Story	9/10	Characters	8/10
	Graphics	9/10	Music	8/10
	Gameplay	8/10	Extras	10/10
Reviewer: Chi Phan Final Score: 8.7/10

Ok here's the question, have any of you tried Shadow Hearts? Looking around I don't see many hands. Well you're not alone. I hate to say it but I missed the boat when Shadow Hearts first came out. But we all can atone for our mistakes. So with a fresh package of Shadow Hearts Covenant in my hands, I began my adventure in the world of Shadow Hearts to see what the big fuss is about. Lucky for you people, I'm here to tell you my adventure. LOL.

I Love You, Alice Didn't I kill you in the first game? Six months has passed since the events of the first Shadow Hearts. Europe and Asia has been thrown into World War I. The story starts off with a lieutenant in the German Imperial Army name Karin, on a mission to take the town of Domremy, the last place in France that hasn't fallen under German control. The mission to take the village of Domremy goes horribly wrong as Karin and her men were defeated by a demon that appears to be protecting the town. Before the demon left, Karin witnessed the transformation of the demon to human form. Mystified and star struck, Karin regrouped back at German HQ where she reported the incident. Her superior commander ordered Karin to go back to Domremy to once again try and take the town under German control. But this time she will be accompanied by a young priest name, Nicholai. Nicholai apparently knows something about this demon or human that can transformed into a demon and how to deal with him. During the second encounter with the demon, it is revealed that the demon is Yuri, the hero from the first Shadow Hearts, trying to protect the village from the invading Germans. As it turns out, Nicholai had an ulterior motive for wanting to engage with Yuri. He is working for a secret religious organization known as Sapientes Gladio. Under the command of Nicholai, Sapientes Gladio men killed off Karin German fighters leaving no witnesses behind on the coming events. But instead of killing Karin and Yuri, Nicholai struck Yuri with a cursed item called the Holy Mistletoe. Weaken by this cursed item, Yuri with Karin, managed to escape Nicholai and his Sapientes men. As next day approaches, Yuri with his friend, Gepetto, decides to head out of France in search of a cure for the curse and to find out more on this secret society, Sapientes Gladio and what their goal is. Karin having befriended Yuri decided to join him. The journey across Europe will unravel Yuri's past and the coming doom that awaits them at the hands of Sapientes Gladio. Now in regards to the story, it really is a continuation of the first Shadow Hearts. The main focus of the story is on Yuri and how he's coping with the death of his love, Alice from the first Shadow Hearts. Now you're probably wondering since this is a direct sequel, how will this affect your ability to enjoy the game or story since you never played the first game? To be honest, it will affect you a bit. The story does provide bits of information on events that took place in the first Shadow Hearts through flashback as well as dialogue but you don't really get a full sense of what happened. You're also missing that emotional cord that would have connected you to Yuri's pain if you had played the first Shadow Hearts. I never played the first game so I never met Alice so I never fell in love with that character. Hence the mention of Alice death is like the death of a stranger. There's no emotional attachment to it. However if you were to have played the first game, you probably feel the same kind of pain that Yuri is going through. Or at the least you would understand his pain and his past more. That's probably the main thing you would miss by not playing the first game. Now despite that, the story can still be enjoyed as a new story. With the exception of Yuri, most of the cast and everything else in the story is new so it's basically a brand new adventure. What's good about the story is that it plays out more of a movie than an rpg story. This is like sitting back and watching a CG movie with good voice actors than reading text from bubble like the old fashion rpg story. There are so many story movie scenes that the time spent just watching those scenes is probably equal to the time you spent on actually playing the game. By the time you finish with the story, you're be pretty exhausted but very moved and talkative. There are two possible endings to this story, a good and a bad ending. Which one you get will have you thinking about it. You may disagree or agree with the endings but you will definitely be thinking about it and wanting to discuss it with others on it to give your feelings on the whole Covenant storyline. Any time when you finish a story or movie, good or bad, where you are left to the point where you are re-examining the whole plotline and wanting to talk about it with others is a story that does it job because it made an impact on the viewers. Remember that as a writer, you want to write a story that move people and make them think. Nothing worst than having a story where people don't really care much about it. That tends to give the impression that you weren't too interested in the story. An interesting story is what your goal as a writer is. And I guarantee you that you will be interested in the whole story. You'll enjoy the various endings and the whole story but you may also disagree with how things ended. That's the beauty of this story. It'll get you involved in the end. The story isn't perfect as there are certain subplots that doesn't seem to connect to one another or left unanswered to your imagination. But the general feeling is that I believe you will agree with me when I say this is an excellent story.

