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Not a good start for a sort of new company

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 18
Date: June 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The game lost me at the leather biker couple who hit on your sixteen year old hero. Some of the absolute worst sterotyping and poor judgement by a game studio EVER.

Thats ten minutes into the game.

The first release by the former Squarenix USA had utterly failed me in less time than it took to get comfy on the couch. Thats a record, folks. Now, to be fair, I figured; 'the last Shawdohearts game was good, and the combat system is interesting... Lets give it another shot'. It DOES get better, but ultimately never rises above its inauspicious beginning.

The 'wheel of destiny' combat system is still fun, and makes the now-older-than-dirt random encounters experience more than boring, but ultimately fails to deliver what I like to call the 'didnt waste forty eight bucks goods'. This game is sort of 'meh' from beginning to near the end, where I sort of gave up on the whole mess and took it in for trade.

A seriously abused and overworked storyline and characters that seem like they were added just for the weird factor dont help.

If you're gonna spend fifty bucks on a PS2 roleplaying game, check out Dragon Quest 8 or Final Fantasy 12. If you've already gotten through those, check out Radiata Stories or Magna Carta. Or check out 'The Shadowhearts Covenant', the last installment in the Shadowheart series. Its far superior to this trainwreck.

Not as good as Covenant

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: April 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Covenant set a breakthrough for the Shadow Hearts series with solid gameplay, interesting characters, improved battle system and interesting sidequests with an extended and interesting story from the first game. In Shadow Hearts 3, none of these were back and it just turned the series into a blend and sometimes annoying game.

The main characters are not likable right from the beginning. Johnny, a sixteen year old private detective who happens to be for God's sake amnesia. The character design is exacltly the same as the character in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy XII. Shania just lack the death of Kirin in Covenant and not to mention all the other characters who joined the team randomly. The story is scattered all over the place to fit into the world of randomness of the characters. Seriously the most interesting characters in the game are Lady and Killer. The giant cat Mao is annoying, the Ninja is easily the most hateable character competing with Hilda the vampire. The seriously lack of depth for the characters already killed half of the game, not to mention the lack of substance in the story. In Covenant, the side quests naturally blends into the story as they were mentioned here and there even before they were opened up for you to tackle them. In 3, they were just there for the sake of being there. Nothing interesting and nothing exciting, and Johnny's sidequest is just damn annoying, comparable to Kurando's sidequest in Covenant.

The battle system is greatly improved in a way that you need to be more strategic than just go all out and whack. But when your enemies also took advantage of the system, it could leave you breaking the controller into two with tears, and prepare for that in Johnny's sidequest. The battle system is very interesting and strategic with customisable rings, double-attack, combos etc. There are more gauges and stats you need to pay attention to during the battle. It could definitely satisfy players who want to have more interactive and intuitively strategic battle system. However, Shania has less fusion forms compared to Yuri and her fusion for most of the time look like porns - from tatoos on various parts of her body, including all the private parts. These tatoos light up and there will be a close up on them. It is very disappointing that From the New World needs to use that kind of tactic to attract players. For all other characters, most of their moves are mediocre though Hilda the vampire's certain moves could be lifesaving in important and difficult battles.

In all Shadow Hearts 3 is a game that you can play if you are free and once finished, there is nothing interesting to revisit it in the future. Unlike Covenant, it is not a game that you can get yourself addicted to and replay it again and again.

A bi disappointing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: November 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

"Freakin sweet, they're making a new Shadow Hearts!" Yeah, when i heard about it i was pretty happy, since the previous Shoadow Hearts games were about my favorite games ever, ranking right up there with the Final Fantasy series, in my opinion. So i go and buy the game and immediately say "...who is this loser playing detective?" First impression of the main character was that he thought he was great, but only because he was some 16 year old punk that didn't know any better yet. 33 seconds into the game and already miss Yuri. Overall game play isn't too bad, tho it's not as fun as Covenant was. I like how they do revisit some of the previous characters (Roger Bacon, Lenny from Sapientes Gladio, and even though i don't care for him Gerard Magimel), but think they could have done better with the playable characters. Frank the "ninja" is really reminiscent of Joachim from Covenant, only even stranger (which i didn't think was possible as i faced "Grand Papillion in battle). Hilda is decent, but the calorie system is a tad annoying, but made necessary by the fact that she has different abilities for each weight/form. I like her being there, once again as a reference to the previous game(the pink bat you fight to get Joachim's second strongest weapon, like Joachim is the gold bat you fight in the first shadow hearts to get Keith's final weapon) The cat is a bit much, as if the wolf in Covenant wasn't bad enough, they decided "hey let's put a giant, talking, drunken cat in this one" All in all, i found myself struggling to keep playing thru to see the end. After a while it just seemed really boring, and i found myself playing Covenant instead a few times, just because it's so great, and this one is so "blah"

Al Capone doesn't belong in a video game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 20
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm docking off two stars for this game because for all the long speel that is given to us in the begining about,"these are
all fictional characters and bare no resemblance to actual people",we are teamed up with Al Capone.But that's not all,he is portrayed to be a good guy!lol

For a game that features a giant stupid talking cat,I'm not sure why the need for realisim by adding Al Capone was done. Especially in such an incorrect light.His profile reads"He is popular with civilians because he leaves them alone."That's a load of bull.If you interviewed anyone who lived in Chicago during that era,they would all tell you that they were not happy under Capone's rule.Also many innocent civilians were killed by his gangs.So what exactly is this game company trying to pull?

