After following and thoroughly enjoying the adventures of Yuri in the previous two Shadow Hearts games, the thought of a new main character had me very apprehensive about the third installment of this series.
Shadow Hearts: From the New World no longer takes place in Europe, taking us across the Atlantic, with the story taking place in North-America in the early 1900’s, during the Great Depression. The protagonist is Johnny Garland, a 16 year-old boy who decides to start a detective agency after the deaths of his father and sister, instead of taking over the family business. Johnny’s new endeavors have him investigating a series of supernatural events that have been happening all across the nation.
Joining him is a curvaceous Native-American princess named Shania, who is also looking for these strange occurrences. Shania has the power to communicate with spirits and just like Yuri, she is able to incarnate them and transform into a range of creatures. She’s our new Harmonixer.
The number of party members increases as the duo travels through several “landmark” locations across the United States (New York, Chicago, the Grand Canyon, Roswell, Alcatraz and Las Vegas) and even more exotic locales such as Rio de Janeiro and the Caribbean.
Some of these characters are down right bizarre. Hildegard Valentine (the vampire) has strange abilities that depend on the number of calories she eats. Natan is a bit like Shania’s bodyguard, specializing “gun-fu” (a martial art that uses guns). Frank Goldfinger is a Ninja who dresses a bit funny and tends to make his swords out of the most unusual things. Mao is a giant cat, master of drunken fighting. And then there’s Ricardo, the mariachi with a magical guitar that has an arsenal containing anything from guns to flamethrowers and missile launchers. In fact, this strange cast of characters and their personalities make Shania and Johnny fall into the background.
Add to it a pair of homosexual bikers who happen to be your nomad merchants, and you have a certain recipe for craziness.
Each party member has a specific set of abilities tailored to their fighting style, but you don’t get these abilities just by leveling up. Instead, each character has a series of sub-quests that he or she must complete in order to achieve new skills. There are tons of special skills and sidequests for them, and it’s a process that can take away from the main story and get you completely sidetracked. However, it is optional, but some of these abilities will influence which type of ending you get. And that’s about all I’m telling you.
The battle system is still focused on the Judgement Ring and your hand-eye coordination, but there are a couple of new elements.
The Stock System is a bit like FFX’s limit break. As the meter fills up, you gain stock (up to a maximum of two). Stock lets your character perform combos, double attacks, drain enemy stock and other specials. Enemies can also have stock, so keep an eye out for that during a battle or the consequences can be desastrous.
Spells now come from items called “Stellars”. You find them on your adventure and you equip them on a constellation chart (similar to the dress spheres in FFX-2) composed of different nodes. Nodes can be upgraded to give place to more powerful magic and less MP cost, but you can’t add any new ones to a chart. You can also exchange stellar charts between characters and their properties will remain unaltered.
Graphically, From the New World has stunning characters, everyone is very colorful and detailed. The backgrounds pale a bit in comparison though, with the town areas being somewhat small and the dungeons fairly repetitive. The cutscenes are also extremely well done.
The music still fits the style of the previous titles, with background music appropriately chosen for each area or battle scene. The voice acting isn’t overly impressive, but it adds positively to the characters odd personalities.
I suppose that with each outstanding sequel come higher expectations. While Shadow Hearts: From the New World does manage to keep the Shadow Hearts spirit alive, it doesn’t quite succeed at delivering a captivating plot and main character, which is what made both previous titles such a hit.
Although this is a good RPG with a great combat system, original combat styles, tons of quests and the same dose of crazy humor, I can’t help but think that somehow Yuri should be brought back.
Special thanks to Kyoko Yamashita and XSEED games for providing a copy of this title.