The JRPG Everyone Forgot [Shadow Hearts: From the New World] 

I actually had to cut a bit of content which is why it's really just about an hour long now. The current file only barely fit on my computer so I couldn't render anything bigger. Sorry about that!

Low key disappointed that there are no more Shadow Hearts games, based purely on how fun these videos are.

Honestly pretty hot take about the soundtrack. FTNW has a much more consistent and interesting soundscape than Covenant, and Hirota did a fantastic job on his own.

it might be a little wacky but I still love this game

I love love loved the combat system for this game such an underrated ps2 game. This is up there with the Legend of Legaia for my favorite combat systems in jrpgs.

You may have heard but many of the original creators involved with Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts are kickstarting two new games, Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood. Both are supposed to be spiritual successors to the two original series. Hopefully Penny Blood will have the same creepy monsters...maybe some corrupted werewolves or something, even.

Koudelka A, Shadow Hearts A+, Shadow Hearts: Covenant A-, Shadow Hearts:From The New World C. The game wasn’t bad it was just no-where near to the standard the others had set.

Especially Shenia's Mental conflict would tie in with the old shadow hearts perfectly, we have those flying masks which are very referencing of the native american ara, If they would tie this together meaningfull Shaodw Hearts: New World could be this wierd game no one likes but still manages to tie the plots very good together without losing the dark tone of the serious while also beeing as goofy at it is.

I don’t know a single thing about this series, this is my first video of yours I’ve seen but I love not only the story discussions, but I love your humor as well. Can’t wait to watch more of your videos :)

I'm so happy you covered this series. Its so near to my heart and your videos were really great in going over all of them! I really enjoyed it and I'm always gonna be praying for a new or remastered Shadow Hearts. Maybe a new one can have a werewolf companion instead of a vampire :)

Just found out about your content a week ago, and New World was my introduction to the Shadow Hearts! Grand coincidence~

jinzee i'm a pretty big lurker but I absolutely love your content+streams

So Rock Howard, T.Hawk and Pocahontas walks into a bar...

Shadow hearts 3 felt more like a spin-off stand alone loose connected to the original first 2 than a sequel. And of course someone would complain about "Over se x ualized characters" and "Stereotypes". Forget about one thing: Its a game made on early 2000s by a japanese company. The timeframe era that *nobody gave a damn about a fictional video game.* Good old days.

I really enjoyed this, the skits were amazing as always (I'm expecting John might make terrible video game suggestion about werewolves in the future) and the green screen moments were a pleasant and welcome surprise.

Although i don't think Shadow Hearts FTNW is a bad game, After watching this video i never realised how disjointed and all over the place the story is and how the characters, Quirky as they are, Most of the party was one note and never really went anywhere. I also never knew of a development hell relating to Shadow Hearts until this video, From what i can tell Aruze wanted to make the games more profitable by removing all the horror and doubling down on the goofy antics to bring in more customers, I'm not surprised it backfired big time. It did have the best battle system of the games. It's a shame that the Shadow Hearts series had to end this way as i would've loved to have see the series in a World War 2 setting.

Love these Videos when they are written from your viewpoint. Amazing work, will watch gladly again.

At what age you play something truly changes your perception of things. I must've been at just the right age to enjoy both Shadow Hearts 2 and 3 but that enjoyment didn't include the dark themes at all. A lot of my fond memories of SH2 and 3 are Karin, Lucia, Veronica and every Shania fusion scene and form (yes I was a teenager). But aside from the fanservice, the slapstick wacky characters/sidequests really made this series stick out to me and I remembered it forever. There just wasn't anything like it. Looking back on it now through your videos, there certainly were flaws (gosh especially the story in 3, I musta been up to my eyeballs in Shania's TnA that I never noticed how shallow it was) but ultimately its the gameplay I fell in love with and I still love all the fusions and the enhanced combo system in SH3. I actually played SH1 much later in life and I guess I was able to look past its dated graphics and appreciate the insane enemies and dark themes as an adult. I'm actually planning on replaying SH 2 and 3 but, man, I'd need to be a werewolf to have the time to finish two JRPGs back to back...

