Shadow Hearts - Part 6: Halley, The Rats and The Orphanage

00:00:02 - Finding the London Rats 00:15:07 - The Orphanage 01:42:21 - Back to London 01:52:38 - Calios Mental Hospital Shadow Hearts is a Role-Playing Game that turns 25 this year and is one that you either experienced and remembered fondly - or it missed you entirely. I'll be honest, I had not even heard of the franchise (let alone the game) before Mothy added it to the backlog. Sacnoth's RPG takes place in an alternate historical period, taking place between 1913 and the first world war. You start the game as Yuri, who is a Harmonixer - a man capable of transforming into beasts with different abilities. Over the course of the game you recruit party members , as you tend to do in these games, and at the behest of a voice in his head go on a globetrotting mission to prevent the evil sorcerer Dehuai from kidnapping white mage/love-interest Alice Elliot and using her power to summon a world swallowing demon - and eluding the ominous wizard Roger Bacon (I thought this was a joke name, but he is a real historical figure) who has taken great interest in these events. The story is compelling and interesting, but too often borders on predictable. I can't speak for the Japanese version, but there is some very questionable voice acting (Schloop. If you know, you know.) Mechanically it's a fairly standard RPG, and characters have their own jobs and abilities and can be picked based on preference or according to who is beast suited to the fights ahead - However there are three really unique mechanics that make the game stand out for better or worse. First, there is the innovative judgment ring where in order to hit your opponent or cast magic you must time your X-button to fall within the highlighted areas of a circle as a clock hand makes a full rotation. The more powerful the action, the narrower the area of the ring. It adds an extra dimension of involvement and really adds to the experience, especially when under pressure. You can level up your weapons to expand the highlighted area size and power. Next up, in addition to HP and MP is SP (which I assume stands for Sanity points). As battles move on, you will gradually lose these points until they are empty - and when this happens then your characters go into a berserk state and you have no control over them which is really something you'd like to avoid. This really can add to the drama and urgency of every fight. Another mechanic that is unique, is Yuri's malice system which soon becomes frustrating as every time you defeat an enemy your rage will build - unless you quell the rage by visiting the graveyard in his mind and defeating an enemy. The consequence of not doing this regularly is that an unbeatable enemy will appear to ruin your day. Initially this is a novel idea, which soon becomes enormously frustrating. Based on the dated and low detail static backgrounds and character models (The game was released in 2001, where advancements were common in the industry), the game feels like it was meant for PS1 release but was too late for it. It's not an ugly game by any stretch, but it simply didn't utilise sixth generation hardware as a game like this should. There are some lovely looking FMV scenes but these are few and far between. Where Shadow Hearts really suffers (for me at least, I know others would disagree) is the irritating music that plagues the experience throughout - a shame because Yoshitaka Hirota did some great work with the likes of RE2's drama album and Klonoa. Maybe I've been listening to too much Uematsu. The game runs you for around 25-30 hours and there are far worse games that you can spend your time with, and despite criticisms (which I feel are valid) I quite enjoyed Shadow Hearts. #sacnoth #shadowhearts #midway #rpg #nukeboxharris #twitch #playstation2 Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at   / nukeboxharris