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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.

"Don't Mess With New Yorkers!"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 24
Date: June 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Normally, I would consider any year that promised a squel to Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy a banner year. But for some reason, 2006 has seen enough new fantasy games that I'm actually behind on playing them, something that hasn't happened since I first acquired my PS2. This may be the year of the new high-powered game consoles, but Sony developers certainly haven't forgotten their old reliable platform, this new Shadow Hearts sequel is exceptional, and it looks like there's more to come.

Xseed games has decided to start a new story on the Shadow Hearts model, set a few years after the great release of malice in Shadow Hearts 2. The main character is Johnny Garland an orphaned 16-year-old who has set up a detective agency in New York City. His big cases are still finding lost cats, but weird Professor Gilbert from Arkham University asks Johnny to help find a missing criminal and, in short order, Johnny finds himself plunged into a fight with evil monsters. The beautiful shapeshifter Shania comes to his rescue and soon he has assembled a team of unusual characters, including a martial arts cat and a musician with a loaded guitar.

As in earlier games, character relationships are an important part of the quality of the game. Johnny's attraction to Shania is kept low key, and is balanced against that of the mysterious Lady and the psychotic Killer. In Shadow Hearts, heroes don't beat their chests. Instead they struggle with internal conflicts every bit as important as their battles in the game world.

Play is still turn based using the Judgment Ring and various player strike combinations. I have mixed feeling about this scheme. It works well, but it's complexities introduce a level of thumb dancing that is sometimes a bit beyond my limited reflexes. You have the opportunity to mix magic, medicine and muscle in complex and devastating attacks. My real criticism is that there aren't enough monster (or human) types, so the longer missions can get on your nerves. Dungeons characteristically only have three to four different monsters plus the boss. A dozen more varieties would have made the end game a bit more interesting.

From the New World has more sidequests than most games have game. Everything from quizzes to the attack of the sushi warriors. There are lots of ways to get neat accessories and level up. To the point that you can over level up and sail through the ending a little two quickly for my tastes. In fact, the endings (there are two) are the weakest part of the story. Suddenly things are over and it's time to save a cleared game and start all over again. But you've had 80 hours of fun on the way, and that's nothing to complain about.

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.

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.

Lmao just about the whole way through.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: August 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Right from the beginning this game is filled with wacky, crazy, just complete out of this world humor. As for that are like omg the gay biker merchant just hit on my 16 your old (who isn't really 16 btw.. but you'll find that out later if you actually play it long enough :P ) isn't funny then maybe you need to lighten up and go out and get a sense of humor. This game has everything from crazy super hero ninjas, talking drunken master cats, sushi gone wild, transforming vampire that has to watch her diet, native American gunslinger and spirit summoner (basically) team that fights off evil demons. Who all get throw together to fight a evil being and her serial killer boyfriend followed by a evil scientist to stop them from destroy the world. Sure some of the stuff is retarded, but hey how often do you get to play a RPG full of wacky humor? The story is actually really good and at the end I was really happy I played this game. I would say it's one of the best RPGs lately to come out for the PS2. The combat system is pretty cool Judgment ring that you can use to link combos and special attacks through. Example is I really like to do Double combos and it's where I'll build so much (TP basically) that I'll link every character together with double attacks. It's really in-depth how you have to use the attacks to watch where they land (ground, middle, or in the air) to match the next attack. I really liked this battle system and the fusion abilities to change into powerful beings were really amazing too. Best combo to date was a 132 hit combo for 5000 ish damage. Did that on a special boss fight ;) not saying any names. It has tons of side quests in this game not as many as say FFX, but a lot. In all beating this game and collecting everything it's about 50 hours of play. A lot of RPGs in the past I've been disappointed with one way or another, but truly this was a wonderful game and only reason I'm even giving it 4 stars is just because this is the 3rd part of a series and part was actually the best one. Though I think this one comes in second.

Key points
1) Very nice battle system
2) Really really funny storyline that has a seriousness to it when it needs to be
3) Nice slightly better then average graphics
4) Has a wonderful soundtrack and voice acting was really good
5) Lots of side quests
6) Game play never seemed to get boring actually played this pretty much none stop since the first day and very few RPGs keep me that in grossed.

Check it out a RPG that won't disappoint.

A different spin on the wonderful series

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: May 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Everyone seems to have problems with this game, comparing to the other sequal and all. Well first it's not really a continuetion of the story, it's a like a whole new one so of course it's not going to be as dark as the other one was. I thought this game was an excellent roleplaying game and I loved it because it had everything a video game needed. Yeah, some of it was a little dragged out but hey, what video game doesn't drag their plot out? This game follows a whole new character very different from Yuri, though to make up for that they put a hot female into the mix who is barely dressed and who is able to transform into spirits. And yes a couple of old characters make their apperance, like Roger Bacon the deformed creature thingie and the very gay motorcycle dudes. And I personally love the talking cat because Meo is very sassy. The basic storyline is follow is that your this 15 year old kid name johnny garlic, who is also a detective. Then suddenly everything changes when you meet up with Shania, a beautiful girl who is able to transform much like Yuri did. They team up and try to stop Killer and Lady from releasing on malice, which is evil spirits. And along the way Johnny's power grows stronger and there is something very mysterious about this boy that everyone sees. The game made me wanting to never shut off my ps2. And yes, at first I was disappointed to find it out it didn't have all the same characters in it but all you got to do is enjoy this game for what it is, accept it flaws and don't compare it with it's other sequals. If you enjoy a roleplaying game that takes you on a great adventure, at least rent this one. People give it bad reviews but really, I love it for it's wackyness. And buy the gaming guide! Or it will take you forever to figure out the puzzles.

Quirky and interesting

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Shadow Hearts: From the New World continues a rather interesting series. While not quite living up to expectations formed by the previous installation in the series, Covenant, which I thoroughly enjoyed, FtNW was an entertaining romp. Gameplay mechanics were fine, and I found the judgment ring mechanics to be acceptable, even though I don't in general enjoy games which require an inordinate amount of twitching.

The Good: As usual, fascinating environments, side quests which flesh out the characters, quirky humor (canon does not include too many, or any, obese vampires). Although the main story is not directly continuous with SH 1 & 2, many trademarks of the series persist such as the shopkeepers, Roger Bacon and the Valentine family lending a pleasurable sense of familiarity.

The Not So Good: For some reason, I didn't seem to care as much for Johnny and his clique as I did for Yuri. The lead characters' personalities were relatively flat compared to their predecessors'. This installation also lacks the depth which the other two had primarily because it didn't appear to track momentous historical events the same way. In some way, it didn't feel as if it was as firmly embedded in its reality. Finally, the additional characters lacked, well, character. Frank and Mao were comic relief and Ricardo's personality seemed pretty cliched. This was somewhat true of the previous games, for example Lucia from Shadow Hearts Covenant seemed to be little more than a pretty picture stretched over a skeleton of a plot device.

Conclusion: All in all, an enjoyable romp. It lacks, however, the draw which made Covenant, in my view, a hit.

Kept it real

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: March 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Theres no need for a long review of this game. I loved Convenant, but considerin money's tight I was gonna pass this one up. In the end I gave in to my temptation. Thank God. This game reminded me why I love the SH series so much. Theres some small changes, but I assure you if you liked the rest, you'll love this one too.

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"

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.

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