Two articles in a day (or close to a day), that's pretty rare for me, folks. Yep, I'm out of college and coming out fists flying this summer Hopefully I can maintain this momentum, but I make no promises. Anyway, this is going to be an article on a great game a good friend sat me down to play last quarter: Shadow Hearts Covenant. It defies so many conventions that a general article did not cover it, so there will be two following articles covering two characters in particular and how they are arguably the best characters in a game I've seen in a long time.

A bit of background info should probably preface my ranting so here's a highly abbreviated version of the vague history for the Shadow Hearts series.






Covenant came out in on the PS2 in 2004 to a fairly widespread release and gained a cult following in Europe and the States. The response in Japan was considerably stronger, so much so that it warranted a special Director's Cut release that those of us unfortunate enough to not live in the land of the rising sun will never EVER see like half of the other awesome releases over there (Why, no, I'm not bitter about the whole not releasing Persona 2: Innocent Sin, why do you ask?). Covenant was a sequel to Shadow Hearts (cue every reader rolling their eyes and commenting on my intelligence level for feeling it necessary to state the title), which was released in 2001 on the PS2 and featured less refined versions of Covenant's control mechanics. Shadow Hearts in turn was the spiritual successor to a largely forgotten survivor horror RPG called Koudelka which came out on the PSX in 1999.



Shadow Hearts has some ties to Koudelka through character references and the fact that the titular character's, Koudelka, son is in your party. However, most of those ties are largely forgotten in Covenant. The things which makes the Shadow Hearts series interesting (Covenant in particular, since I'll be focusing on that one mostly) as opposed to most conventional JRPGs, and also the reasons I'm talking about it, boil down to two essential points that inform other aspects of the games, the time period and the characters.




The Shadow Hearts games are based in history, which is pretty rare for the genre in general. The first game takes place in 1913. Much of the first half of the game takes place in Japanese occupied China and the locale from there switches to Europe as events unfold. Covenant takes place during the 1914, the first year of World War I for those of you too lazy to look it up. This is sort of relevant as among your rather hodgepodge party are a Lieutenant of the Imperial German army and Princess Anastasia Romanov herself. You interact with such historical figures as Thomas Lawrence, Czar Nicholas II and Exotic Dancer/ Spy Margerete Gertrude Zelle (a returning face from the 1st Shadow Hearts) better known as Mata Hari. Hell, One of the major enemies for the first half of the Game is Grigori fucking Rasputin, I kid you not. How epic is that? The locales and character occupations aren't the only thing affected. Clothing, particularly for the NPCs (I won't comment a lot on your party because they're sort of...odd and their clothing is just one aspect of oddness) is accurate to the time and many of your less outlandish weapons and armor are grounded in reality.



The third one (Shadow Hearts: From the New World), which I like to pretend didn't happen because it sucks, takes place during 1929, misses those little details. You have a talking cat in your party who was Al Capone's bodyguard. Talking. Cat. Bodyguard. Think on that for a second.

That's not to say there isn't a fantasical element to the first two Shadow Hearts games, but it's balanced well by the historical context and never overplayed the way it is in the third one. But enough about the suck of Shadow Hearts: From the New World. Let's get back to the point of this article...or at least, what I think was the point when I started this.


Your party in Covenant is sort of an interesting mix of eccentricity. To give you an idea, your main character (Yuri Hyuga and the subject of an article all his own) is a half japanese, half Russian (sort of, but explaining that would be a HUGE SPOILER and I'm not that much of a jerk that I'd spoil probably the biggest twist in the game. Not going to stop me from spoiling other things, but still...) ruffian who can fuse with the monsters he's killed to turn into a monster himself, and he's just the start. Your party will grow to include the aforementioned German Lieutenant who is the only sane man (or rather, woman) of your party, a lecherous old puppeteer who fights using a Lolita-esque puppet designed after his late daughter, a wolf, a wresting vampire who makes weapons out of objects he picks up at random, a bimbo Florentine fortune teller, Princess Anastasia Romanov and a Japanese swordsman with the same ability as Yuri (and is honestly quite dull, but that's just my opinion).

All of the characters are interesting, varied and blatantly fly in the face of a lot of tropes that so plague RPGs. Hell, the fact alone that they are indeed CHARACTERS, not plot contrivances to keep things moving and to get you from point A to B makes them notable. Granted there is some fan service in regards to the female characters, but it's sort of mocked by the fact that the guys in the game (well, except Joachim the vampire, but he's...unique) treat it as such and this fact is played up for laughs. I mean, here's where you first meet the fortune teller character.



Just try and tell me that's not being meta about the whole fanservice thing.

NOTE: The characters bios are all a little bit spoilery. They need to be to make my point. If that bothers you, skip to my conclusions and I hope you enjoyed this very general discussion of Shadow Hearts and it's characters.



Lucia is the earlier referred to Florentine fortune teller. She's raised by Carla, a former member of Sapientes Gladio, an organization that seems to want Yuri dead/out of commission so she's a bit sheltered. Coupled with her occupation that's left her with a bit of an...odd perception of things. Well, rather than explain it, here's a couple of examples of her oddness:





Aside from...well being a bimbo airhead and one of several comic relief characters (she, Anastasia and Joachim are the three stooges of your party), she doesn't have much depth aside from a cat fight/feud with her former fellow student Veronica, who's now working for Sapientes Gladio. However, because she's comic relief she's sort of freed up to regularly lean on the fourth wall. Granted, all the characters do this quite frequently, but she does it in a fashion that reminiscent of Osaka from Azumanga Daioh; odd, quirky and, as one of the clips showed, sometimes a bit disturbing.



