Shadow Hearts Covenant was released in 2004 as sequel to Shadow Hearts in Japan it was called Shadow hearts 2, It was develop by Sacnoth and Published by Midway in North America.
A sequel Ideally should expend everything that the original had, and this game attempts that with better Graphics, Longer game around 40 hours when the Original was only 20 Hours, more voice acting and a improved gameplay.
The original Shadow hearts was released very early in the PS2 life's cycle in 2001, and you can feel that in many ways that game was an upscale PS1 game, this game in the other hand was released in the middle of the PS2 life cycle and you can clearly see this feels like a PS2, with lot's of Voice acting and full 3D environment, but visual can only go so far as to make a game good, what about the other aspect of this game, are they any good ? Do they improve over the Original ?
Story
I am going to start over with the aspect I am the most mixed about in this game, the story, in my opinion this is a down grade over the original, I am not going to say that Shadow Hearts 1 was a literary master piece, but it was one of the best things about it, being a tight and linear narrative, where it didn't have much flaws, every character had their role in the story and didn't feel like a waste of time (With the exception of that vampire) every plot point had a clear reason to exist and every villain had a clear motivation and wasn't annoying to watch, not only that by the first 10 minutes hocked you right into that game.Shadows Hearts 2 in the other hand...
The first 15 Hours of this game plot wise is very weak and almost made me stop playing this game.
The first segment where you play as Karin and Nicolai is average, the issues start to appear after when the game actually starts, The villain in the begging of the game Lenny and Veronica, are annoying, they don't add anything to the plot besides bad jokes and some early game boss fights, my other issue with this game is the plots takes forever to get going and become decent, only after 15 hours when you arrive at Russia.
The early game has the another issue that being that most character that's part of your party are either pointless or not fun to watch, even Yuri is just a rude person to everyone for no reason, that suddenly gets better around Russia, I get that this is supposed to be his character development Arc but they didn't need to make him insufferable to watch to make that point, however I can forgive that because of Disk 2, during it Yuri becomes a really good character, and certainly the best thing about this game's plot, I love everything that he says of does it feels it maintain a balance of being cool while still being in clonflict with himself trying to find his place in the world.
The other charters in the other hand , not sure if I can forgive them.
Gepetto, He alongside 2 other parties members that I will talk about shortly, could be easily removed from the game without many changes to the story, His name is a reference to Pinocchio because he controls a puppet, and His personality is that he's a old man, his only relevant for the early game you could remove him from the game , nothing good would had being missing.
He represent a thing that I don't like about this game compared to the Original Shadow hearts , Li Zhuzhen was also the old man from Shadow hearts 1 but his existence felt needed to the plot, he explained a lot about the mystical elements of Shadow hear's world, connect the party with the events that happens 15 years prior to that game, and even had a important role in the second half of that game in Europe re-uniting the party, now compare that to Gepetto, it's not even a fair comparison.
Lucia, She tries to kill the party, realizes that they are after the same villian so she joins the Group, after that she say maybe 2 lines where she sound like a psycopath, and that's about it.
Joachim, he's a Himbo, the only party where his relavent to the story is before he officially join the party, that segment of the game is pointless and argubily the worst part of the game, he's unfunny, and if you remove him from the game nothing would had being missed.
Kurando has main Protagonish Energy, is the last to join the party, and can transform into Demon like Yuri, but to a much limited extent, at the very least I like his side quest, but even his mom is a more interesting character.
Now we can FINALLY talk about a character that I actually like Anastasia, Russia represent the turning point of this game when it actually becomes good.
She is brave girl who will do anything to protect her country, while still being a belivable Girl, shame that when Disk 2 start her only personality becomes that she felt in love with Kurando, and her character becomes that for the rest of the game.
Blanca is the best wolf, not only he's likely the smartest animal in this game, having more than half of the brainshells of the group, His Side quest has actual funny jokes and is fun to play, I just want to pet him !!!!!
He's usefull in battle too by being able to ressurect a party member in full HP at low MP cost and even better being able to full heal everyone HP at a relatily low MP cost something that no one else can, making him the best healer by healer by far, and his physcial damege isn't too bad either.
I have said this 2 times before that I hated this game plot until you get to Russia from this point foward the plot get's good but I still have issues with it, that being the fact that things just happen because the writters felt like it would make a cool moment, that's why the titile of this review calls this game "Karming farming and Hype moments JRPG" a lot of things that happen in this plot are cool and fun to watch, but when you think about it, a lot of them don't add anything to the plot or never have proper pay-off , for example at the end of Disc 1 a Villian does something that could have massive implications, however beside the intro cutcene of Disc 2 , that event is never mentioned again, that isn't isoleted problem, many the plot feels like it wasn't properly planned and the writer just wrote the plot of the game as thing went without thinking about it's implications.
