***

When SH2 came out in 2004, I saw the previews and I was psyched. It looked awesome and gritty, and I liked the fact that it mixed European history and weaponry with magic and demons. I thought that it would have a cool and interesting storyline, with complex and compelling characters and dark and sinister villains. I thought it would be a really dark, thrilling gothic type adventure that was going to hold a special place in my gaming heart for years to come.

Then, in late 2005, I spotted SH2 in a bargain bin at the local EB. Gleefully I snatched it up at it’s bargain price and brought it home, thrilled that I finally had my hands on this adventure I had so long desired. I took it home, pushed it into my PlayStation 2 as fast as I could, and settled down for the amazing experience I was sure would follow the very shiny opening montage.

And then, the first in-game cutscene involving the character Yuri happened.

Needless to say, my view of the game changed rather abruptly, as did my respect for the illusionary effects of advertising.

This is my review.

***

I’ve spent a lot of time playing SH2 and throughout that entire time, the game completely failed to challenge me. I never lost a single battle and I always had the distinct feeling of being led along like a little kid. Although the extremely linear design of the different areas was probably a good thing, since objectives were poorly explained and there was never any in-game indication of which direction the player was supposed to be moving. On the rare occasions when I did get lost, it was because there was no arrow indicating which direction I was supposed to be traveling, and because the level design was so completely inane that my only choice was to resort to a walkthrough to keep from completely losing my sanity. The game also made no attempts to hide it’s painfully obvious formula: Go to town, discover/solve problem, get new destination, go to dank underground maze filled with monsters, fight boss, go to town, discover/solve problem, get new destination, go to dank underground maze…

Graphics quality was good, but not nearly good enough for a game that was released as recently as 2004. Call me picky, but by now I think CG artists should be able to render characters who actually have moving hands. Which brings me to the main reason why SH2 sucks so bad: The cutscenes. 

First of all, the characters move around like wooden dolls, jerky and unrealistic. Their hands do not move. It’s freaky. They look like Barbie dolls. Secondly, the voice acting makes me want to rip my hair out and actually caused me to yell at my television set a couple of times. Third, the scripting makes me want to tear what little hair I have left remaining out of my scalp and yell at the TV some more. Obviously, a lot got lost in translation, although I am being very lenient in assuming that this game had something to lose in the first place. The pre-rendered cutscenes are very shiny, but again lack a realistic look and the characters all look very cartoony and, once again, you have to put up with the voice acting. That is, of course, when the game isn’t presenting you cutscenes that literally look like a three year old drew them. What the heck? I do not spend my hard earned money to see anklebiter scrawl on my television screen, especially when there is no reason for this at all. This approach was neither "whimsical" nor informative in anyway, and on my second play-through of the game I found myself gleefully skipping every cutscene the game has. (It’s amazing how much doing that actually improves the game quality)

If you don’t count all the voice acting, sound quality in the game is actually pretty good. I really liked the music, even so much so that I’d enjoy buying a soundtrack if there was one available. A lot of the boss themes especially were very driving and enjoyable, and fit the situation well. Sound effects are good too, and not annoying. (Except for the sound effect assigned to Kurando when he moves around, that’s very annoying) Overall, SH2 does quite well in the sound department. There are a few themes I didn’t care for, or that were repeated to often, but on the whole I really loved all the music. Some of it even reminded me very strongly of the work of Nobuo Uematsu, which is high praise indeed.

Gameplay is average. Puzzles are either set on "retard" difficulty or are so obfuscated and poorly explained that again, my hair is in danger of being ripped out of my scalp. SH2 attempts to be innovative with it’s introduction of The Judgment Ring. This is basically a timing based mini-game that is applied to every action you take within the game, from attacking, to playing the lottery, to buying things at a discounted price in the store. At first this is really interesting and fun, but after the hours start to drag past, it gets a little irritating, and you start to spend more time worrying bout hitting a "Perfect" on your ring then you do about the strategy that you’ll need to win a battle. Personally, I would have preferred to see the Judgment Ring put to use when executing really powerful attacks, or Combo Attacks, and reserved for more special things throughout the game instead of being applied to every single action. It’s especially annoying when you’ve damaged an enemy to within a few hit points of it’s life, but to finish it off you have to go through the entire Judgment Ring just so that your character can move forward, punch it once, and step back because you’re done now. I didn’t like that at all, because it wasted my time and was generally frustrating. That’s pretty much all the gameplay that SH2 has to offer. When you’re not fighting, suffering through another bloody cutscene, or sorting through your inventory, you’re walking around the extremely linear and box-like world. (Amazing how beautiful, sprawling cities like Florence and Paris only manage to have one accessible shop and/or building at a time, and are perfectly square in their design…) There’s no jumping or anything like that, just walking, or running, and flipping switches or talking to NPCs.

