Hands-On Preview: Oh Frank, thou maketh my heart flutter
It's easy to appreciate things when you almost didn't get it. Until XSEED Games took a chance on picking up Shadow Hearts: From the New World, chances are the game would never have released here, letting down that admittedly small, but loyal Shadow Hearts fanbase who have accepted many into their ranks after Shadow Hearts: Covenant wowed RPG fans. It can be a hard pill to swallow when a game doesn't come out here. But in just one week Shadow Hearts 3 will be here, and thus it's time for rejoicing. However, XSEED has done us one better; oh, what's this...a demo? A playable demo? Such a thing is the dream of boys and men alike, to play an anticipated game before it even comes out. Naturally, I played...and what I saw was pretty glorious. It's going to be one long week before Shadow Hearts returns to PlayStation 2 and hits the New World.
The demo offers two scenarios; one of which is basically the introduction to the game, and the other is a dungeon crawl. In the first scenario, you learn of Johnny Garland, a quirky, chipper 16 year old detective who perhaps is damaged by tragedy, but you'd never know it, as he tries to get his New York based agency going, aside from rescuing cats from trees and the like. Right away you see the links to the previous Shadow Hearts games, as brain-dead Lenny makes an appearance, albeit with a different voice actor that doesn't quite match the greatness that was Lenny and his stupidity. Anyway, a weird looking guy comes to ask Johnny to investigate the city for a missing man, which leads him to a theater in Times Square where he runs into some bad guys and...demons. Duh. Basically this scenario sets up the revamped battle system, which combines the familiar Judgment Ring with the new Stock system that lets you chain attacks like, say, Xenosaga Episode II. It does make for a slightly more complicated system, so time will tell whether or not this is a good change or the sort of thing that makes the normally entertaining battles more frustrating than in-depth.
The other scenario is a bit more direct in its dungeon crawling. At this point, Johnny has united with Harmonixer Shania, the Native American girl who strips when she does a Fusion. Because Yuri would have been creepy doing such a thing. Anyway, the party is looking for a professor in a dungeon, and isn't making much progress. There's plenty of battles, but no real tutorials around, since you were expected to play the first part prior to this. Instead the scenario puts you into game form, solving puzzles that are designed in traditional SH fashion, and encountering a handful of mid-boss hordes along the way. However this scenario also shows the usual Shadow Hearts weirdness – the trademark of the franchise. At one point, there's a weird guy in a suit, and he accidentally frees some monsters and ends up hiding. After Johnny and company take care of business, he reveals himself to be Frank, an American ninja who he claims learned the ninja arts from a hidden dojo in South America. The guy is...slightly weird. However he has an amazingly hilarious edge and that's what hopefully will make him a very memorable character. The potential is there.
In terms of localization, the FTNW demo was surprisingly complete; with English voice acting, menus, and the like, it's easy to get a grip on what's going on. The visuals themselves appear on par with Covenant, but won't blow you away, and the voice dubs are good though without Midway's class localization it will be interesting to see how it works out in the final copy. The music carries the same style as Covenant, but again we'll have to play the whole game to really come to an opinion. What's there so far is passable, anyway.