I’m just here because of Witcher Facts and am now learning that you review all my favorite childhood games!!! ❤️❤️❤️

This is another game I eventually enjoyed after dialing my brain down a notch of two. This is a classic case of a series getting worse as it went :)

Quite the journey, I played these as they came out years ago and never quite caught on how weird that a series that started with the damned and soulless husk of a woman brought to life by hundreds of sacrifices screaming the flesh off a priest in the bad ending eventually became about a stripper Native American. Something something werewolves.

Ah. The weirdest and most cartoony game of the series. Definitely the least horror themed.

Clearly someone used the Emigre’ Manuscript on the Shadow Hearts series. It has the basic aesthetic shell of what once was, but no soul within it, just trapped off to the side like Elaine. Werewolf.

I wish they did a remake or a redesign of All of these games. Koudelka was important in the very first shadow heart game. I think her son is one of the characters. This was a very unique game, but what I loved is their mix of historical figures with weird fantasy elements and quirky characters.

Not sure why the view counts are so low on this series. I'm brand new to the channel, coming from the Koudelka video, and I'm impressed with your work.

A wolf in sheep's clothing would make hilarious cosplay! Would a sheep wear wolf's clothing? What if the wolf's clothing was a sheepskin with attached head-hood? Those old WB toonz featuring a coyote and sheepdog trying to eat/guard a fluffy flock might have inspired me here. Anyway, a wear-wolf (open to interpretation) or even a whole flock of wear-wolves (vaguer still, I know) couldn't dress up this "kuso". The combat looks too woolly for me. Were I a werewolf, I would exclaim (bcuz lycanthropes can talk better than ol' Scoob), "You can't pull the wool over my eyes, I know a kusoge when I smell one!" And yet, the creativity on display in the bowl, and on the surrounding walls and floor, really is impressive. Messy, yes, but impressive. Thanks for uploading, PB!!

after SH 1 and 2, playing this, i couldn't even finish it. The whole time playing, I was like "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". Oh and on a random note, my name's Ricardo, and Ricardo happened to be my favorite character from this game lol. Oh and uh, Lady and Killer were supposed to be like, evil versions of Alice and Yuri, but instead they just came off as empty (and evil, though not werewolf) versions of them.

Love the video. I have a bit of an odd relationship with shadow hearts. This was my first one and I loved it so much I went back to find covenant. And I remember I once held the original in my hands at a GameStop and begged to get it but wasn’t successful. It’s a weird case of me knowing full well that this game has problems, but have a special attachment to it since it was my introduction to this series

You’re content is soooo amazing 🧚🏻‍♀️🍬💕

I’d rather be mauled by werewolves than play FtNW again. Kudos for dedicating a video to it, and thank you for bringing attention to Shadow Hearts as always. 😁

Didn't the team consider this more of a spinoff than an actual direct sequel? Anyway pretty good review. I enjoyed the game for what is but prefer the previous two entries. The first one for its Gothic and darker setting while the second for its much approved battle system. Also if you ever get the chance ma'am you should definitely check out Vagrant Story. I think that game will be right up your alley.

As cool as werewolves are, I will always love Ricardo, I have always been a fan of the Mariachi Trilogy, and he was very much in that vein. Also, his guitar riffs were so good!!!

Have you already heard about Penny Blood from the creator of Shadow hearts?!?

I played this game all the way to the end, all I had left was the final boss and um... I totally lost interest... I don't know why, I guess I was expecting another SH: Covenant but instead we got... this. I mean Covenant has not aged well for various reasons, but at least back then it was engaging, and the original SH, well... it's already been covered, amazing game. So yeah, I gotta say I agree with the title of this video. Very thorough review, can't imagine the amount of work that went into this, kudos.

Where were you ? hopefully everything is alright

Johnny should branch out..rescue werewolves instead of cats.

its so weird and out of place... that i never forgot this. and i played all 3 of them... 4 if you also include Koudelka

Just to add to the ever growing list of games I'd like to see you cover do you know one called "Resonance of Fate"? If you don't then it's another one worth looking into.

I always wanted to know what the deal was with the maligned final entry in this series but not enough to actually play it, given its infamy. This was very informative! I am now aware (wolf) of what I was hoping to learn.

