is minimal. Since you mostly fight bosses you get globs of XP all the time, so just from bosses alone, you can get to level 40. There are random battles but they aren’t as frequent as most JRPGs, but they still exist. Random battles are the single thing that keeps me away from these games. It is lazy game design and just needs to end. There are puzzles in the game which can be kind of challenging, but the mazes are frustrating. Running around trying different combos on different floors is just a nightmare. Partner this with random battles and you are bound to toss your controller a few times.
There are side quests, but they are pretty weak and not really worth it. You usually just get items for it or armor, but these armors can be bought later on, usually just after the next boss fight or two. A lot of the character’s abilities have to be learned from fighting people in the game or finding them which I found irritating. I’d rather just learn them from leveling up. Karin’s sword arts are found by talking to certain people so if you miss them then your special attacks will always be weak, not fun. Besides all that this is a more tolerable JRPG, even people like me who hate them will enjoy this game.
Early on Karin acquires her first powerful weapon
The graphics at the time were good, and there is a nice art style here. The CGI cutscenes are nice, but there aren’t enough of them. The voice acting is spotty where a couple of characters sound good, but the rest sound like cheesy high school students in a play. That is usually expected in English versions of JRPGs, especially back then. I would play this game for the story and fun boss fights. Skip all the side quest crap and just finish the story. There’s nothing worthwhile in spending 20 extra hours for some items.
Some scenes can be a bit weird and kinky
Let’s start with the combat. Shadow Hearts uses a ring system where a needle spins around a ring and you press X when it falls in the yellow and red areas. Each character has different sized hit areas and different amounts. You want to try to get it in the red which is a strike zone which does extra damage, but it can be hard because some character’s strike zones are small 2 pixel slivers. You can acquire expansions for these areas and you can customize your ring. Once you get good you can increase the number of hit areas, but they become smaller. This ring is used for everything from items, special attacks, and magic. In Shadow Hearts, you can do combos with characters by watching your battle turns at the top. Use a four player combo and you can do massive damage and special combo magic attacks. One thing I really like about this game is that you aren’t stuck with specific characters that only do magic. Everyone can do it because you use magic crests which have different magic attacks that are both offensive and defensive. Some character just has more MP than others. This means your heavy hitter can also cast Raise Up without compromising anything.
Covenant is mainly comprised of boss battles. They are very frequent but are the most fun in the game. Each is different, some are weak to combos, special attacks only, some are just weak to physical damage. However, the ring system makes you solely responsible for whether or not attacks hit or miss. If you don’t focus and miss part of the ring you don’t attack. This also makes the combat more engaging because you aren’t just flipping through menus. Yuri has an ability to switch between fusion forms which are elementals. This allows you to target a weakness on the fly. However, everybody has SP which are sanity points and deplete with each turn. When you run out characters go berserk and JRPG players know that is not a good thing. You have to use Pure items to restore these points, but this only becomes an issue early in the game. Once you level up enough you get enough SP that it won’t run out before a boss battle is over.
Blanca’s Wolf Bout side quest isn’t worth finishing
The amount of grinding in the game is minimal. Since you mostly fight bosses you get globs of XP all the time, so just from bosses alone, you can get to level 40. There are random battles but they aren’t as frequent as most JRPGs, but they still exist. Random battles are the single thing that keeps me away from these games. It is lazy game design and just needs to end. There are puzzles in the game which can be kind of challenging, but the mazes are frustrating. Running around trying different combos on different floors is just a nightmare. Partner this with random battles and you are bound to toss your controller a few times.
There are side quests, but they are pretty weak and not really worth it. You usually just get items for it or armor, but these armors can be bought later on, usually just after the next boss fight or two. A lot of the character’s abilities have to be learned from fighting people in the game or finding them which I found irritating. I’d rather just learn them from leveling up. Karin’s sword arts are found by talking to certain people so if you miss them then your special attacks will always be weak, not fun. Besides all that this is a more tolerable JRPG, even people like me who hate them will enjoy this game.
Early on Karin acquires her first powerful weapon
The graphics at the time were good, and there is a nice art style here. The CGI cutscenes are nice, but there aren’t enough of them. The voice acting is spotty where a couple of characters sound good, but the rest sound like cheesy high school students in a play. That is usually expected in English versions of JRPGs, especially back then. I would play this game for the story and fun boss fights. Skip all the side quest crap and just finish the story. There’s nothing worthwhile in spending 20 extra hours for some items.
This review contains spoilers
I shouldn't rate this game this high, cuz it's a mess. But it's also a very ambitious and heartfelt project for a new JRPG series, that brings a lot to the table.
Obviously it's the second game named Shadow Hearts and chronically the third game starting from the story told in Koudelka, so why should this one be so special?
