Radez bought this the other day and I've been watching him play it. The game looks nice, but what is up with the bright, bright neon colors all over the interface? I mean, it doesn't look bad, but it's kind of weird in a game that's ostensibly set in the early 20th century (and yes, I know these games are not exactly big on historical accuracy). Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's strange. :(

At any rate, I still have to play through Covenant before I sit down with this one.

Humor doesn't have to be light. In fact quite a bit of it is pretty dark. I just said they could have a game with humor in it, and still stick to a darker storyline.

I'm enjoying it so far as well. I just finished the Alcatraz part and now I'm off to Roswell. I can only imagine what I'll find there...

Most of the humour in this one and the previous has been more along the lines of humour derived from zany characters or characters reacting to serious situations in odd ways. I think back to SH:C and the scene in which you're attacked by a giant pink cat. Yuri's reaction is simply "Whoa, that is one giant pussy." They're mixing the darker themes with more zany humour than dark humour, which worked out well enough in Covenant, and is working well enough in From the New World. I guess that they wanted to use darker themes without turning all of the characters emo.

Also I hate the new VA for our favorite immortal child of the stars.

Yeah his VA is horrible. Though not as bad as Elliot Ness's was. *shudders*

Also is it just me or are Hilda's forms kind of annoying to manage? It seems like there's too big of a calorie difference between curvy and slim.

Wow, I just played the demo for this that came with OPM (what's with the damn time limit argh).

I've never played a single SH game before this and I didn't really know what the games were about. Honestly, when I popped it in, I was like "wtf is this...an RPG?" I didn't know whether to take it seriously or not since the only RPGs I've played were like serious fantasy games. So I assumed it was gonna be that. The characters in the opening movie seemed to fit in those kinds of games, but the main blonde kid was so plain and modern looking (aside from that one part of his hair...) that it threw me off. But after the first cutscene where Johnny gets his case, I realized that this was something different, it's set in New York for christ's sake.

So I played up to meeting those gay guys (when that Gerard dude just stood up I already wanted to laugh at him) before the demo cut off. I wasn't sure how I felt. I knew that I liked how it seemed like it was basically parodying other RPGs. So I played it again to see if there was any fighting, going through as fast as I could. Got to Chelsea where I met the little girl, demo cuts off. I get a little farther each time before some retarded time limit stops me from enjoying any more.

I gotta say, I'm happy as hell that I played that demo. Game looks really awesome and I'm sad that I haven't paid attention to it sooner. I'm definitely gonna try to pick it up if I see it.

But I was wondering about the SH games that came before this. I'd love to get them and play them first (that's just how I am). But story/character-wise, do I have to play them to understand what's going on? I can remember seeing a lot of copies at the game stores in the past, so hopefully they're still there.

No, SH3 is actually a very good one to pick up if you haven't played the first two. SH3 is sort of like a side story to the Shadow Hearts series and by not playing the first two, you might just miss out on the unimportant cameos that are in SH3 (Lenny for example at the start of SH3 was a 'bad guy' in SH2.)

The only real plot connection I've seen with SH3 and SH1&2 is the mention of the massive release of Malice which took place in the SH2 story. From what I understand, that is about as deep as the connection goes between the three games.

But if you play though SH3 and enjoy it then I'd highly recommend playing SH1 before attempting a SH2 playthrough.

Why lie, you need to start out with the first game in the series, Koudelka. Old PS1 game which featured excellent voice acting, years before voice acting became commonplace in RPGs.

Hmm, looks like this stuff is rare :tpg:

But I'm gonna try to get them all, regardless. Including Koudelka (wow, haven't played a multiple disc game in a LONG time). But in the meantime I'll try to pick up this new game and take it from there.

Thanks :D

Good luck finding a copy of Koudelka, I know I'm still hunting for a good one. I'm getting SH3 as we speak, and I'm really excited about it. Now I just need to finish Suikoden Tactics and I'm all set for SH3.

I've played this game for about 6-7 hours, I'm up to Roswell right now.

These are my first impressions. Do consider that even if I'll try to be objective, I do really love the series, so I definitely have some affinities with a lot of SH's aspects already.


First of all, let's talk about that intro and the beginning events. Everything was done in a stylish way as in the last 3 games (I'm including Koudelka here). Cinematics are nice, story seems very interesting, especially after seeing what seems to be the main villains of the story:



They bring a much needed dark side to an otherwise very light and humoristic story.