Another great video. I thought the wait felt longer, but definitely worth it. If you havnt played Nier games somehow, I suggest doing so. Might fill some of the space left by the void of this one.

I came across an article a few years ago that said the Shadowhearts series are alternate dimension sequels to Koudelka. That would explain the inconsistencies between Koudelka and Shadowhearts.

I don't know why, but that head turn with the, "hmmmm" at 8:56 cracked me the fuck up. 🤣

I watched this video a little late but I found the monster design very interesting, as it was on the previous games: very strange monsters, the team was no afraid from straying from the classics like werewolves, zombies, etc.

2:05 They made the right choice. I like this

Your summation of the story makes sense since I didn't feel this game gelled for me like the other two but I couldn't figure out why. I will respectfully disagree on the music not being good because "Dead Fingers Talk", the North american battle theme, is pretty great.

Lady and Killer... "Lady Killer," get it... GET IT?!?!

Just want to say that I am liking these long-form videos about games. Reminds me a bit of Ragnarox but very much your own style. To think I subscribed years ago for Witcher videos. Have you ever considered making a Werewolf video (I am not good at this)?

its a shame it lost its themes of horror, but still it has its merits, overall if yuri and alice to showed up as even just a cameo, and i would have been happy, but twas not meant to be~

On point analysis, through all the games. I played and finished all except Koudelka and couldn’t agree more with you. FTNW would’ve been better with a werewolf character, no doubt :)

Fav scene was 20:07, can't wait for the werewolves

I recently tried to beat this game after not playing it since 2006 when I first bought it. I got so fed up with it because I could not find all of Shania‘s fetishes in order to get the final fusion. In the end, I just watched the final cut scene/ending on RU-vid. Like you mentioned , I was basically taking snapshots with Johnny in order to get the prizes, In the end, I just wanted to know how the story ended, which felt lacklustre.

I'm trying to place the final fantasy music in the background pretty sure It's FF8, maybe Balamb Garden... I miss this era of final fantasy. Edit: Found it, it's the world map theme. That's why I thought Balamb, you first hear it when walking to Balamb Town.

I always wonder if shadow hearts had been allowed to keep its identity, would it have gotten some of the shine that shin megami and persona got eventually. Maybe split into separate series like megami tensei. Koudelka, SH, New World ect. Also her facial expressions/body movement are so fast I was wondering if i was in a faster playback.

Hey there! Are you gonna do a review of 'Nightmare of the Wolf'? I would love to know your thoughts on it. I thought it was at least much better than the main show of netflix, and gave me some hope for season 2. Would love to know your thoughts. Love the channel btw!

i loved this in-depth video like the others and New World the one i never played. Wild game and crazy story about the game company. This was a better time spent than hunting werewolves thnx for the vid.

Wait why you use After Effect for video editing? I use After Effect only for post-production. If you want to edit a video, use Premiere Pro. You can edit videos much faster than in AF. And when you’re done editing the video, you just copy and paste it in AF and added the effects where needed. The next episode will be about werewolves sounds interesting

i was a real big fan of the werewolf, or should i say, werewolves that appeared in this series :3 loved watching each of these vids, great way to use my down time

I beat this game with pretty much the same characters in rotation. I use the Knife Boy, Fusion Girl, Young Grandma, and Guitar Gun. On a more interesting note, I was lazy as fuck when I played this, so I barely did any of the characters' skill quest. The game is pretty easy all things considered. Also, I actually like the characters. I think they are fun.

33:00 Please tell me there's a spinoff game where you play all this as Lenny. I want to play that game far more than this one. "Lenny's Bolivian Salty Tower Rescue Mission" or something.

I liked all the games. All four of them. Number 2 was my favorite. When I say four I am including Koudelka and when I say 2 I mean Shadow Hearts Covenant. I wish they would make more games like that. The Shadow Hearts games need a remaster or Remake. I know they are making a game called Penny Blood.

The only inconsistency I can answer is the "Why Didn't Shania turn into a monster in a good ending." Sadly it's not related to werewolves, it's that throwaway line before the Tirawa fight, it has the power to purify the evils of mankind. To get the good ending you have to fully upgrade her Tirawa form, which I guess you can vaguely imply gives it the power to purify her body of the malice. I like your idea better tho. Shania's both the best character and the one that gets shafted the most. From her design being lowkey offensive to her not being given the same level of care concerning her powers and what they do to her that Yuri received.... yeah...She is the reason why axes are my favorite weapon to dual wield tho, I'll give her that!

