The ULTIMATE Recap of Shadow Hearts (RECAPitation)  

Happy Halloween, here's something for your witching hour. INB4: "But you can save Alice!" ... Yes you can, and just like saving James in Koudelka, that is NOT the canon ending. This game establishes that James died, and the next Shadow Hearts game establishes Alice dies here (though you Can save her Then). As usual, I am going to only talk about the canon ending. Otherwise, a lot of things to like about this game, though they shot themselves in the foot coming out one week before Final Fantasy X. It's interesting they went with more of an occult vibe than straight horror like Koudelka, but it laid good groundwork for a series regardless. Please enjoy, be safe, and stay healthy.

One of the best franchise that needs a remake or remaster.

FINALLY! Urgh one my favorite franchise! Thank you for doing this, this game needs more exposure and deserves so much love

Playing Koudelka, SH1 then SH2 is SUCH an amazing experience and story. Koudelka is painful to play with those battles but.. the story is so worth it. My favorite RPG game series.. minus From the new World.

God this game, this freaking game, great cast, great story, but god this game needs a remaster, it did not have enough time to cook in the oven, I'd kill to see a remaster trilogy of these games, with Koudelka being some unlock bonus or a buy off the PS Store, this along with the Xenosaga games.

I love the supernatural horror WW1 setting. global mission across China England and France. top of the line story telling. Historical figures laid throughout.

My best friend at the time showed me this game and it was one of best games I ever played on PS2. The story was really good and the inclusion of the mystic arts in different cultures was a nice touch.

There is currently a Kickstarter running for a spiritual successor of Shadow Hearts, named Penny Blood. Its actually together with an Spiritual Successor of Wild Arms, named Armed Fantasia. Since the Guy who made Shadow Hearts back then is the one making the Kickstarter for Penny Blood, Machida Matsuzo together with Akifumi Kaneko who is making Armed Fantasia i have very high Hopes for both of those Games. I hope the Info Spreads fast. More ppl need to know even if the Games already met the Minimum. More is always better :)

Oni! This makes me so happy! Thank you for doing Shadow Hearts! Will you be doing the sequels?

You could argue that the alter ending is canon and follows the ending of Shadow Hearts Covenant

A very underrated game. Noone does this kind of RPG anymore. 😢 I hope it would be revived sometime in the future.

When someone asks me what my favorite game is, it's this one, immediately. Something about it is just so intensely charming, even though it's another "Save The World" sort of game. What a blast from the past it was to see this. Thanks for the cover!

Shadow hearts is one of my favorite games of all time (I count both 1&2 as a single thing for me....most so I can have both in my top 10)

The morning I wake up and there's an Oni Black Mage video is a happy morning!

I’ve never realized that Alice died in the end. I’ve finished it a bunch of times and thought the fight with god just canceled out any deal with her soul. There is a 15 year delay hit in the feels.

I fucking love the Shadow Hearts series, a shame it didn't continue. Also, while I don't know if it can be considered anything more than speculation, the endings can be interpreted as such: Shadow Hearts 1 bad ending > Shadow Hearts 2 good ending > Shadow Hearts 1 good ending.

So a bit late to be clarifying this but both endings are actually canon, given how one of the endings in the second game explains how that other ending in this game is made possible. In any case, I always found the canon and non-canon discussion funny since if it's in the game regardless of what ending the next games follow, everything that happens in the game (outside of clearly joke endings) does actually happen canonically since it's not something written by someone else but the game creators (AKA it's alternative universe shenanigans). The Legend of Zelda for example would be a clear example of what happens when the franchise decides to try and go off several possible endings regardless of whether the game itself gives that as a possibility outside of giving you a Game Over screen. It's a fairly weird mess but it's canon regardless lol

Wait Dehui tried this in Wuhan? Maybe he succeeded after all this time...

Such a shame that the third installment killed the franchise, and it wasn't even a bad game, I finished SH3 and was happy with it, but the final boss was disappointing.

Oh Man, this game was great. I enjoyed it a lot. Can you make a video on Shadow Hearts 2 and Shadow Hearts Covenant?

yeah not to be the broken record, but technically both endings are canon, but that's probably something to be covered in the Shadow Hearts 2 Recap :D

This series is kind of a hidden gem. I enjoyed it.

