Shadow Hearts for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

Shadow Hearts is a tremendous RPG, with lots of innovations to the genre, a dark storyline, and interesting characters. Although the completion time is fairly short compared to most RPG games, Shadow hearts was a delight to play. You play as a young man named Yuri, who can fusion with certain monsters, taking over their powers. He comes in contact with a girl named Eliot who was kidnapped on a train and then decides he must protect her while they unravel a few evil plans and pick up new party members; pretty standard RPG fair. The difference in this game is the battles. While in most RPGs you simply hit attack and the character attacks, in Shadow hearts, after you hit attack a circle comes up with highlighted spots and a clock like hand that you must stop in each higlighted section to actually attack the enemy. Using items and magic also works like this, making the battles better because you're a more active member in them instead of just hitting the x button while you look at your mail. I found this refreshing since you will have to fight several hundred battles. The bosses in the game are all unique in that they will all have a special strength and weakness, such as they may be impervious to magic but weak against physical attacks. There is a lot to do in the game and really seeing everything can draw the game to about thirty hours or so, but most people can finish in twenty-five hours or less. For a short Rpg though, it really doesn't feel very short because there is a lot of story in there, although a few character do suffer a bit in terms of getting to know them. The only problem with the game that I saw was a few of the dungeons were extremly difficult to navigate through, but with that being the only complaint, it must be said this is an extremely good, although lesser known RPG.

Graphically, the game isn't all that hot. They aren't bad, per se, but they're nothing special.
The story is awesome, and the main character isn't one of those "we must save everyone! SAVE THE CHILLLLDRUUUNNNN!" types, which is refreshing, to say the least.
The battle system is fun, however if you have awful reflexes you'll have a problem using the Judgment Ring. Speaking of the Judgment Ring, I 'spose I should explain it, eh? Well, it's a ring(duh), and it spins in a clockwise motion. What you need to do is hit the hit areas, orange-y sections on the ring, or if you're really good, the tiny red slits. For physical attacks, you need only hit one of those, although the more you hit, the more attacks a character will do(up to 3). Hitting the small red part will make the attacks stronger. For magic, you need to hit all the spaces. Uh, I think that's all. Byee.