For one, gameplay-wise it just improves so much from the first Shadow Hearts. This time the judgement ring is not just testing your timing to actually execute the turn based combat, but it also offers a lot of options for customization and either playing it more safe or going for higher risk and higher reward in dealing more damage/ stronger heals/ more effective buffs. This is exacerbated by the sanity point system from the previous game, where from turn to turn your characters loose points and when it drops to 0 they'll go mad and attack people randomly or start healing enemies. You want to take some risks to finish the enemies faster, to not go insane.
From a purely gameplay perspective the party is probably one of the best in any JRPG, their skills and abilities are so diverse that every single on of them can be put to good use and you can further customize their spells via the different "crests" to mix and match different magic abilities. They also have pretty involved side-quests to gain more abilities and equipment (and rarely reveal a bit more about their background). The cast in general is super colorful and memorable, even if many of them stay rather one-note, they all still manage to make an impression with their eccentric mannerisms and skills. There is also stuff like actually good puzzles for dungeons and a discount system for merchants that again tests your dexterity and timing, same with the lottery. Just a lot of stuff that makes this game stand out mechanically.
Then there is the setting. Gone are the days from the original Shadow Hearts where every second village is cursed, overrun by man-eating demons, haunted by ghosts or where mad scientist try to revive their loved ones by sacrificing a bunch of people and instead demons, ghost as well as other abominations take a backseat, making the horror themes more of a backdrop. Shadow Hearts' theme of overcoming trauma however gets a more societal focus this way. In this way it combines it's blend of alternative history and horror in a rather interesting way. While it doesn't analyze (historic) injustices in a material or systemic way, - framing the ever increasing violence and cruelty of WW1 as the outcome of a power hungry cult possessed by demons and Japan's ongoing imperialism as influenced by the inability of the antagonist to overcome his trauma, resulting in occult experiments for creating new weapons - it still provides an interesting premise for conflict.
The acceptance of trauma and cherishing the good memories of lost lovers on the side of the protagonist and the inability to do so on the side of the antagonist is an interesting and engaging conflict that can actually pertain to the actual lives of the players. However, the portrayal of historic conflicts also is where it gets messy.
The fictional foreign minister of Japan is supposed to have formed a shadow government, which while it does paint a scathing picture of Japan's ever increasing militarism at the time it does also shift the blame - like so many modern Japanese revisionist narratives do - to a military gone rogue. In reality, ever since the days of the modern Empire, Japan did in fact pursue to become Asia's super power comparable to the British Empire. Military conquest, cultural subjugation and economic enslavement where goals the whole nation strived for.
Especially with on the one hand the final confrontation with the foreign minister and on the other hand with the antagonist and the last boss fight, ist is clear, that this game really wants to portray the Japanese Empire as a corrupt and cruel. Some parts just don't match up though. The rehabilitation of Naniwa Kawashima for example: Kawashima was a spy that tried to help Chinese nobles found a new state in Manchuria. This is the same goal the foreign minister pursued in the game and it's the same goal the Japanese did in fact strive for. In actual history Japan eventually cut support for the Chinese nobles and instead went for the establishment of a settler colony via military means. Either way, both were meant to strengthen Japan's economic control in the region. Kawashima and the foreign minister should be equally bad in the game, yet one is framed as evil incarnate while the other is our benefactor and kinda mentor.
On the side of Europe in WW1 it doesn't fare much better. Not once is the game interest in investigating the struggles for power underlying the conflict between the super powers and we're even supposed to feel sympathy for the Russian nobles as they are a victim of Rasputin's evil plots. (I do admit however that Rasputin is a really entertaining villain).
Another thing is the retcons. They just make the narrative unnecessarily complicated. The villain of the last game suddenly had a rival, he just wanted to stoo, which is the only reason he wanted to destroy the world. Naniwa Kawashima did in fact love his daughter and didn't order her killing in the last game (though he still has enough of say in the military to even stand against the foreign minister and his plots, so why didn't he prevent her death then?). And the Emigre Manuscript suddenly also controls time... A bit at least. It's all just really messy. Some plot threads feel like there existed two or more scripts for the story and they were just kinda mixer together.
Lastly there are the character stories, which can be really endearing (although never too deep), but sometimes also convoluted or downright problematic. Joachim for example is a super cool character, a gay vampire wrestler. His side-quest though is full of homophobia, racist caricatures and even rape "jokes". Another example is Karin, a female German officer, that is quite capable in combat, but barely has any agency in the story and just runs after our protagonist the whole game. In the end when she is time traveling to become the protagonist's mother (who for the entire game she had a crush one) everything just becomes really ridiculous.