I grew up playing this series and it meant the world to me. Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together! And like a multitude of other comments, I hope you get to Covenant at some point down the line :D

Technically the alternate ending is canon.

A great and underrated series it's great your covering this cult classic. By the way is it alright if you cover another Quick time mechanic based game namely the first Paper Mario?

Oh I love these games, if nothing else the Ring of Judgment was one the best ways to make the combat and frankly doing everything in the game interesting Hope you make a Shadow Hearts Covenant video too

"It has begun..."

One of my favorite games of all time, this game really needs a remaster for current systems. It really deserves better. I still boot it up on my PS2 from time to time.

this is my all time favorite game growing up and I still have that copy. thanks for doing a recapitation on it and hope you do the rest of the series as well :3

Your recapitations are some of my favorite content on RU-vid. Sometimes it takes me a bit to get around to watching because I want to sit down and give it my full attention. Thanks for this. Very good stuff.

I've never heard of this game but thank you for this

I had this game and it was great, but then I lost it (with Covenant and From a New World) when my apartment burn down.

So... What was that original Demon Gate from 15 Years before the game? If the Reverse Demon Gate summoned the Seraphic Radiance, an ancient god from within the Earth, then what is the regular Demon Gate supposed to summon? I'm extremely curious.

I loved this game growing up, hope you get to do the rest of the series. Dope video bro

Shadow hearts is some hardcore lovecraftian stuff.

Hey guess what's out this month...a trails game. Let's do a Shadow Hearts Recapitation. Come on, please do a Trails in the Sky SC or Trails of Cold Steel 1 recapitation.

Thanks for this. Can’t wait for Shadow Hearts 2. Your channel and the content really brings back some great memories ^^

I’m so glad you ended up covering this one Oni! It brings back so many memories and makes me want to break out my PS2 to replay it! Honestly I feel like I understand your explanation of the story more than I did while playing it year ago? Lol Also I loved the add in of the game’s important “key items” ahah thanks for another great video!

As I recall Margaritte was an American

Shadow Hearts 2 when :( ?

What a beautiful Yawang... Gate.

Thank you so much for Shadow Hearts, this series was amazing and damn, he deserve to get more attention and Remaster!

Ooh man this was an amazing game

Damn i love this game so much!

So far I've played Shadow Hearts 1 & 2. Both games back to back and for the first time a couple of months ago. Those games are so good. The setting is fucking awesome and really unique. Maybe it seems that way because it is really unrestrained in comparison to basically everything. Still the thing that makes it stand out for me is the enemy design. I've played a lot of JRPGs and RPGs in general but Shadow Hearts (and Shadow Hearts Covenant although to a lesser extent) enemy design was next level. You always were guessing what would come next and you still would be wrong for all the right reasons. Everything was so weird but so good at the same time. Most of the enemies were in some way unique and I'm still asking myself why I never knew about this series.

A remaster and remake could really help this series come back - so true for all old ps1 & ps2 games.

I never found Shadow Hearts 1 in any stores I've looked in over the years, which is where I must tip my hat to you, Oni Black Mage, for this series. I poked around with it at my friend's house when I was 14 years old, and I liked what I saw and felt from the gameplay (I had no comprehension of the story given I only had 30 minutes before we began playing D&D that night). My understanding of this game has been a patchwork, poorly done at best, so I am grateful of your comprehensive RECAPitation. I knew only the basics of the possible branched ending of this game, so I'm glad you answered that question in the Discord. This story is a heavy one, and I feel for everyone's various losses in this long journey. Alice's sacrifice in the end hurts because she shows nothing but courage throughout this tale, and such a loss harms all of us. Easter eggs: PK Fighting Spirit!

I've always wanted to play this and forgot until just now. Thanks OBM!

Yo thanks for this, was about to finally start shadow hearts 2, 5 years later and was just... I only remember bits and pieces. You rock!

