It's 1913 and in Shadow Hearts,
you play Urm Hyuga, the son of a Japanese soldier who died in battle fifteen
years ago. You start the game on a train destined for China, where a young
girl, Alice Eliot - the daughter of an expert exorcist - needs rescuing from
powerful magician Roger Bacon who's taken her away because he believes she'll
help him unlock ancient secrets which can destroy the Earth.
It's another turn-based RPG (role-playing game) and your character can morph
himself into twenty different creatures in a bid to achieve his objectives. You know the
drill - you walk into a room, baddies appear and have to be dealt with one
at a time. The difference here is that you use your Judgement Ring,
which swings around a bit like taking a swipe in a computer golf game, in order
to attack your opponents, but it's just as hit-and-miss as the implementation
of any other RPG I've played.
The graphics are reasonable for this isometric 3D adventure (the viewpoint
changes during battles only), but there's a complete lack of anti-aliasing so,
for example, as you make your way through train compartments, the diagonal
lines that make up the seats are jagged, jagged, jagged.
The audio is pleasing enough and the soundtrack creates the right kind of
atmosphere. Also - and I'm not taking a pop at the game when I say this, but
the soundtrack is perfect music to fall asleep to. I had a couple of hours
snooze to the strains of a repetitive piece of the ambient audio while I left
the game on pause, because it sounds incredibly reminiscent of a track from
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld album, a piece of work
I used to do exactly the same to.
To sum up though, if RPGs are your bag then you'll get into it without too much
difficulty.
I had a brief flirtation with the genre a few years back with
Final Fantasy VII and
its sequel, but any RPG since has just relied too much on the same format, but
with a slight change in graphics and another storyline about rescuing others
set in improbable locations.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
The graphics are reasonable for this isometric 3D adventure (the viewpoint
changes during battles only), but there's a complete lack of anti-aliasing so,
for example, as you make your way through train compartments, the diagonal
lines that make up the seats are jagged, jagged, jagged.
To sum up though, if RPGs are your bag then you'll get into it without too much
difficulty.