Speaking of which, this game really succeeds at bringing a nice touch of humor. Frank is consistently HILARIOUS, especially when he goes taking a random object and put it on his katana hilt to make a weapon. The concept is of course taken from Joachim Valentine from SHII, but it seems to be even funnier this time around... The ring spirit is also back! As funny as in the last game, too. The rest of the side-cast is also great in my opinion (mao, ricardo). However, so far, I'm a bit disappointed in the 2 main characters: Shania and Johnny. They definitely don't live up to Yuri and Alice, I feel basically nothing for them since the beginning.

Gameplay is pretty much the exact same thing as last game. I loved the gameplay the first time around, I still love it now. Of course, some might be disappointed in Nautilus rehashing its system from the last game, but I don't mind. There are still some additions, such as the stellar charts, a stock system, and a much improved combo system. Side quests are still a-plenty: lottery, personal side quests for every character (snap photos for Johnny, hollywood thingy for Mao, UMO for Natan, etc.)

I must say, however, that I think the OST is not as good as in the last two games. I still think the music is awesome this time around too, so if you're not willing to use SH I or II as a comparaison point, you'll probably enjoy the music. But except for the awesome Dead Fingers Talk (regular battle theme), which easily lives up with last game's Vicious 1915, nothing really hits me as songs like Alice, Castle of Silence, The Fate, ~ICARO AGAIN~. And yes, I've already listened to the whole OST.

Overall, this seems to be yet another excellent addition that's sure to please all the series' fans. And as others already said in this thread, the game really isn't linked with the last ones, except for

so newcomers can enjoy the game!

There's also the fact that the entire reason SH3 is happening is due to Nicolai's actions in SHC.

For a second there, I thought you meant...



That guy is all kinds of awesome.

I'm just enjoying all the little connections between SH:C and SH:FtNW. Your butler, for instance. Or the photograph collector. All the nice little tie ins, though I barely remember the ending of SH:C, and I got the good ending so a lot of this is different anyway. Though I, like everyone else, miss the darker tones to the first game. They keep getting fluffier every time out.

Yeah. Literally (remember the fluffy cat boss in SH:C?).

By the way, the bad ending for SH:C:

Oh, right right right. And the good ending is his perfect world. I remember.

I am not really liking the pacing of this game, as it seems to be spend an hour in a big ass dungeon, fight a boss, talk for 2 minutes about where to go next, spend an hour in a dungeon.

I did really enjoy one specific moment at the end of a dungeon when:

I want to play this, but I need to finish my game on Covenant first, for continuation purposes, but from what I've heard it seems to be a fairly good game, now it just need to wait for me to finish it's predecessor.

I was thinking about purchasing this game.

However, people keep complaining about the dungeon designs. I might wait until the price drops to check it out. Has anybody beaten this game yet? If so, how long did it take for you to finish? I heard the average game length is around 60 hours.

60 hours, lmao. I don't think so. If you do all the sidequests I'd put it around 40. 45 hours tops, and that's being generous. I did it all in less than 40.

Frankly I was hugely disappointed in the game. I might have mentioned it earlier in this thread, but characters and story were just boring as hell. The only remotely interesting thing that happens is the deal with Johnny's past. Which IMO was revealed way too late in the game for it to have a big enough impact. It's still a good game, just don't expect one as good as Covenant or the first SH.

I just want to know - is Yasunori Mitsuda the composer in this game? As he was in the last two. I love the tracks he's composed for this series.

I think Mitsuda did some of the game's tracks, but the main composer is Hirota, responsible for the excellent battle music.

I've played the game for a good hour, just entered the sewers beneath the university, and I've been impressed this far. Johnny's voice takes some time getting used to, but I <3 Shania's voice. It also looks like the battle system is more balanced, since you can only combo with 2 persons, where you could kill a boss in Covenant with only one combo, not even having him do any damage to you. I'm still getting used to the stock system, but I'll see how that'll work out.

Actually you can still do four person combos, and its actually much easier to do them this time around.

I'm only to the end of the University right now, but it seems to be a pretty good game so far. I really liked the fact that when I massive combo'd the first real boss for like 27 hits, it gave me a freaking weapon as a bonus item.

I'm up to Vilcabamba. It's good so far, but not as good as Covenant. I don't particularly enjoy Frank. He's a Joachim rip off. All of his humor just isn't original.

Yasunori Mitsuda isn't doing the soundtrack this time around. He and Kenji Ito have been replaced by Tomoko Imoto, who, I think, is a great replacement.

I've played the first shadow hearts, And i Shadow hearts covenant was boring, but i might finish it since i just got my grubby hands on a copy of SH:FTNW, i might as well finish Covenant ya?