I want to say Frank's accent is Nigel Thornberry attempting to sound swedish.

I wondered why shadow hearts died i guess this explained it

The cast being little more than background noise was why I couldn’t connect with this game and never finished it. The characters was completely irrelevant after they joined. Now that I think about it, all of the Shadow Hearts games suffered from this but it got worse with each game. Also, Lady Killer lol I finally get it

I remember when I first heard the title of this game that my mind immediately came up with the story would have Hailey and Koudelka searching for Edward be a part of it. And instead of the Valentine Vampire family... America could have had the Woodrift Werewolf family. Eh?

I'll be frank here the biggest gripe i have with Shadow Hearts and Koudelka is they never told us why seemingly all the spirit that gonna be resurrected always rejected the offer, okay i get it if like Elaine got sick and bedridden for a few years so when her times come she already make peace with her dead so then she refuse the offer of resurrection but it wasn't the case in all of the games, Elaine killed by a thief, Alice was force to sacrifice herself for Yuri, and the twins got killed in an accident they all died suddenly leaving a loved one and with dreams plus all other things they want to do in their life seriously after Koudelka this plotline just become a deus ex machina for some character to meet again or got resurrected but when if it contradict what they want the story to go they just "oh no a refused the chance for resurrection even though b and a loved each other and if a got resurrected most likely they'll get married and grow old lovingly together but nah a refused the offer because i don't know the heaven is that great maybe"

Drinking Game Idea: Watch this video and take a drink every time she says... you guessed it... "Malice."

I liked this game.

I still remember the black and white panties for Alice in the first shadow hearts....

Huh... i playd this alot wen i was lk 12 but didnt relize how 3 was so 1 note in the story.... wel i luvd playn ricardos songs n got to continue using the valentine party members(joachime best valentine) and maos fully upgraded drunken fist was fun lul uhh yea, great review hope to see more classics or modern stuff uwu edit: btw i believe from wut i remember shania doesnt turn into a malice monster in the good ending cuz to get the good ending she has to get the final fusion that removes all of her tattoos and removes all of her malice

Man I loved how campy it was

love the ff8 bgm. i bought this game back in the day but werewolves made me bored in the grand canyon, so that's what this game was...

Thanks

I think the title is the JRPG everyone wish they could forget D: wtb Yuri's dad story

This is the game that introduced me to the whole series so I'm really biased towards it. I only have the demo disc but was never able to play the whole game

I remember having daily meltdowns from this game as I was stuck fighting Etna as a kid. When I finally beat her I didn’t save in the next area and died to enemies….I had to calmly take out the disc and snap it in half as I would’ve thrown my PlayStation out the window otherwise. Such a great game though just wish I could’ve finished it back then.

🙏

A werewolf character would be amazing 😻

Shadow Hearts is one of my absolute favorite games ever. I really enjoyed Covenant as well. I tried three times to get through A New World...but just couldn't do it. It just wasn't Shadow Hearts to me, where's the horror? And Shania wasn't a good substitute for Yuri and his Harmonixer abilities. I want to turn into demons, and werewolves not what ever Shania turns into. It was just a disappointing experience all around. Also as a side note I love the FFVIII music in the background of your video, another game near and dear to me, I would to see a video on your take of it.

Va fail! Looking forward to the werewolf content. Hope it includes a look at Bloodborne!

Werewolves I also am a huge fan of the shadow hearts series. I have 3 games for ps2 and a retro console with koudelka that constantly crashes lol. Never played from the new world I have still wrapped. I like hearing your reviews and I look forward to werewolf women of the ss....

Wonder if we'll ever get a jrpg about werewolves? I mention this because the last werewolf game I've even heard about was Werewolf the Apocalypse Earthblood and that was just uninteresting to say the least.

Didn´t expect they would introduce werewolves in to the game like that.

