Shadow Hearts: Covenant
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| Shadow Hearts: Covenant | |
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| Developer(s) | Nautilus |
| Publisher(s) | JPN Aruze NA Midway PAL Midway |
| Designer(s) | Matsuzo Machida (director) Takamasa Ohsawa (art director) Miyako Kato (character design) Yoshi Takashirota (composer) |
| Series | Shadow Hearts |
| Release date(s) | JPN February 19, 2004 NA September 27, 2004 PAL March 11, 2005 |
| Genre(s) | Console RPG |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | CERO: 15+ ESRB: T PEGI: 16+ USK: 12+ OFLC: M15+ |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 |
| Media | 2 DVDs |
Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a console role-playing game developed by Nautilus and published by Midway in 2004. It is a direct continuation of Shadow Hearts and the second official game in the Shadow Hearts series. The game features two DVD-ROM discs instead of the usual one, which provides, according to the publisher, over forty hours of gameplay.
The game is also known as "Shadow Hearts II." This is the name used within the game itself: the name "Shadow Hearts: Covenant" was used only on the American packaging and in advertising.
The story follows two years after the events of Shadow Hearts in the midst of World War I. The heroes are drawn into an intriguing plot involving the demons of demonolatry, the chief advisor of the tsar of Russia and a man from main character Yuri's past.
The release of Shadow Hearts: Covenant generated much more fanfare than its predecessor. As such, the series gained a much wider following in the United States.[citation needed] It was named IGN PS2 Game of the Year for 2004 [1].
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[edit] Gameplay
The Judgment Ring from Shadow Hearts returns with many modifications and improvements. Also, battle has been greatly expanded by different types of attacks as well as combo attacks. An element of physics has been added to battles as well, which links to the types of combo attacks which can be performed.
In Shadow Hearts: Covenant, players are able to customise the Judgment Ring to their own preferences with the introduction of two new Ring items: Hit Area Expand and Strike Expand, making the game easier or more challenging to the player, depending on what they want. Several ring types are also introduced to cater to the different players e.g. Practice Ring for beginners, Normal Ring for amateurs, Technical Ring for veterans and lastly, Auto Ring for gamers who simply are just too lazy to aim at the Judgment Ring.
A worthy mention of the new battle mechanism would be the introduction of the Crest Magic system, where players are able to equip Crests to certain characters that would allow them to cast different types of elemental magic. Along the journey, players are able to collect new crests and use more powerful magic. The crests may also be positioned in an key item known as Solomon's Key. Postioning the crests correctly will unlock new spells for each crest for a certain region. It should be noted that most of the crests' names are derived from the names of various demons in several ancient mythology.
Shadow Hearts: Covenant also includes "Hit Classes" which are incooperated with the physical and magical attacks. These include: Standard, Hard Hit, High Angle and Knock Down. Depending on the "weight" of the opponent monster, you'll be able to do more damage when connecting a combo during battle. Conversely, if an atttack with an inappropriate Hit Class is used to continue a combo, the end result is a missed attack, or rather, a Combo Break.
For example, a Standard hit will simply push an enemy behind while attacking. This allows for any other type of Hit Class attack to be connected to do a Combo. A High Angle and Knock Down combo attack is another similar example. However, say if a Knock Down attack is applied to an enemy who has a "Heavy" weight followed by a High Angle hit, it will most probably miss since the enemy is still Knocked Down at that moment when the combo attack is made.
Combo shortcuts are also introduced where players are able to assign physical/magical attacks onto the controller buttons. This reduces the time taken to create a Combo attack as one character can attack immediately after another with a simple press of the button. However, this makes the game more challenging as players have to decide quickly what kind of attack they should follow up next as the combo shortcut menu appears only for a short amount of time i.e. when the precediing character is in the midst of launching his/her attack.
Along with Yuri's fusion skills which enables him to change into different elemental fusion monsters, the other seven characters in the game have their own personalised set of skills, which are as follows:
Karin Koenig - Sword Arts
Gepetto - Marionette
Blanca - Manifestations
Joachim Valentine - Muscle Arts
Lucia - Aromatherapy and Tarot Cards
Princess Anastasia - Snapshot and Album
Kurando Inugami - Demon Morph (similar to Yuri's fusion skills)
[edit] Plot
The town of Domremy has stubbornly refused to fall to the German advance at the beginning of World War I thanks to the aid of a "demon" which seems to defend it. Lieutenant Karin Koenig of the German army is sent along with a person who claims to be an Inquistor from the Vatican, Nicolai Conrad, to acquire a means of exorcising this demon. However, the 'Demon of Domremy' is actually the Harmonixer Yuri from the first Shadow Hearts. Yuri, Karin, and Nicolai soon become entangled in a plot involving secret conspiracies, the Russian royal family, the Japanese foreign minister, the mystical tome from Koudelka, and more.
Other characters include Gepetto, a puppeteer who uses his puppet Cornelia to fight; Blanca, a white wolf; Princess Anastasia of the Russian Romanov Dynasty; Lucia, an Italian fortune teller and aromatherapist; Kurando Inugami (犬神蔵人 Inugami Kurando), a swordsman and fledgling Harmonixer; and Joachim Valentine, a strange vampire wrestler who is also the brother of Keith from Shadow Hearts.
[edit] Development
The game as a whole was revamped from Shadow Hearts, including the graphics, the way the Judgment Ring worked, and the cast of characters. Game critics have also smiled upon Shadow Hearts: Covenant much more than the original, and a general consensus seems to be that the game is an overall improvement on the first.
An interesting bit of trivia, is that, when this game was in its early stages of development, Aruze "leaked" that the story revolved around only Nicolai, Karin and other yet-to-be-named allies. Yuri was unmentioned and Shadow Hearts 2 was believed to be absent and this game a separate story. However, once the game was released, many players and fans were delighted and surprised to see that Yuri had made his return as the main focus of this game. [citation needed]
[edit] Directors Cut
After the release of the original game, a directors cut version was released in Japan, and never saw US shores. It featured two extra dungeons known as "Nahasu Temple" and "Sea of Woods". Veronica Vera and Lenny Curtis are also playable characters in this cut.
[edit] Audio
The voice actors in the English version of the game are as follows:
- Joey Capps — Yuri Hyuga
- Georgette Rose — Alice Elliot/Ouka
- Kari Wahlgren — Karin Koenig/Carla
- Bob Papenbrook — Rasputin
- Ardwight Chamberlain — Nicolas 'Nicolai' Conrad
- Jamieson Price — Special Agent Kato
- Jennifer Sekiguchi — Princess Anastasia Romanov
- Amos Nandy — Gepetto/Roger Bacon/Naniwa
- George C. Cole — Joachim Valentine/Albert Simon
- Todd Hodges (alias; real name Richard Cansino) — Lenny Curtis (Rene Curtis, レニ・カーティス, in the Japanese version)/Kurando Inugami/Blanca (Blanca only in Wolf Bout cutscenes)
[edit] Reception
It was named IGN PS2 Game of the Year for 2004 [2].
