Shadow Hearts: From the New World

This is by far the lightest of the three Shadow Heart games being that it contains a lot of humor. Nearly all of the dark edge and Gothic look from the previous installments is gone replaced by Amazon ninjas and giant cats. The judgment ring is back and as good as ever. However, this time there are add ons to the battles I did not care for called double attacks. The problem with these is that the enemy is more efficient at using them than you are and this just makes the game a bit harder than I like my role playing games to be. It also makes the enemy turns longer too, which I always hate the enemy turn to take forever. Still, it did not detract from the game all that much. The story is okay too, just not as good as the other two. Johnny Garland is a boy detective living with somebody you will recognize from the previous game. He is waiting for a big case and gets it from a creepy man named Gilbert and boy does it turn out to be a big case as he must team up with a wild assortment of characters to track down a mysterious person only called lady and her accomplice Killer. During the way you will also meet an old friend and visit many locales. However, later in the game to many of these locales end up being old temples so you just don't have all the cool locations of the first two games. Yuri is also gone and is no where to be seen and that is a shame, I kept hoping for some type of appearance. So all in all a good entry, it is just after the spectacle that was part two, this one just is not very spectacular.

OK, I will start by saying, there will be spoilers, from the other SH games in this review, as well as to this one, so that you know before reading on.

As you can see, I have voted 8/10, this is because I like the game, but it may disappoint you if you really enjoyed the other two, I would give both of them 10/10 but a lot of the dark and contaversal themes have gone from this new game.

I will start with the story. It was not what I expected, the only main villains are really Lady, Killer and Gilbert, which was quite disappointing, In Covenant, the first main villain was Rasputin, then Nicolai, then Kato. It was quite clear the Nicola would take over from Rasputin in covenant, but I had no idea Kato would turn out to be the main boss. In the original SH, it is clear enough that Albert would be the main boss, but the first mission was to defeat another villain, Dehui. This made the story to the latest game feel very short. I would have liked if it went on a bit longer.

On the subject of Bosses, the main bosses from the other two had more depth, they told their reasons, I SHFTNW, Lady doesn't say what her plans are.

The characters in this game. Johnny; The main character, OK, not too bad, after you get used to not having Yuri, he is not too bad.

Shaania; A good character in the game, this version's harmonixer, only has four fusions but three are dark, I can see this as a good idea in a way. She really suits the element of Dark, as she is driven by vengeance.

Natan; Not a lot of depth to him, but seems a strong character.

Frank; Really fond of this character, liked the way he has Joachims way of picking up random things to use as weapons.

Hilda; A good character definitely, but in a way disappointing. I say this because, as you know if you are an RPG fan, there are 3 main types of characters in battle, Those very strong with weapons, those with magic and average weapon, and those who are very strong with magic, but not very good with weapons. Hilda was on the average, this is disappointing, because both her brothers in the previous games were more strong with weapons. I think that is the way she should be as well. Still a good character that I do use, but I think a vampire should be very strong with weapons.

Mao; What can I say, A talking cat. OK, first impression is bad, but remember first impressions are often wrong. Mao is good in battle, but being a talking cat does push it. Blanca was a good idea as a wolf but he was a normal wolf that didn't speak, although, as a water element character, Mao is OK, The only Water element character that I often had on my team was Margarette back in SH1, they should really have another character like Margarette if they make a new SH. Secret weapons was a great idea.

Lastly, Ricardo. Don't use him often, an OK character I think, any Desperado fans out there? You will like him, he has a guitar, that has built in fire arms, like one of the guys in Desperado.

Conclusion about it, a very good game, definitely if you like the other two, it should be worth a look, just don't expect it to be near as good as the other two.