I think after playing through this game, I completely understand the concept of a love/hate relationship because no matter how much hate I feel for the game, I still worked up 30+ hours on the game and despite its bad parts and it has some AWFUL parts, it makes the good moments that bit more prominent. So get ready for bad voice acting, terrible 3-D cut-scenes and a rather grabby acupuncturist, taking us from Shanghai to Prague and so many places in between, I give you Shadow Hearts.
Even for me this was one of those RPG’s I’d never heard of, the kind of game that unfortunately slipped under the radar on its release and is only getting its recognition now. I was surprised to see that it had been developed by Sacnoth, the same company who developed Koudelka, a survival horror game for the PS1 (which despite its failing I still quite enjoyed) and playing through Shadow Hearts you can still see the survival horror roots of the company. Later in the game there’s even a tie-in between the two where you meet the young gypsy girl Koudelka and find out what happened to her, making Shadow Hearts a sequel to Koudelka! It was also released here in Europe by Midway Games, the same people behind the Mortal Kombat series, in 2001.
The game starts off on a train making its way through a bleak looking country side carrying some incredibly precious cargo. The cutscene that ensues is comprised of that awful 1st generation 3D, the kind that makes your character look like he’s got a thick layer of butter behind there skin. A weird analogy I know. The introduction of our main character Yuri Hyuga made him out to be quite the badass, getting his arm severed and just casually reattaching it but I can’t get over the fact that he looks a little like Michael Jackson and that just kept making me giggle.
The game uses a 3D character model controlled by the player in pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and I hate to have to say it but you will swiftly get tired of the backgrounds since there are so many times where the team in charge of the game obviously got lazy and just copy pasted the same tunnel or the same city background over and over. Now that’s not to say they don’t have great original environments, it’s just that they’re the same great original environments, slightly changed every now and again. The game plays well, using a unique battle system called the Judgement Ring.
The Judgement Ring is, as the name suggests, a ring, with different coloured segments for different moves during battle. These coloured segments comprise of a green area which is the Hit area, determining whether you even manage to land a blow and a separate segment that will be mostly one colour with a portion of red which is the damage segment, red meaning a critical hit and any other part meaning regular damage. This changes depending on whether you use an item, a particular spell or just a regular melee attack. The Ring also comes into the game in other moments, such as an interesting little lottery mini game where you have to hit the X button to slow the ring to a stop on the colour you want and whatever colour it lands on you get the corresponding item. It’s also used in other moments such as unlocking doors, picking up items etc.
It’s definitely a great concept and it works really well with the game, making it nearly impossible to look away from the screen in battle, making you give the game your full attention. I think in this game however, since it was the first in the series, they were really trying to push the Judgement Ring since it wasn’t an incredibly conventional system but for me it was refreshing compared to just selecting your attack and letting it happen, it brings you into the game that little bit more.
The games story is incredibly well written, with a fantastic image of the events before WW1 but in a supernatural and mystical re-imagining. Historically it’s awful but it makes for a great game. What the creators of the game did very well was give the story such great depth, without making it boring or making us not care about the characters. Some characters, including our main, even disappear for a time and the reasons why even make us worry. They eventually come back but the time we spend without them is what makes the time with them that bit more fun. Taking us all over Asia and Europe it shows great promise and I can’t wait to tackle the following two games to see what they bring to the mix. With great, albeit overused slightly, period backgrounds and characters though ridiculous make for a great group to be stuck with throughout the game.
So to wrap it up, get out there and buy this game, get on e-bay, find a copy and play it! It’s worth the ten – twenty euro you’ll pay for it with the time you’ll sink in to the game. With that, I leave you with possibly the GREATEST in game cut-scene. Ever.
[easyreview cat1title=”The Arcade Verdict” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”6.5″]