The gameplay was fun,and I enjoy this series.But helping Al Capone break out of jail just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Game developers,please stick to fiction.But if you ARE going to involve real characters,then portray them correctly.

Missed Potential

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Actually a more accurate score would be three and a half stars. While not by any means a bad game, I can't help but mourn over the potential that was wasted in Shadow Hearts: From the New World. Set in 1929 on the cusp of the great depression and in the midst of mafia turf wars, From the New World showed glimpses of what it wanted to be but sadly never quite made it. The game play is excellent with a revamped and customizable judgment ring and the ability to once again perform combos with your teammates. The scenery and locations are beautiful and well done and the character models are impressive. But beneath all of the glossy pictures is a story that while not mediocre somehow doesn't make it to great.

Approaching it from a stand alone point of view I was interested to see more of the Shadow Hearts world and its various inhabitants and what better way to do that than with an eclectic party with members ranging form a Brazilian ninja to a teenage vampire? Unfortunately between poor pacing and even poorer characterization I never got too attached to any of my party members. I really wanted to like them, I especially wanted to like Johnny, but none of them exhibited a strong enough personality to allow me to care for them.

The story with the recurrent Shadow Heart themes of malice and human ambition had the potential to be phenomenal, instead it lags at some parts and feels rushed at others. Characters randomly meet and join up for no good reason and interesting plot points are brought up and then never mentioned again. I can't help but to think of how much better the story would have been if just a little more time was taken to fill in some of the holes. Don't get me wrong. In spite of my complaints I still feel that it's a very solid game, however it had the potential to be something great and instead settled for something less.

Hey, if you like cracked out games...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 13
Date: February 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Shadow Hearts: From the New World... Hmm... How to put this...

If you're some Final Fantasy head who has various wet-dreams involving Cloud and Sephiroth in various positions this game isn't for you. If you're a person who has various wet-dreams involving imagination and interesting plot lines in various positions while game mechanics sits off to the side in a dark corner and does who knows what than this game is for you.

Interesting Twist on RPGs

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Teh combat system is the most interesting thing. Timing and correct button presses make a standard menu-driven RPG more interactive. Don't get me wrong - I'm no fan of the FFIXX/Kingdom Hearts style of full-speed combat RPG, but I do start dozing off sometimes during point-and-click scenarios.
The story itself seems to follow the trend of most modern RPGs: meet characters, learn how to use abilities, level up, save world.
Voice acting is mediocre, and a lot of characters seem to be there just to try and make the game more-notable in a politically correct era.
The game is alright, a nice deviation from most of the norm.

It's not happening this time around

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've been a huge fan of the Shadow Hearts series, but "From the New World" is the weakest so far. I might be a little biased as I played it immediately after finishing Final Fantasy 12 and it just can't compare to that, but even so I remember having a far better time playing the first game and the sequel, "Covenant". The story of Yuri and Alice really made the first game memorable, and the second was almost as good, with Karin making a very sympathetic female lead. This time, however, I am not warming to any of them.

The story this time is a brand new one. A 16 year old called Johnny Garland has his own detective agency in New York (like all 16 year olds do), and one day a chance visit from a stranger begins a missing person hunt that leads to uncovering an evil force that threatens to wipe out the entire world. Along the way he gathers a team of new friends and so the stage is set for a typical RPG. Now, Shadow Hearts is famous for having off the wall characters and this time is no exception. I thought having the puppet master Gepetto and Princess Anastasia as part of your team in Covenant was whacky enough, but this time around you'll be joined by a giant drunken Kung-Fu cat, a kittenish female Vampire and a comedy Ninja. The trouble is that I'm having a harder time becoming attached to them in this game because they just don't seem to be original creations. Frank the Ninja is a direct copy of Joacim, with his weapon upgrades from found objects, and Hilda the childish and annoying vampire changes form between being fat, skinny or a bat in the same way that Keith and Joacim did. Shania the indian squaw can shape-shift into elemental fusion monsters like Yuri did, and characters learn new moves and spells by finding documents or manuscripts like Karin did. As this is supposed to be a completely new game, I found this amount of repetition in the characters to be very disappointing.

Another thing is that in this day and age, there is no excuse for the playable environments to be so small. New York is represented by four "boroughs", most with just one street and no visitable buildings. Go the wrong way or step off the kerb and you drift back to the world map, showing you how tiny each location is. There's no moveable camera and the scantest populations of NPCs to talk to in each place. The dungeons are little better, relegated to just a few rooms or stages, with no more than about three varieties of enemy in each. You can do each dungeon level and boss in a single sitting and it sometimes seems like the game is whizzing by. The game still plays with "alternative" versions of real places, but it doesn't impress much this time around, with Alcatraz prison and the Roswell UFO site being very lack-lustre.

