Product Description

Set in 1930`s America, just after the era of The Great Depression, `Shadow Hearts: From the new world` follows our young hero - Johnny Garland.

After losing his father, younger sister and part of his memory in an accident, Johnny heads off to New York to form his own detective agency. Johnny takes his first case, by accepting a request from a mysterious man to find and apprehend a criminal suspect who has escaped custody.

Taking a central role is Johnny`s female-counterpart, Shania a 21yr Native American. A bounty hunter by trade and gifted with spiritual powers, Shania senses a strange energy from Johnny, and decides to accompany him on his quest.

The third instalment of this truly exciting RPG series offers a totally fresh storyline and includes a newly improved battle system, a whole host of new and bizarre characters, breath-taking CG cut-scenes and a myriad of side quests and mini games to explore. Shadow Hearts: From the New World looks certain to be the most successful episode yet!

• Up to 60 hours of enthralling game play
• Movie-type storyline
• Atmospheric high-end CG cut-scenes
• Aid your quest by playing and exploring various mini-games and side-quests to gain extra bounty!
• Travel across America, explore familiar locations
• Meet with mythical and historical characters. Will they assist or hinder your quest?
• Newly improved features to the series trademark `Judgement ring battle system`
• Multiple endings and surprising twists in storyline where you determine the end
• New `Stellar chart` system feature to unlock hidden secrets, bonuses and power-ups!
• Character morphing ability

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3187 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Ghostlight
• Released on: 2007-05-25
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: PlayStation2

Manufacturer's Description
Set in 1930's America, just after the era of The Great Depression, 'Shadow Hearts: From the new world' follows our young hero - Johnny Garland.

After losing his father, younger sister and part of his memory in an accident, Johnny heads off to New York to form his own detective agency. Johnny takes his first case, by accepting a request from a mysterious man to find and apprehend a criminal suspect who has escaped custody&.

As Johnny approaches the escapee, an illusional-like creature, appears from a 'window' of green light and swallows him. Johnny sets off in haste to track down the apparition and without realising it& finds himself at the start of an incredible adventure.

Taking a central role is Johnny's female-counterpart, Shania a 21yr Native American. A bounty hunter by trade and gifted with spiritual powers, Shania senses a strange energy from Johnny, and decides to accompany him on his quest&.

The third instalment of this truly exciting RPG series offers a totally fresh storyline and includes a newly improved battle system, a whole host of new and bizarre characters, breath-taking CG cut-scenes and a myriad of side quests and mini games to explore. Shadow Hearts: From The New World looks certain to be the most successful episode yet&!

Customer Reviews

It's not happening this time around
I've been a huge fan of the Shadow Hearts series, but "From the New World" is the weakest so far. I might be a little biased as I played it immediately after finishing Final Fantasy 12 and it just can't compare to that, but even so I remember having a far better time playing the first game and the sequel, "Covenant". The story of Yuri and Alice really made the first game memorable, and the second was almost as good, with Karin making a very sympathetic female lead. This time, however, I am not warming to any of them.

The story this time is a brand new one. A 16 year old called Johnny Garland has his own detective agency in New York (like all 16 year olds do), and one day a chance visit from a stranger begins a missing person hunt that leads to uncovering an evil force that threatens to wipe out the entire world. Along the way he gathers a team of new friends and so the stage is set for a typical RPG. Now, Shadow Hearts is famous for having off the wall characters and this time is no exception. I thought having the puppet master Gepetto and Princess Anastasia as part of your team in Covenant was whacky enough, but this time around you'll be joined by a giant drunken Kung-Fu cat, a kittenish female Vampire and a comedy Ninja. The trouble is that I'm having a harder time becoming attached to them in this game because they just don't seem to be original creations. Frank the Ninja is a direct copy of Joacim, with his weapon upgrades from found objects, and Hilda the childish and annoying vampire changes form between being fat, skinny or a bat in the same way that Keith and Joacim did. Shania the indian squaw can shape-shift into elemental fusion monsters like Yuri did, and characters learn new moves and spells by finding documents or manuscripts like Karin did. As this is supposed to be a completely new game, I found this amount of repetition in the characters to be very disappointing.

Another thing is that in this day and age, there is no excuse for the playable environments to be so small. New York is represented by four "boroughs", most with just one street and no visitable buildings. Go the wrong way or step off the kerb and you drift back to the world map, showing you how tiny each location is. There's no moveable camera and the scantest populations of NPCs to talk to in each place. The dungeons are little better, relegated to just a few rooms or stages, with no more than about three varieties of enemy in each. You can do each dungeon level and boss in a single sitting and it sometimes seems like the game is whizzing by. The game still plays with "alternative" versions of real places, but it doesn't impress much this time around, with Alcatraz prison and the Roswell UFO site being very lack-lustre.

There are some new ideas, but they are not all good. The stellar chart magic system is terribly clumsy and you have to navigate endless permutations of screens and options to set each character up with decent spells. Plus the stellar charts themselves have to be modified at shops to hold the better magic spells, which makes it even more of a bother. One good thing is that each character has unique abilities, which means that they are not endlessly interchangeable like in some RPGs (even in Final Fantasy 12 you could have built up all the characters in exactly the same way), and this gives some variety.