Just hitting up all of the under rated greats from back in the day. Thank you for this. Really hope to see the second one soon

Yes!! I'm so glad you did this! It's my favorite RPG of all time. And I've been following your recapitatations for years! Thank you and more power!! 😁

Wish they would rerelease this game. My backwards compatible ps3 hasn't been working well and I got rid of my PS2 ages ago. I only played and have the first two games but would love to try the 3rd on a collection.

damn the underwear part really broke the immersion lmao

was just thinking about replaying this for the 100th time, thanks for this! i hope 1 day someone makes a remake :(

I love everything about this game. The dark setting, the soundtrack, the sound effects, all tome appropriate. I even love the font of the text. This needs a remaster. One of my favorite all time games

Thank you. It's one of those games we hear about, but never play and probably never will because of whatever excuse we have. Now at least we can know about the story.

I just started playing this last week and am so lost, thank you!

I know you already hearted my comment but I gonna say it again please do resident evil 3 2020 remake recapitation

Damn, I love this series so much! It would be amazing to see a remake or remaster of this beloved game but who knows what Midway and Aruze are doing with the IP.

They should made a sequal of the good ending.

Hearing the story makes me want to play this again.

I played this game so much as a teen. I reckon I've finished it close to 20 times. Interesting that your version calls it the Émigré Document, whereas in the version I had it was called the Émigré Manuscript, like in the sequel. Maybe it was an NTSC/PAL difference

Love this Series.

Just subscribed! You have some real Gems 💎 on this channel! Please do Saga Frontier 1... not 2 lol. Saga Frontier 1 was one of my favorite RPG's for PS1 and deserves more attention.

I freaking wish the series got a modern day remaster.... It'd make for a pretty damn great collection.

I love Shadow Hearts. Sadly, I think it's trapped in some legal hell due to Sacnoth's death. BUT I have that faint hope that the game could be one day blessed by the algorithm enough to generate demand, and thus a second chance. Great video, very concise! :)

First or second game I finished on stream was Koudelka this is pretty dope

I can't help but to laugh because of the cutscene & dialogue's text font is the same as the Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life

Sadly who knows if this masterpiece since the company doesnt exist anymore and lost the whole game file. But we can always hope! Such a masterpiece!

I love how everyone (understandably) ignores sh:ftnw

I loved these games. Too bad my PS2 is busted and I can't return to them. They really need a PC port. Or a whole remaster.

I thought I'd have to wait many a winter for this my absolute favorite game ever

got bored playing this one myself and only needed to watch the last 12 minutes.

Easy answer. The third one. It was so bad lol. But the first 2 were my favorite games ever

would you think about covering Galerians?

Shadow Hearts and Covenant are so underrated. Sucks that they're so hard to find these days.

I thought saving Alice was cannon now I'm heart broken that it isn't

"...to Wuhan, the final shrine." Uh...guys.....?? o.O

Oh no... now I need be on the patrion ahhahahah but really thanks and I m going tô patrion

I caught about 20% of that. Slow down and enunciate bro.

Someone needs to buy the rights from the current owner so that it can be remastered. And by remastered i mean remastered. This game doesn't need a remake

The don't make jrpgs like this anymore

Could you repeat that? I wasn't paying attention.

listening back to alot of these old rpg i use to play as a kid there so bad story wise its all cliche end of the world darkness blah blah

Ummm you do know u can save Alice right

The ending of SH2 is good.. that twist is ahead of its time

Shame you didn’t show the alternate ending

so when are the other two games gonna be done? just curious

what in the world has god got to do with this? it was just an awesome game

You mean Japanese not Chinese

Man I loved the Shadow Hearts series! Maybe it's just me, but I loved "SH From the New World." I know most people hate this title the most but I can't help how stupid it is. If you guys are feeling nostalgic about SH, I would suggest playing Legrand Legacy. It's a new game that has the same attack wheel style. Thanks for the great video. Subbed and like!

Can you do star ocean 2 or legend of legia?

Alice lives if you get the good ending.

Now do one for Shadow Hearts: Covenant

I tryed to play this game so many times.

Best game in the world.

Shadow Hearts was Dope !!!

both endings are canon

First! And for my favorite ps2 jrpg ever. Please do covenant and from the new world!

I played Covenant after and when I saw Yuri pop up by that train station I realized that Yuri got the chance to get that good ending in SH1. I would love a sequel set in the 80's with a descendant of Yuri and Alice set in.....Los Angeles.