...so why do I rate this this high then? Like I said, the conflict and theme of trauma is actually engaging. The atmosphere with monster ridden mines, secret headquarters of evil cults, research centers full of military machinery and half-science, half-magic experiments, ruins full of ancient monstrosities is generally unique as a setting for an JRPG and the historic epoche gives the whole thing another special touch, that you'll never see anywhere else. The battle system keeps you on edge, as a missed hit can mean the early downfall of your characters. Building your party is generally engaging. Having a protagonist that actually turns into demons, that absorbs the suffering, hatred and despair of the monsters around you to turn in into something positive, is a super effective metaphor.
I really wish someone would make a spiritual successor to this series with less homophobia, sexism and racism and that also does a little more historical research to not fall victim to this stuff, as it had so much potential and could even through the use of horror and history actually discuss stuff like colonialism really interestingly.
As it stands now though, it's just my most problematic favourite.
Obviously it's the second game named Shadow Hearts and chronically the third game starting from the story told in Koudelka, so why should this one be so special?
For one, gameplay-wise it just improves so much from the first Shadow Hearts. This time the judgement ring is not just testing your timing to actually execute the turn based combat, but it also offers a lot of options for customization and either playing it more safe or going for higher risk and higher reward in dealing more damage/ stronger heals/ more effective buffs. This is exacerbated by the sanity point system from the previous game, where from turn to turn your characters loose points and when it drops to 0 they'll go mad and attack people randomly or start healing enemies. You want to take some risks to finish the enemies faster, to not go insane.
From a purely gameplay perspective the party is probably one of the best in any JRPG, their skills and abilities are so diverse that every single on of them can be put to good use and you can further customize their spells via the different "crests" to mix and match different magic abilities. They also have pretty involved side-quests to gain more abilities and equipment (and rarely reveal a bit more about their background). The cast in general is super colorful and memorable, even if many of them stay rather one-note, they all still manage to make an impression with their eccentric mannerisms and skills. There is also stuff like actually good puzzles for dungeons and a discount system for merchants that again tests your dexterity and timing, same with the lottery. Just a lot of stuff that makes this game stand out mechanically.
Then there is the setting. Gone are the days from the original Shadow Hearts where every second village is cursed, overrun by man-eating demons, haunted by ghosts or where mad scientist try to revive their loved ones by sacrificing a bunch of people and instead demons, ghost as well as other abominations take a backseat, making the horror themes more of a backdrop. Shadow Hearts' theme of overcoming trauma however gets a more societal focus this way. In this way it combines it's blend of alternative history and horror in a rather interesting way. While it doesn't analyze (historic) injustices in a material or systemic way, - framing the ever increasing violence and cruelty of WW1 as the outcome of a power hungry cult possessed by demons and Japan's ongoing imperialism as influenced by the inability of the antagonist to overcome his trauma, resulting in occult experiments for creating new weapons - it still provides an interesting premise for conflict.
The acceptance of trauma and cherishing the good memories of lost lovers on the side of the protagonist and the inability to do so on the side of the antagonist is an interesting and engaging conflict that can actually pertain to the actual lives of the players. However, the portrayal of historic conflicts also is where it gets messy.
The fictional foreign minister of Japan is supposed to have formed a shadow government, which while it does paint a scathing picture of Japan's ever increasing militarism at the time it does also shift the blame - like so many modern Japanese revisionist narratives do - to a military gone rogue. In reality, ever since the days of the modern Empire, Japan did in fact pursue to become Asia's super power comparable to the British Empire. Military conquest, cultural subjugation and economic enslavement where goals the whole nation strived for.
Especially with on the one hand the final confrontation with the foreign minister and on the other hand with the antagonist and the last boss fight, ist is clear, that this game really wants to portray the Japanese Empire as a corrupt and cruel. Some parts just don't match up though. The rehabilitation of Naniwa Kawashima for example: Kawashima was a spy that tried to help Chinese nobles found a new state in Manchuria. This is the same goal the foreign minister pursued in the game and it's the same goal the Japanese did in fact strive for. In actual history Japan eventually cut support for the Chinese nobles and instead went for the establishment of a settler colony via military means. Either way, both were meant to strengthen Japan's economic control in the region. Kawashima and the foreign minister should be equally bad in the game, yet one is framed as evil incarnate while the other is our benefactor and kinda mentor.
On the side of Europe in WW1 it doesn't fare much better. Not once is the game interest in investigating the struggles for power underlying the conflict between the super powers and we're even supposed to feel sympathy for the Russian nobles as they are a victim of Rasputin's evil plots. (I do admit however that Rasputin is a really entertaining villain).
Another thing is the retcons. They just make the narrative unnecessarily complicated. The villain of the last game suddenly had a rival, he just wanted to stoo, which is the only reason he wanted to destroy the world. Naniwa Kawashima did in fact love his daughter and didn't order her killing in the last game (though he still has enough of say in the military to even stand against the foreign minister and his plots, so why didn't he prevent her death then?). And the Emigre Manuscript suddenly also controls time... A bit at least. It's all just really messy. Some plot threads feel like there existed two or more scripts for the story and they were just kinda mixer together.