The Mutant Apes From top to bottom, this game has an excellent unique cast of characters from the main casts to supporting casts, down to the villains. I think these characters are unique because they either look cool or just too weird. LOL. Most of the cool characters are the villains than the good guys. Villains like Rasputin have that ultimate sinister end game bad guy look to them that you just don't want to mess with. If done right, Rasputin could be just as cool as a Final Fantasy bad guy like Sephiroth. The Mutant Apes, a bad guy group that just look too cool to hate that you wish you get to play them more in the game. Surprisingly enough, my favorite character in the game is Nicholai, someone who looks good enough to be a main hero or a main villain (I was hoping he be a good guy) but alas was made into a cheap villain. All these villains and more could have been great villains but they never panned out due to them ending up as mid-bosses or just easy bosses to kill that in the end they lose their alluring presence that could've made them great. Even the end game boss could've been a classic cool bad guy but the fact it was so easy to kill him that it takes away that awe inspiring presence that you should have when facing an end game villain. On the good guy side of things, only three main characters seemed normal, Karin, Yuri, and Kurando. The rest comes off too weird that you will either love them because they make you laugh or you'll be shaking your head and wondering why the hell the game developers added these characters in. LOL. In terms of background developments, the game pretty much focus only on Yuri and Karin. The rest of the main casts of characters don't seem to get much of a spotlight other than a few side quests bits. That's quite a bit of disappointment there. There are a few sub plots or revelation of sub plots that the story should've focus more on. An example of this is that Nicholai as it turns out is related to one of the main characters. But yet the story doesn't seem to go further on telling us how this affects that particular main character. There are other areas such as the previous example that the game could've touched on more than just simply focusing on Yuri and Karin all the time. Still the characters are there for you to love and hate. But with a little bit of this and that, it could've been much better in terms of background development. The best way to put it is that this game has lots of good characters that if done right can have potential to be classic characters that have lasting impact on players playing this game. I believe Karin is probably the only one that will give that kind of impression here due to her ending in the game. She'll definitely be on your mind for quite some time after finishing this game. On a final note, the voice acting for these characters is outstanding which should please most of you.

Even a man can cry. Visually speaking, the game graphic engine is very strong. I would say it would be on par to those of Final Fantasy X or Final Fantasy X-2. You're looking at high end graphics engine here where the use of texture in the background environment and the character designs is near flawless. Each town or city looks exactly like the real thing. Traveling or exploring a forest shows off just how much time the game designers spend on making sure every single tree or bush is done to the very last detail to make it look as real as possible. On top of that the character designs in this game come very close to that of pure CG designs. The story cut scenes while not pure CG can come close to pure CG movies. And speaking of CG, the CG movies in this game are excellent to near perfect as can be. However despite all this, there are a few drawbacks though. First is that despite the rich use of texture to ensure everything is as detailed and as flawless as possible, the game still have lots of jaggy edges that haunts the Playstation 2 graphic engine. You mostly notice the jaddy edges from the characters and not the environment that surround them. The next flaw is the use in colors. This game overall look is dark with use of dimmed colors for the most part. I like to see rich and bright colors in a game but you don't see much of those in this game. You hardly notice there's a sun in this game. The last complaint is that the game isn't sharp enough in terms of focus. I believe the graphics could have been done more in a sharper focus than its current state. Still if you look at it overall as the entire package from the quality of rich environment to the stunning story scenes that bring these characters to life, the game graphics are a beauty to look at.

Hear that? It's the sound of evil. The music soundtrack to this game is very good if not excellent. The overall theme to the musical scores is that of a techno dance theme but in a darker sense mixed in with organ music. Giving you the sense of urgency that you're in the fight of your life and the world depends on your success. The musical scores that stick out the most where it gets you into the rhythm of the game are the battle themes and the boss themes. There's also some sort of medieval European influence to it as well. Having good battle tunes or boss fight tunes help put you in the mood to just kick some asses and save the world. There are some good story tunes too that define a moment of sadness for a particular character. So what's the downside? Well even though the music sound great, they sound too similar that they tend to sound the same even though it's two completely different tunes. Case in point, sometime you can't tell if you're listening to a dungeon tune or a battle tune. Officially the soundtrack boosts over 50 different musical scores. I can tell you that when playing the game, you can't tell if there are 50 different tunes. You think there are like maybe 10 tunes only. Excellent these tunes maybe but a game need to provide more varieties type of sound. Some of the sad piano tunes reminds me much of Final Fantasy VII Aeris theme.

