Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Along with Star Ocean, Shadow Hearts Covenant makes fall golden for RPG fans.
Tags: Shadow Hearts: Covenant Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Nov 3rd, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Shadow Hearts: Covenant (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Role-Playing (Turn Based) | No | ||
The arrival of Shadow Hearts Covenant signals, as well, the arrival of Midway as a force in console RPGs – as long as they can maintain Aruze as their development partner.
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Aruze is the developer responsible for two previous RPG classics. In the PSone era, Aruze merged the genres of survival horror and RPGs to come up with the quirky, and sometimes disturbing, Koudelka, one of the hidden classics late in the life of PSone. Despite being a mere 20-hour tale, Koudelka proved once and for all that it didn’t take the Square name brand or a title like Parasite Eve to deliver great graphics, solid storytelling and RPG goodness in a mixed genre horror RPG title.
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Of course, Aruze started out partnered with Sacnoth, a group formed largely out of former Square team members who wanted to continue creating horror RPGs like Parasite Eve, rather than returning to the realm of high fantasy. Eventually, Aruze and Sacnoth merged and their next title, published by Midway in the early years of PS2 – the original Shadow Hearts – arrived with sadly little fanfare or critical attention. Despite great leaps in length, graphic quality and overall production and design, and despite a general lack of quality RPGs at the time of its release, Shadow Hearts came and went with barely a blip on the popular radar.
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Not this time. Taking a tone that’s still gothic but slightly less creepy – enough so to take it out of the M-Mature rating down to a T-Teen rating – the release of Shadow Hearts Covenant marks as big a leap in quality between an original title and its sequel as any example this reviewer can call to mind. Unlike the Grandia franchise which, due to increasingly rushed-to-market sequels, fell victim to the law of diminishing returns and formulization, Shadow Hearts Covenant is at once a sequel and a fresh, new game that breaks new ground not only graphically, but in terms of storytelling as well.
Picking up in 1915, only two years after the original Shadow Hearts, the world is engulfed in the grip of the first global war. Enter Karin Koenig, an officer in the Imperial German army, sent to Domremy in northern France to investigate a disturbance that may be linked, by local rumor, to “a monster of terrible power.” Koenig encounters a demon but in the ensuing struggle, slips toward unconsciousness; the demon leaves but just before she loses awareness, she seems to notice it changing form to … a human? But then, who is it?
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That’s just one of many mysteries that fill Shadow Heart Covenant. Like its predecessor, SHC is dark and filled with monsters more appropriate to a survival horror title than a fantasy RPG. And yet, while the game is still quite gothic in tone, a whimsical sense of humor has also been added. In what way? Well, one of the companions you eventually come across is a retired “puppeteer” named … brace for it … Gepetto. He travels with his favorite puppet, Cornelia, who longs to be “a real girl.” Familiar? Hopefully not overly so, to Disney lawyers, at least! Another example: one of your main characters is … the “lost” Russian princess, Anastasia. And Midway better hope Capcom doesn’t take offense to the white wolf character named … Blanca! Of course, if most of these pop culture references escape your grasp, Midway can breathe easy. Still, the references are not so jarring as to draw you out of the tale, and that’s the important bit.
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Graphically, the title marks a huge step forward for Aruze; while Shadow Hearts was sharp-looking, it was also a very early PS2 title, and looked like one. Shadow Hearts Covenant, by contrast, looks like a late-generation PS2 title, with much larger characters, smoother polygons, sharper, more detailed textures and incredible environmental design. But the leaps forward are not merely graphic in nature; the storytelling this time around is far more mature and advanced. In the original Shadow Hearts, the game played a bit close to the standard formula of story bit – prepare and equip – conquer a “dungeon” area – a bit more story – move on to the next area or return to the previous town.
