Shadow Hearts: From the New World

Realized with completely new characters, Shadow Hearts: From the New World offered an even more ridiculous brand of humor that carried very little of the series' original spirit. A major contender for the most bizarre JRPG cast of all time. The previous game's mechanical bloat was simply redistributed across the battle party, while a few tweaks at least made its linear combo system more viable in regular battles, although the dungeons were disappointingly simple this time. Besides the eclectic character roster, much of this game feels rather pedestrian, and too often seems like a weird collection of leftovers from Shadow Hearts II.

I can't deny that this game leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The plot is an interesting tie-in to some aspects of the SH universe, and Nautilus' bizarro take on 1920s American culture is just as amusing as the more Euro/Sinocentric alternate history of the first 2 games. The characters, though, feel more than a bit too contrived. It's like they got the sales reports for SH2, were overjoyed that it sold more than 100 copies outside of Japan, and proceeded to confer about how they could replicate its breakout success. Some of the characters are beyond just callbacks to SH2 - they're hollow copies. I'm looking at you, Frank, you are trying waaaaay too hard to capture the magic of Joachim. Fuck, they even tried to put the Man Festival back in the game. Talk about shameless recycling!

Aside from this, and the somewhat disappointing soundtrack (still good, mind, just not on the high level of the first game) it is mechanically probably the best and deepest game in the series. Combos are easier to execute thanks to the Burst Gauge mechanic, and the magic equip system adds a lot more moveset customization than was offered by the Crest Map in SH2. The game is overall more challenging than Covenant, so the extra flexibility is really helpful.

For the most part, it's better to skip the cutscenes, but if you liked SH2 there's no reason to skip this. It's more of the same, but does a damn good job of being more of the same.