The best thing about the series, though, is still it's trademark Judgement Ring system, and if you enjoyed the first two games for this reason you will be well served here. The battles have even become more complicated with the introduction of the "Stock" guage, which acts like a meter that fills up when you give or receive damage. This can then be used to unleash devastating linked attacks once filled. Managing Stock is crucial to a good battle, and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the Combo mechanism, with great results for those who have good reflexes (missing the correct symbol button and breaking a good combo is frustrating but fair, because if you want that 4 chain Combo magic you have to work for it!).

My overall impression is that "From The New World" has been created to ride on the glory of the games before it by simply copying them. It's nowhere near as impressive as "Covenant", and all it's ideas are second hand. It's also trying too hard to be funny. There's scarcely a serious moment in here, or anything approaching the depth or the adult orientated themes that the series did so well in the past. It's all now just a giant cartoon, and while Kung-Fu cats and fat vampires are funny for a while, they don't draw you into the story at all. There is scarcely any plot to speak of as it is, the whole game is just a chase from start to finish, following the villains all around the world. The fun in the game lies with the battles and becoming an expert using the Judgement Ring. Battles are complex and even random encounters need some forethought, especially as there are bonuses available for very good performances (perfect ring turns, enemies killed without having a single turn, etc), so there is a lot to enjoy. Boss battles can be long, but at the same time, the game never gets particularly difficult, and levelling up sems to happen very rapidly so you can easily make a powerhouse team to face almost anything. Sidequests are good - there are seperate side stories for each character which is a nice aspect, and something of a tradition now in the series. It's a shame that these good aspects are not complementing a more impressive basic game, because as it stands, the Judgemant Ring and the good "extras" are the only thing lifting a very short and mediocre RPG plot and characters into being a passable game.

First Shadow Hearts Expierience? Go ahead...
...otherwise...avoid it like the plague!

I have LOVED the Shadow Hearts games (and to a lesser extent, Koudelka, the 1st in the entire series) since I bought the 2nd game, Covenant, off Amazon a while ago. I then went back and got Koudelka and the Shadow Hearts and was amazed at the brilliant gameplay and ease of control (apart from Koudelka which was pretty useless in the controls department!)
But then this came out...I was SOOO excited, you couldn't possibly understand how excited I mean...I even pre-ordered it and played it straight away!

I love the judgement ring system, thankfully thats still there...it has a half decent story, and best of all, they still have fusions...

Sadly though, those 3 good points all have their pitfalls...The way they've brought another ring soul (now called a ring spirit...why the name change guys!?) was good, and who it is was quite a good idea, I liked it...but its just so hard to find all the items you need to that you rarely get an upgrade for your ring making the ring slightly pointless...the story, sure its good, but honestly, from the word go you can tell exactly whats going to happen! I know, its hard to write a story like that and NOT give away the ending, but you could wait til halfway through at least! And the Fusions...they get really boring as Shania, cool as Tomahwaks are, is weak as hell, and you NEED to fuse her to make it worth your while using her...Also, to get a fusion, you have to make a "spirit contract", which is basically the same as the way Yuri got his souls...by beating them to a pulp...Sadly, there are only a few of these available in the game (you get an extra one from a sidequest thats pretty hard).

If you've played the other 2 games, you're in for a major letdown, as it has a lack of cool guys with funky weapons...and a really crap voice for Roger instead of the old one...

If only they had stopped at Covenant...or brought Yuri back somehow...things would be alright *sigh* maybe someday people will learn...

Another great Shadow Hearts game
The Shadow Hearts series has been my favourite RPG series of this generation, much better then the incredible FF series even. The judgement ring was a superb innovation and is very flexible. The dark overtones, great collection of characters and strange sense of humour makes Shadow Hearts that little bit special.

From the New World is no different to its predecessors. Your selection of characters is good fun and the camp Brazilian Ninja will almost certainly give a few giggles. Fusions are still in the game, but this time the main character is not the one who has the Harmonixer power and also there are only a few Fusions in the game. For most of the title, you'll only have three Fusions and there's no cemetery.

The storyline is very similar in style to previous games, there's lots of darkness and tales of demons are everywhere. You'll find yourself all over the Americas, from Roswell to Rio de Janeiro, from Alcatraz to Hollywood.

The Judgement Ring has been given some improvement. There's a new thing called "Stock". It builds up by having turns and receiving damage and it allows you to do combos, double attacks, or a double combo. Learning how and when to use your stock is important. Also, height now makes a difference, a flying enemy will be immune to ground attacks and vice versa. It all adds to the strategy element.

The Stellar Chart system is okay, it's nothing special at all but it's not bad either.

Overall it's not as good as Covenent, the characters though fun, just are no replacement for Yuri and friends. The game feels much shorter then the previous two games and there's much less in general compared to Covenant. It's well worth playing, the new features are good and there's a fair bit of mini games and quests to the side to make the game a good purchase.

Yes, there is a crashing issue in this release, I've had it hang on me twice at exactly the same point. When one of the characters (Natan) attacks using a standard attack, it would sometimes freeze completely. However, it was pretty easy to avoid as all I did was change the type of attack and once that area had been passed everything seemed to work fine.