God I miss shadow hearts😂 was such a nice and different game❤ would love a remaster or remake of the game . But I don’t see that happening sadly

Shadow Hearts and Parasite Eve are two games that need more love for being horror and turn based done right.

I personally love this game because we rarely seen north/south American mythology in games. Also dead fingers talk is amazing.

Annnd now I want to play this game

I bought and played this game and forgot absolutely everything about it. Literally everything.

Commenting to boost views to this great channel. Everyone is talking about werewolves in the comments, so I feel right at home. Two pieces of feedback: You should time travel back to 1992 and bring your Super Scope 6 to the Toys R Us with the loose return policy so you can get some cash towards Mario Paint. Best trade a young me ever made. Secondly, the background music you play is awesome. Also kinda wanna ask if you play Vampire the Masquerade. (squints narrowly to determine if you are one of us) Ha ha.

16:00 Sounds like a Yakuza thing, lol

Werewolves are neat oh God I actually got the either purge ability for Johnny that sucked but the damage wasn't to bad

I feel very late getting to watch this and I feel like I should apologise for that. Don't know why. I would like to say it was because I was busy, but the spell I have to become a werewolf didn't even work. Maybe the incantation had to be said in the original Russian... or maybe spells from a book your school friend got you for a fiver from an eclectic bookstore on the promise of cupcakes just don't work, sadly.

Jinzeee, i just searched for this game on youtube and randomly clicked on this video only to realise that it was a familiar face and voice 🤭

My personal thoughts about the game (posting this before the video so I can then watch it and see if your opinions are similar to mine): Firstly, and mostly, I'd have to say that I feel that a lot of the hate is a little unfair. It's not really _that_ bad. Now, granted, some of the story elements, and some of the characters are just plain _silly,_ sure. I get that. But, the game itself, remains fun to play at least in my opinion. The main battle theme for the first third+ of the game is an absolute banger which always helps (if you have to do a lot of battles, the BGM better be awesome or you're going to have a terrible time), and I found myself enjoying the spells system of FtNW more than 2's (that whole thing with the demon map was just... eh. it just didn't jive with me really). While Yuri is a cool character, I found myself liking Shania a bit more. She uses axes, and... well, I mean, I _am_ a guy. I won't lie and say I didn't like the fanservice morph animations (I mostly just used the Earth one for almost the entire game once I got it until I got the Sun one unlocked). The main issues I can see with FtNW mostly stem from the characters mostly being "eh". I'd use Johnny, Shania, and Frank and the fourth character.... is where I had trouble deciding as the others just... didn't really "do" it for me. I tend to gravitate towards melee-heavy characters, so Fat Hilda would be awesome, but you have to keep drinking blood for her to maintain it (otherwise she becomes Thin Hilda, which is a caster). Neat concept but eh. Too much micromanaging for my tastes. Mao is okay, but... doesn't have a whole lot going for her when it comes to her skills (unless you grind the cat coins, which is... eeeh.). Natan just doesn't do enough damage, could never understand why he seems so weak in the physical attacks department. I usually just end up relying upon the mariachi as he's the "close enough" thing, though later on, some of his ability unlocks are pure awesome but it takes a long time for him to start to shine. Also, Johnny himself is more of a caster than a melee attacker, and he's required to be in the group at all time. With these JRPGs, it's usually the main protagonist/forced party member who is usually the great melee attacker, and when a game changes this up, I kinda feel like I wish I could swap them out of the group. He gets a _little_ better later on as the game progresses, but I feel that through at least half of the game, he's just not strong enough in the physical attacker department. Just personal playstyle issues I suppose. But then, I feel that half of #2 has similar character issues: Yuri and the german girl are awesome, the wolf is surprisingly good, but you're left with "who do I fill the 4th slot with?" until you finally arrive in Japan and get the actual _good_ 4th character (the samurai obviously).

I completed this game back in 2006, and I havent touched it since. I forgot why I didn't touch it since then, then I saw this video 😂 oh yeah, and uhh werewolf

I've made to this series with this game. Dispute the hate on this one, I still love It. Nowdays I see the flaws of the game, but playing It as a teenager was a great experience.

I loved hilda as a kid lol

The JRPG I never knew existed. 🧐

!quote

As per request from the end of the video...... werewolves. I stuck around.