There are some new ideas, but they are not all good. The stellar chart magic system is terribly clumsy and you have to navigate endless permutations of screens and options to set each character up with decent spells. Plus the stellar charts themselves have to be modified at shops to hold the better magic spells, which makes it even more of a bother. One good thing is that each character has unique abilities, which means that they are not endlessly interchangeable like in some RPGs (even in Final Fantasy 12 you could have built up all the characters in exactly the same way), and this gives some variety.

The best thing about the series, though, is still it's trademark Judgement Ring system, and if you enjoyed the first two games for this reason you will be well served here. The battles have even become more complicated with the introduction of the "Stock" guage, which acts like a meter that fills up when you give or receive damage. This can then be used to unleash devastating linked attacks once filled. Managing Stock is crucial to a good battle, and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the Combo mechanism, with great results for those who have good reflexes (missing the correct symbol button and breaking a good combo is frustrating but fair, because if you want that 4 chain Combo magic you have to work for it!).

My overall impression is that "From The New World" has been created to ride on the glory of the games before it by simply copying them. It's nowhere near as impressive as "Covenant", and all it's ideas are second hand. It's also trying too hard to be funny. There's scarcely a serious moment in here, or anything approaching the depth or the adult orientated themes that the series did so well in the past. It's all now just a giant cartoon, and while Kung-Fu cats and fat vampires are funny for a while, they don't draw you into the story at all. There is scarcely any plot to speak of as it is, the whole game is just a chase from start to finish, following the villains all around the world. The fun in the game lies with the battles and becoming an expert using the Judgement Ring. Battles are complex and even random encounters need some forethought, especially as there are bonuses available for very good performances (perfect ring turns, enemies killed without having a single turn, etc), so there is a lot to enjoy. Boss battles can be long, but at the same time, the game never gets particularly difficult, and levelling up sems to happen very rapidly so you can easily make a powerhouse team to face almost anything. Sidequests are good - there are seperate side stories for each character which is a nice aspect, and something of a tradition now in the series. It's a shame that these good aspects are not complementing a more impressive basic game, because as it stands, the Judgemant Ring and the good "extras" are the only thing lifting a very short and mediocre RPG plot and characters into being a passable game.

Fun, Creative, and Just A Little Bit Wacky

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: March 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First off: this is a new game in the series. New locations and characters. You can jump right on in without playing any previous titles (although, Shadow Hearts is a fabulous series, I highly recommend all of them).

For veteran players, the game feels so much like Covenant that there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the new battle mechanics. All the old features are there: combos, collecting magical items (to cast battle spells), the judgement ring, SP, MP, and HP. However, you now need to collect "stock" by either giving or taking damage. You must have stock in order to do combos, or the new feature of "doubles." With a double, you can do any two actions in one turn - just as long as they are not the same.

The story line revolves around malice and some evil/shady characters trying to release it into the world. Your job is to stop them. Along the way, you'll visit North and South America, and learn revelations about your playable characters. The characters in this title are a trip. A boy detective, Native American Princess, Native American Warrior (using two pistols and "GUN-FU," A perky little drama club vampire, Brazilian trained ninja with collects odd weapons, a mariachi, and last, but not least, a giant drunken cat.

If you're in the mood for a quirky, highly imaginitive, and fun turn-based RPG, look no further (but notice the other titles in the series) than this one.

great game and fresh

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

8.5/10 Overall a great great fresh RPG

Story-6
Don't get me wrong the game has a good story. It's just that the fact that the first half of the game is practaclly all "o we have to go there and o what a surpise a big demon." and is filled with too many comedy moments. Tho later on the story acully picks up and you finally can't stop playing cause you wanna know what will happen next. Only thing i'd like to see is a much darker more involed story like shadow heart 1 or 2

Gameplay-10
Well this game is done really well, so well i think it is the best battle system. It's a kinda Cross between Chrono Cross and Legend of dragoon and then some. Plus has tutorail which tell you tons about how to usa the system so newcomers can play. The final thing i'd like to add about the battle system is the customabilty of it e.g. you can alter the Jugment Rings target area makeing it harder to get perfect but the DMG will increase rather than explain the jugment ring you should visit the offcail Shadow heart website and it's all explained there.

Also each demon filled lair you have to go to is a perfect size and puzzle arn't too big or too small.

On a final note the diffculty of this game is average which is a relief as Shadow hearts 2 was as far too easy.

Charaters-8
Tho i'm not too keen on the comedy charaters some pple are and this game has 3/4 of them but at least there origanal and have a lot of background to them. As for the serious charaters there done really well and it's also nice to see that the main charater isn't given the cool guy look like other main stream RPGs.

Summary-8
Tho not as good as Shadow heart 1 or 2 the game is at least different and the battle system i'd say saves it as evertime you battle you don't just go attack X 10 o i got a fire ring. you have to plan ahead organize a combo and prepare for the monsters next move. If this game had Shadow hearts 1 grade of charaters and Shadow hearts 1/2 grade of story this game would esstailly be perfect.

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