Lastly there are the character stories, which can be really endearing (although never too deep), but sometimes also convoluted or downright problematic. Joachim for example is a super cool character, a gay vampire wrestler. His side-quest though is full of homophobia, racist caricatures and even rape "jokes". Another example is Karin, a female German officer, that is quite capable in combat, but barely has any agency in the story and just runs after our protagonist the whole game. In the end when she is time traveling to become the protagonist's mother (who for the entire game she had a crush one) everything just becomes really ridiculous.
...so why do I rate this this high then? Like I said, the conflict and theme of trauma is actually engaging. The atmosphere with monster ridden mines, secret headquarters of evil cults, research centers full of military machinery and half-science, half-magic experiments, ruins full of ancient monstrosities is generally unique as a setting for an JRPG and the historic epoche gives the whole thing another special touch, that you'll never see anywhere else. The battle system keeps you on edge, as a missed hit can mean the early downfall of your characters. Building your party is generally engaging. Having a protagonist that actually turns into demons, that absorbs the suffering, hatred and despair of the monsters around you to turn in into something positive, is a super effective metaphor.
I really wish someone would make a spiritual successor to this series with less homophobia, sexism and racism and that also does a little more historical research to not fall victim to this stuff, as it had so much potential and could even through the use of horror and history actually discuss stuff like colonialism really interestingly.
As it stands now though, it's just my most problematic favourite.
+ Great cast of characters
+ Scenes are more alive than most in games
+ Battle system is engaging
+ European art style is refreshing
+ Great rock soundtrack
~ Relies on original Shadow Hearts for best experience
~ Voice acting is a mix of good/bad
~ Side Quests are often humorous
~ Story is confusing yet heartfelt
~ Complex combo system overshadowed by simple tactics
- Unbalanced roster
- It's so dark, legit dark souls dark
- Randomly silent scenes / areas at times
- Dungeons rely on backtracking
- Very little Area of Effect attacks
+ Scenes are more alive than most in games
+ Battle system is engaging
+ European art style is refreshing
+ Great rock soundtrack
~ Relies on original Shadow Hearts for best experience
~ Voice acting is a mix of good/bad
~ Side Quests are often humorous
~ Story is confusing yet heartfelt
~ Complex combo system overshadowed by simple tactics
- Unbalanced roster
- It's so dark, legit dark souls dark
- Randomly silent scenes / areas at times
- Dungeons rely on backtracking
- Very little Area of Effect attacks
Shadow Hearts: Covenant took the previous title's supernatural themes and transposed it to an alternate WWI history. The setting lends itself to a stronger political focus - but in spite of this, the dark themes of Shadow Hearts are disposed of and replaced by a much more lighthearted demeanor. It's comical, snarky attitude evokes GameArts' works (or more appropriately, Working Designs minus the pop-culture references), sharing its penchant for oddball NPC caricatures and silly moments. The story falls flat whenever it tries to be serious - especially in the disappointing second half, although the protagonist-focused substories unravel effectively.
If for nothing else, this work is characterised by its slick production, resulting in more expansive environments and polished graphics. This change is most apparent in their diverse dungeons than run the gamut from massive & maze-like to puzzle-oriented levels. The mazes get tedious very quickly, but they don't necessarily detract from the charming gimmick dungeons. The production also prevails in its mechanics. The battle system in particular is swamped by plenty of plundered features, some that take advantage of the Judgment Ring's timing-window combat, and many other unrelated add-ons. Chrono Trigger's positional combat, visible turn orders + turn manipulation, FFVI's individual character progression, virtual job classes, magic/attack combos, crafting, and tons of FF skills are all haphazardly thrown together to form a hyper-dense stew of ideas.
Even if it's a little too keen on recycling so many past systems for the sake of depth (on top of a series that already felt dejavu) it's nevertheless lushly crafted and arranged.
If for nothing else, this work is characterised by its slick production, resulting in more expansive environments and polished graphics. This change is most apparent in their diverse dungeons than run the gamut from massive & maze-like to puzzle-oriented levels. The mazes get tedious very quickly, but they don't necessarily detract from the charming gimmick dungeons. The production also prevails in its mechanics. The battle system in particular is swamped by plenty of plundered features, some that take advantage of the Judgment Ring's timing-window combat, and many other unrelated add-ons. Chrono Trigger's positional combat, visible turn orders + turn manipulation, FFVI's individual character progression, virtual job classes, magic/attack combos, crafting, and tons of FF skills are all haphazardly thrown together to form a hyper-dense stew of ideas.
Even if it's a little too keen on recycling so many past systems for the sake of depth (on top of a series that already felt dejavu) it's nevertheless lushly crafted and arranged.
You can have a gay vampire luchador hit Rasputin over the head with a 2x4