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This time around, SHC’s story feels more integrated throughout the gameplay and a bit less rushed; the re-introduction of the series main character, Yuri Hyuga, doesn’t even come until you’re two to three hours in as the game plays with your expectations and counters your assumptions about alliances and who the “good guys” might be. Almost to the point of playfulness, a refreshing turn. Still, SHC avoids feeling padded, despite offering about twice the amount of gameplay as Koudelka. With around 40 hours of story and gameplay spread across two DVDs, SHC comes off as appropriately epic in an historical setting that immediately makes one feel more at home – and more creeped out, ultimately – than any standard high-fantasy setting could offer.
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One of the unique attention-getters of the Shadow Hearts franchise is its genre-bending Judgment Ring battle system; when you attack (or cast a spell, or attempt to use an item in battle), you don’t just press X and watch the results unfold; instead, you must hit certain key areas of a circle as a “second hand” cycles around it once, a system similar to how you kick field goals in football games, deliver a pitch in EA Sports’ MVP Baseball franchise, or swing a golf club in most Tiger Woods games. Hit the very narrow target areas and you execute the action perfectly, adding extra damage or whatnot; hit the wider target areas and you perform the action satisfactorily; miss the target area, and you fail to perform the action and miss your turn. This can result in some crucial mistakes during critical battles that can turn the tide of a conflict against you. This is NOT a turn-based RPG that you can win in your sleep; it requires attention and involvement with each battle-action. In fact, the involvement the Judgment Ring battle system requires of the gamer is unique enough that it could easily draw the interest of gamers who typically overlook turn-based affairs in favor of action RPGs. The system also allows you, once you have enough party members, to swap participants in and out and pull off combo attacks, adding even greater appeal to “action RPG” lovers, while keeping feet firmly planted in the turn-based realm.
Thankfully, since Aruze and Midway are NOT SquareEnix, there is no all-star cast voicing the characters in this game but there is a lineup of solid, accomplished voice actors who deliver compelling performances without resorting to overacting simply because “it’s a videogame.” Thank you, Midway!
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While some reviewers have already given SHC perfect scores, here at DEN we try to avoid that temptation; admittedly, Shadow Hearts Covenant is a breath of fresh air into a clichéd RPG market, but it is not without minor flaws; for example, the first couple hours of the game start in a way that makes you feel like you’ve sat down in a movie that you missed the first 10 minutes of; although that feeling dissipates quickly enough, for a game that does so much so well, it’s a bit disappointing a bit more storytelling grace couldn’t have been offered here as well.
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Also, and this is a critique I had of Shadow Hearts the first time around, requiring a successful Judgment Ring “hit” in order to use a healing herb or some other nonmagical item is taking the otherwise-compelling battle system a bit too far. Thankfully, doing that is only required while in battle; outside of battle, you are assumed to be competent enough to use a healing herb without a Judgment Ring skill-check. And, for those annoyed by such things, be aware that SHC does employ random battles, though the frequency rate varies throughout the game, depending on the setting.
In the end, though, these minor quibbles are just that; minor quibbles. With so much done right in Shadow Hearts Covenant, this is certainly an RPG that, along with Star Ocean: Til the End of Time, deserves to be on your must-have list throughout the fall and into the holiday season, for any RPG fan, as well as any fan of gothic-style games.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ With not only graphical detail but style to match, the look of this game can stand next to any of SquareEnix’s modern classics. + Deep, involving story that grows well out of the first title, without requiring knowledge of it. + Engrossing battle system that adds timing and involvement into the turn-based formula it grows out of. + A darker, more modern fantasy tale than the paint-by-numbers fantasy genre most RPGs over-inhabit. |
9.6 |
| What Doesn't | |
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— The first couple hours can be a bit disorienting since the story begins “already in progress.” — As with first installment, requiring a successful “action tap” to use healing herbs might be taking the system a bit too far. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Shadow Hearts: Covenant looks great and, with its innovative battle system, has the potential to draw the interest of action RPG fans to this turn-based masterpiece. One of the best non-SquareEnix RPGs available on PS2, and quite a bit better, even, than several of SquareEnix’s titles. | |
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Tags: Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Nov 3rd, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