Looking very hot. Feel the combo! Game Information    Genre: Turn Base Rpg    Publisher: Midway    Disc: 2 DVD Disc    Memory: 59 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Analog Control: Yes    Vibration Function: Yes    Rating: Teen    Release: September 2004 Now this is a turn base rpg game. It may not look like a turn base rpg game from a glance but it is. The basic components of what a traditional rpg game should have are all in here. World traveling, dungeon exploring, puzzle solving, use of magic, random battles, special attack and combos are all special key components in what a turn base traditional rpg game should have and this game have them all. The only difference or new aspect is the introduction of the judgment ring being integrated into the game system. The judgment ring is like a roulette gambling wheel that spins around and around. You're job is to stop the spinning handle in key areas of the wheel to get the desire outcome. Whether or not you are attacking, using magic, special attack, or using an item, you'll have to deal with the judgment ring. Everything in this game pretty much involves the judgment ring. Let's break this down so we can explain some of the key features better. Judgment Ring: There are different types of judgment rings. Each type of ring has certain advantages and disadvantages in terms of added abilities or effect. You can customize which kind of ring you want to use that best suit you through the Ring Menu. Now within the judgment ring are two key areas. These are known as hit areas and strike areas. Your goal as the ring handle start to spin around is to stop and land the handle within either the hit area or a strike area. Failure to do so will result in you missing a hit on the enemy. The only difference between a hit and strike area is that strike areas are smaller in size but gives more attack power than a hit area. For best result you should try and land the judgment ring on strike areas as often as you can. The maximum number of hit areas that a ring can have is base on each character as each character has a maximum number of hit areas that he or she can have. You can expand the hit areas with an attack boost item which the Soul Ring will give you if you can find it. Status effect can also be added to the ring as well. You can find these status effect items from chests or shops. Mastering the judgment ring is every important as it's your key to success when using attack, magic spells, and items. Attacks: Normal attacks are base on four different types, Standard, Hard Hit, High Angle, and Knock Down. Of course each attack has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to fighting a particular enemy. Judgment ring comes in play here of course. Special Abilities: Each character come with their own unique special abilities. You can call it special attack if you want to. I won't get into each character's special ability as that's what the in-game help menu is for but I will say that as you progress deeper into the game, you can upgrade or unlock more special abilities through various side quests. The judgment ring plays a role in whether or not you will be able to get off a successful special attack. Land your judgment ring handle on either a hit area or strike area and you should be fine. Failure to do so will result in a miss. Crests: In the world of Shadow Hearts Covenant, magic is comprised of crests. Magic crests come in different levels and belongs in different elemental group. The type of magic inside a crest various as well as its level. It's possible for you to awaken a hidden spell in each crest if you are able to find and collect all the crests of an elemental family. All of your characters except for two can equip crests. The number of crest a character can equip is base on a character maximum DCP. As a character gain levels, their maximum DCP will raise allowing you to be able to equip more crests. A crest level represents the amount of DCP required for a character to have in order to equip it. Casting crest magic is pretty much done the same way as special attack and regular attack. You'll need to stop the judgment ring on either the hit area or the strike area. Combos: One of the interesting and fun feature is the use of combos in this game. By setting up combos, you can do major damage as well as added extra damage. In order for combos to occur, your fighters must be next to each other. You can do this by wasting a turn and moving your fighters into combo position. Once all of your fighters are lined up, you can begin the combo. A combo will continue until the last person at the end of the combo finishes his or her turn. However if you're not successful with your judgment ring or that the enemy was able to block or avoid your attack, your combo will break and those that didn't get a chance to move during the combo line up will miss their turn. A four player combo is the maximum combo you can do. If you are successful in pulling off a four player combo then the last person in the combo has an option to use a powerful combo magic as the finishing move of a four person combo. The kind of combo magic that is available depends on the magic crest that the player has equipped. The use of combos makes this game very easy and entertaining. Fusion: Fusion is actually the special abilities of both Yuri and Kurando. But since it's really a huge ability I thought I give it a section of its own. Especially in regards to Yuri Fusion feature. Yuri can't use Crest Magic but he can still use his own magic through demons. Yuri has the power to change into powerful demons. This is known as fusion. Each type of demon represents an element. Now there are three different types of demon forms for a particular element. Grade 1 demon form is the lowest form while a grade 3 demon form is the highest form. Each grade of demon comes with their own level of element special abilities and magic. However as you upgrade your demon to a higher level grade, all special abilities and magic from the lower level grade demon is inherited by the higher level grade demon. You can upgrade the grade of your demons in a place called the Graveyard using Soul Energy. To level a demon up in level as oppose to upgrading their form, you can use a character personal menu. Once again Soul Energy is use as well. You gain soul energy just by completing battles. Your goal in terms of fusion is to unlock all the different elemental demons and their highest grade form as well as their level. Once this is achieve, you'll have access to all the best magic and special abilities that those with crest magic can get. That's about it for all the key components of this game. The rest are just basic traditional rpg stuff that I don't need to get into details on. Now from what I can tell, the gameplay looks like an advance and improve version of the first Shadow Hearts gameplay. I'm referring to the whole use of judgment rings. Of course to me it's all new and unique since I've never played the first Shadow Hearts. The use of judgment rings on everything is kind of overboard to me. Sure it's fun but to have to use it on attacks to magic to items is too much. Maybe make it so you can use items without judgment rings. My problem with the judgment ring is that you really need to be wide awake when playing this game or else you can end up missing some key attacks or extra power attacks. When you work eight hours a day and do other stuff at home, sometimes one can get a little bit sleepy playing video game. This game kind of makes it hard to play with one eye open and one eye shut. LOL. The random encounter rate is actually very nice. Not too much and not too little. I really hate those random encounter rates where you can't move for a few steps without actually having to go into battle. So that's a plus here. In terms of the puzzle or problem solving aspect in the game, it's a bit too hard for me. I don't think I would have been able to finish the game if it weren't for a walkthrough. However while the problem solving aspect seem a bit hard, the fights or battles are way too easy. Every boss encounters are too weak and can be easily finished off with combo attacks. You need to have more of a challenge when fighting bosses. That's why they are called boss fights. By having weak boss fights, it takes away their allure. As mention in the character section of the review, if some of these villains where a bit tougher during boss fights, they wouldn't have come off as weak characters when they look so cool. But in the end, these are really minor flaws. The game is huge and contains all the traditional aspect that you would want in an rpg game. Well except for maybe a bit more world exploration. LOL. Cranking over 40 hours of gameplay is nothing to be ashamed off. And I did enjoy this game.