The main villians specially the ones after Russia are pretty decent but their motivation is barely existance and there's barely a proper pay-off for their Arc.
Again I don't hate the plot of this game it has a lot of cool moments, but it could be so much better if the writter properly planed the plot before making it.
Gameplay
This is the reason why I didn't drop this game in the first 15 hours, it's pretty good, the judment ring is back and while I don't Action comand in my RPG the judment ring is the exepction, because it's easy to tell when I am supposed to press the buttons and it's easy to tell why I missed, not only that but you can buy acessories to slow it down or even turn it off entirely, I won't deny that Random ecounter can be easily dealt with by just using regular attack until the enemy die, but dungeons in this game are generaly so sort that this isn't a big issue.
Now on the topic of Boss fights, in this game they can be dealt with by making powerfull combos against the enemy the sooner you realise that the easier things will get it for you, if boss fights aren't delt with in a short period of time you are pretty much doomed because SP will deplit and if SP goes to 0 your character will go beserk and might attack your party randomily and not being able to do Combos, I do apriecite how things change up a bit by the late game, where the game experiemente with boss fights that take you out of your comfort zone, like the boss fight where the boss is imune to physical attacks so you have to come up with a new strategy, from usual, I just wish there were more of them.
Another cool thing about it is that every character gains new abilities from different methos, in Shadow hearts 1 character only gained new skills on level up ,in this game you have to work to make these character more powerfull, tho generally you will just have to find an expefic item or NPC and maybe fight them to gain a new skill, I do find how Anastegia gains new skills interesting, she's a Blue mage tipe of character and only gain new skills when she ananlyses an enemy by taking photo of them.
This game also doesn't have INN, which is unsual for a JRPG, you can only heal fully heal your party by using tents in save points, which are pretty cheap so it's not a big issue, specially on the late game where you are showered with money.
Music
It's very similar in Style with the first game , being very different from most JRPG while still being good, I like all the battle themes, chosing a favourite would be hard because they are similar in quality, I just wish dungeon theme stand out a little bit more, but beside that it's a Great OST.The voice acting is alright for a PS2 game, there's a odd lines here and there , they miss prounance some Asian names, and sometimes what the subtitles says doesn't match what the caracter are saying, however it always the same meaning but said with slightly different worlds, but I generally Keep my expectations low for a PS2 JRPG, which is why I am not too critical of it, you can nowadays you can easily play undubed too.
Conclusion
SH 2 is Good JRPG, Sure I might have a lot of issues with it's story but the gameplay holds it up, I wouldn't consider it a hidden gem or underrated like many people do , but if you played the first Shadow hearts game and like it, you will like this game as well, if you didn't like the gameplay of SH 1 but like the story however you will have a harder time enjoying this game.Spolier Section
The ending has the Balls to kill the main protagonist which is something that they actually set up properly in the story, while the Kato trying distorting the time came out of nowhere and his motivation are shaky , at very least the ending where Yuri goes back to the beginning of Shadow heart 1 is interesting, this is my head cannon but I belive that when he went back to the beggining of SH 1 he was able to use his knowlage and forsite of those events to achive the true ending on it saving Alice, and avoding the event of Shadow hearts 2 entirely as well as his future death, pretty cool ending when you think about it because most player without a guide wouldn't be able to achive the true ending either.
Kato a character that was a secondary character in SH1 becoming a main vilian in the second 2 is cool but I wish he had a better motivation
Kato a character that was a secondary character in SH1 becoming a main vilian in the second 2 is cool but I wish he had a better motivation
Pros
- + Good battle system, that makes AC accessible to everyone.
- + Great OST
- + Lots of CGI and Cuteness
- + Disc 2 is a fun ride
Cons
- - Only Gets good after 15 hours.
- - The Story was badly Planned
- - Half of your party is made up of pointless characters
- - Villains don't have a good motivation
9
Gameplay
It's a straight up improvement over the first game, and it was rare so see me not having fun with these game.
8
Graphics
Sacnoth didn't have the same budget as other PS2 AAA games but it manage to hold up it's own well, there's a lot of pretty places in this game specially on Disc 2.
7
Story
The story has a lot of cool moments but they were just put thorougher without much thought, making a messy but cool plot , that takes a while to actually starts.
8
Sound
The Music of this game fits perfectly on it, the voice acting could be much better, on the other hand.
9
Replayability
40 Hours game shouldn't be repayable, thankfully this game doesn't have much missabale content.
8.5
out of 10
Overall
The story had so much potential, considering how good the first game was, but I at least appreciate how good the Battle system is.