For the collector/score oriented freaks in the gaming crowd, SH2 does provide an ample amount of semi-challenging side quests and lots of different items that you can go fetch, find, or rescue. These quests are all extremely optional, and most of them are hard to find or require that you have already done things in a certain way to activate them. They can be entertaining and, for some strange reason, seem to make more sense then the main storyline. A nifty feature that the game provides is that, once you’ve finished the game, you can start a new game with extras along for the ride, such as all your Snap Shot Albums, Crests, Marionette Dresses, Stud Cards, etc., so collecting a bunch of cool stuff is actually worth while. There is also a feature in the game that keeps track of your "score" as you play. Most of this score is just battle statistics, but it can still be fun to see how you’re doing.

Camera angles—what few the game has—are awful and confusing. Because of the box like shape of most of the areas in the game, the camera change from one place to another is really jarring and frustrating. Many times, there are treasure chests located just outside your range of view and you have to battle with the unresponsive camera to get to them. Unless you have a walkthrough with you, you’ll probably miss them entirely, as I did. Also, when you’re in battle, you don’t get any kind of view of how your enemies are positioned unless you choose an attack option, which I personally find extremely irritating since the way your enemies are arranged is vital to how you’re going to attack them. Again, the camera angles in the game is a small thing, but it’s a small thing that eventually gets on your nerves and makes your scalp scream out in fear as your hand begins to loom closer and closer.

And do not get me started on the storyline in this game. Call me picky, but when I purchase an RPG, I expect a good, solid, story. SH2 does not have a good, solid story. What is has is a bunch of clichés, predictable character interactions, and convoluted crap that doesn’t make any sense at all. The ending of the game completely confused me and made me swear at my television set. Nothing made any sense. For example: SH2 felt the need, for some reason, to involve the Romanov family—and Rasputin—in the storyline. That in of itself is bad enough, but even worse then this is that their re-barfing this overused plot device was horrible. And Rasputin’s beard kept clipping through his collar! Even worse yet, the game’s villains couldn’t decide what they were doing with themselves. "Am I going to take over the world? No! I’m going to release evil malice onto everybody. But wait! That bit’s been foiled. Never mind! My true ambition was to kill people! No, wait, that’s not right…ah, yes, I think I will bring destruction to the entire universe! Mwahahahaha!" Kill me now. Or, better yet, just transform into your biggest, baddest evil form right now and hold still so I can kill you, which is what’s going to happen anyway because the battles in this game could be won by an eleven year old. And the ending of the game made absolutely no sense at all, nor was it worth working towards in any way. In fact, it just made me feel confused, mildly grossed out, and like I'd just wasted a large chunk of my time hoping for something better than I got.

Which brings us to the characters. I will touch on this only briefly because I don’t want to present my readers with any spoilers, but in short…the characters are OK. Some of them I liked. Some of them I even really liked. Some of them made me laugh out loud, and not in the mocking sort of way. Many of them were recycled from other books, movies, and television shows. (Actually pretty much everything in SH2 was just recycled from a book, movie, or television show) As usual, the protagonist made me angry, but that seems to be standard with Japanese RPGs, regardless of their quality. Also, as usual, many of the character actions were completely illogical and most were down right stupid. NPCs were plentiful and most of them were really, really frightening. (And not in the threatening-frightening kind of way, more the "Oh my god, these people are on crack" kind of way) The words "bizarre" and "absurd" definitely come to mind when describing the characters in SH2. None of them seemed to have any permanent motivation, or much personality. They all somehow managed to be completely summed up in less than a paragraph of text that was present in their Character Status screens. Although I will give the SH2 team credit for being creative: I personally never would have come up with a vampire turned professional wrestler turned small town butterfly-themed superhero with an affinity for turning invisible or into a golden bat at random intervals.

Overall: In the end, Shadow Hearts: Covenant is kind of like Final Fantasy’s younger, "special" sister. She’s a sweet kid, but she’s not that bright. SH2 is not moving. It is not innovative, or creative, or in any way new, different, or otherwise notable. But it is enjoyable enough to pass your time, especially if you do not take it seriously. I would suggest it for a slightly younger crowd, or perhaps for someone who doesn’t have that much experience with RPGs yet. It’s not very gory, swearing isn’t all that bad, and the plot line is simple enough that it would probably entertain and intrigue a younger mind. (Especially if that younger mind really isn’t all that swift.) Anyone who has played a good RPG, such as Baldur’s Gate, Hordes of the Underdark,, or Final Fantasy X, will probably not be impressed with the utter simplicity and overall stupidity of this game—I certainly know I wasn’t. If you buy it, buy it on the cheap. (Really cheap) Otherwise, rent it, or if a friend owns it, play it at their house for free. You’ll get a lot more out of it that way.

I’ve started seeing previews for the next Shadow Hearts game recently. From what I’ve seen, I understand that there are gigantic ninja-cats and semi-nude morphing Native Americans in it.

Apparently the SH2 team is still having crack for breakfast.

Final Verdict: 5/10

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