Score: 8/10

Together at last. Now there's a lot to do in this game in terms of getting a complete game. Side quests consist of bonus dungeons you can explore to gain more details on some characters as well as getting their ultimate weapon or armor. There are about 9 bonus dungeons with tournaments in total that you can do. Some of the tournaments can be very long. You'll be spending quite a bit of extra heavy gameplay time on trying to complete them. Mini games are also provided as extra incentive. Off the top of my head, five mini games are present. These are not easy mini games in general. Some of these mini games require you to travel around and search for stuff to complete while others require you to answer quizzes. And to top it off, you have multiple endings. There are two different possible endings for you to get. This can also be added to replay value but if you're smart, you can get those two different endings without actually having to replay the entire game again. The real replay value however comes from the New Game+ option that you get when you finish playing the game first time. In New Game+ mode, you will be able to get some stuff you couldn't get in the first game as well as carry over some of the stuff you have in the first game to make it more enjoyable and easier. Looking at it from top to bottom, this is an outstanding package for extra and replay incentives.

My lasting impression is that base on the way the game and story plays out and is presented to us, in a love story or love movie sort of way; Shadow Hearts Covenant is very similar to Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. I know the anti-Final Fantasy fans will hate me for saying that but it's true. For all you mainstream rpg fans that enjoyed Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 but are having problems getting into other rpgs or finding other rpgs similar to those two big mainstream rpg games, then I would recommend you pick up Shadow Hearts Covenant. I can't say for sure Shadow Hearts as I've never played the game but definitely Shadow Hearts Covenant. Covenant will give you what any good or great rpg will give you. That's a good love story, excellent graphics, good characters, good music, great gameplay, and to round it off, outstanding replay and extra features. The total package in what makes an rpg game a great. Will there be a third Shadow Hearts game? That's hard to say but I hope there is one. Now if only I can get my hands on the original Shadow Hearts game. LOL Final Score: 8.7/10