The Dissonance of Shadow Hearts
May. 19th, 2009 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroIn an effort to get my brain working today (I've been running reports and organizing proxy votes rather mindlessly all morning) I'm going to attempt to make some comments about Shadow Hearts: From the New World.
It's the third game in the series, but it's less a sequel and more another story in the same universe, according to various sources. I certainly haven't had any problems following the plot. The setup is fairly simple: In an alternate-history 1920s America, Johnny Garland loses his family in an accident, starts a detective agency, and gets drawn into secret world of demon-summoning magic in pursuit of the mysterious Killer and Lady.
The actual story arc and a number of the cutscenes go for the "horror" approach. A number of the dungeons, particularly the first, play like they're supposed to be part of Silent Hill or a similar game. The game's artists obviously had a lot of fun designing various Lovecraftian horrors to come through the "windows" into our world.
This would be much more effective, however, if you party didn't consist of two magical Native Americans, a giant talking (drunken) cat, a highly visible ninja with increasingly absurd weapons, a pink-trimmed cutie-pie vampire, and a mariachi. And you're constantly derailed from your quest by various sidequests, like pursuing the giant cat's film aspirations at Purrmount Pictures, or dealing with the ninja's incompetant rival, Britney.
I'm reminded, actually, of Wild ARMS 2, which had some similar issues. The angst of one character's backstory (turned into a demon and forced to kill his friends) is kinda offset by the fact that another main character's primary weapon is an umbrella. I wonder if the Japanese have an easier time reconciling this sort of dissonance (or even if it is dissonance for them, or just considered two parts of the same genre).
Anyways, the battle system is cute--every action requires a spin on the "action ring", where you time button presses to try to score hits (or critical hits in a smaller space). It makes you feel more invested in the battle system and it feels a little more active, though it can be frustrating when you've been inflicted with a ring-impairing status ailment (like one that makes the hit areas invisible) and you can't use a healing item to cure yourself unless you're lucky and guess well.
The sidequests also have a bit of "guide dang it" to them, as they become available at odd times and involve a lot of backtracking to keep up with. It doesn't seem like you can actually miss any of them (except taking pictures of one-shot bosses and enemies, but they carry over to a New Game Plus), but actually hunting them down would have been frustrating without a FAQ.
Overall, fun game, decent concept, and I might pick up a copy of Shadow Hearts: Covenant if I can find it cheap. Of course, with my current backlog, it'll be 2011 before I get around to playing it...
It's the third game in the series, but it's less a sequel and more another story in the same universe, according to various sources. I certainly haven't had any problems following the plot. The setup is fairly simple: In an alternate-history 1920s America, Johnny Garland loses his family in an accident, starts a detective agency, and gets drawn into secret world of demon-summoning magic in pursuit of the mysterious Killer and Lady.
The actual story arc and a number of the cutscenes go for the "horror" approach. A number of the dungeons, particularly the first, play like they're supposed to be part of Silent Hill or a similar game. The game's artists obviously had a lot of fun designing various Lovecraftian horrors to come through the "windows" into our world.
This would be much more effective, however, if you party didn't consist of two magical Native Americans, a giant talking (drunken) cat, a highly visible ninja with increasingly absurd weapons, a pink-trimmed cutie-pie vampire, and a mariachi. And you're constantly derailed from your quest by various sidequests, like pursuing the giant cat's film aspirations at Purrmount Pictures, or dealing with the ninja's incompetant rival, Britney.
I'm reminded, actually, of Wild ARMS 2, which had some similar issues. The angst of one character's backstory (turned into a demon and forced to kill his friends) is kinda offset by the fact that another main character's primary weapon is an umbrella. I wonder if the Japanese have an easier time reconciling this sort of dissonance (or even if it is dissonance for them, or just considered two parts of the same genre).
Anyways, the battle system is cute--every action requires a spin on the "action ring", where you time button presses to try to score hits (or critical hits in a smaller space). It makes you feel more invested in the battle system and it feels a little more active, though it can be frustrating when you've been inflicted with a ring-impairing status ailment (like one that makes the hit areas invisible) and you can't use a healing item to cure yourself unless you're lucky and guess well.
The sidequests also have a bit of "guide dang it" to them, as they become available at odd times and involve a lot of backtracking to keep up with. It doesn't seem like you can actually miss any of them (except taking pictures of one-shot bosses and enemies, but they carry over to a New Game Plus), but actually hunting them down would have been frustrating without a FAQ.
Overall, fun game, decent concept, and I might pick up a copy of Shadow Hearts: Covenant if I can find it cheap. Of course, with my current backlog, it'll be 2011 before I get around to playing it...