Anastasia is sort of in the same boat. As a royal, she's lived pretty removed from everyday life and you can see that in her interactions with other characters. Her impetuous and spitfire attitude only makes her come off worse initially. However, she's much more politically aware than one would expect and this cutscene in particular illustrates how very aware she is of the situation in Imperialist Russia and it's causes.



It's interesting to see a character who is very much a young child, but at the same time forced by birth and situation to mature very quickly and Anastasia balances the two quite well.



Joachim Valentine, a wrestling vampire, Anastasia's personal pack muleand the gayest straight man I've ever seen manages to come so close to so many tropes that he becomes a mockery of them. He is the ridiculously over done hero complete with wacky secret identity.



Yes, his form is basically "Grand Butterfly" and yes, he uses that voice every single time he opens his mouth. He's ridiculous, over the top, and completely unaware of how gay he is. His master, the Great Gama (also a historical figure, don't know if he's as gay as he is in the game. A bit scared to find out one way or the other to be honest.) is teribly, terribly gay, and Joachim is so dense he doesn't get it. He and Lucia seem to be competing for who is the densest character in the entire game. However, in being that dense and playing so many superhero tropes so completely straight (see the below clips for proof) he ends up making them one big joke and it's awesome.

Kurando, the Japanese swordsman, is...well he's sort of dull. You get him in the last leg of the game, so he really doesn't get fleshed out so much as the other characters react to him in what little screen time he gets, so it's forgivable. Gepetto the puppeteer is pretty much how I summed him up earlier. He's a lecher and a drinker who fights with a lolita-esque puppet modeled after his late daughter. There is literally nothing I can add to that.




That just leaves Blanca Blanca is the wolf who joins your party with Yuri and Gepetto shortly after some major plot shit goes down and Yuri gets a rather rough introduction to Sapientes Gladio. He and Karin (the German Lieutenant) are the two "sane men" in a group full of eccentrics. However, unlike Karin, Blanca can't exactly talk so it's not as though he can comment much on the craziness around him. That particular problem gets him started in his wolf bout sidequest actually.

Aside from being a sane wolf with a party of oddballs, Blanca also ends up pretty much saving everyone's asses on a few occasions and even gets a solo side bit when you first get to Japan.

There are a number of secondary characters of Covenant who are notable as well. Roger Bacon and Saki Inugami are definitely worth the mention at the very least.



Bacon is, in this game's canon, a 700 year old alchemist/scientist/eternal love child (his words not mine) who created the party's means of travel to Russia and Japan and serves as exposition for much of the Rasputin plot. He also is a central player in what is arguably the most heartwrenching scene I've ever seen in a game, but that will be addressed in one of the other articles.



He also seems to be the party's unintentional punching bag, since they...seem to forget him a few times.


Saki Inugami is Kurando's mother, Yuri's aunt, and frigging nuts. She's a powerful mystic in her own right and actually helps you out in a big way when you first meet her. What makes her nuts is the fact that she:

- Tries to hook up her son with Anastasia, who is CONSIDERABLY younger than him. Granted she is very, very into him, but that's beside the point.

- Hints at things in a fashion that makes you want to look for a quick exit.

- Drops a huge bomb on Karin (though you're not privy to it at first) in a really roundabout, pretty causal, way.

She cryptic without being frustrating about it and an entertaining character in her own right.

The last bit of this article will be devoted to four of the game's antagonists. Rasputin is not included in this list because he's actually pretty generic and sort of annoying because of it.



Nicolas (Nicolai) Conrad is Rasputin's main flunky who later steps out and becomes the major villain (sort of) of the Japan arc. He's a Cardinal and a member of Sapientes Gladio in a hope that he will be able to overthrow Rasputin after he takes power in Russia and take control himself. He makes a soul pact with the demon Astaroth to this end, even though by the time you take him out he's been posessed by Astaroth.

Nicolai is interesting because he is still flawed. He has a serious inferiority complex when it comes to Yuri and obsesses over Karin because of it. However, because of this complex he is aware of what a threat Yuri poses and even points that out to Rasputin, who doesn't really take it into consideration. Manipulative and driven, Nicolai is a believable threat.



Lenny is one Nicolai's henchmen whose a decent guy but a terrible bad guy. He's easily tricked into giving up information, enforces politeness and teaches arithmetic to a petty thief to help him get his act together, He's portrayed at a guy who is trying to do his job well, but just doesn't fit the role and it works brilliantly.





Veronica, as mentioned before, was one of Carla's students along with Lucia and the two of them are sort of catty about that. She's the typical bondage queen character who pops up in JRPGs every now and again, but she's so undermined by the party and those around her, her act never quite works, which makes her much more comical than threatening. Still, she doesn't fall for the tricks Lenny does so that is something.



Kato is the game end boss and one of the toughest kinds of villains to make: the sympathetic villain. He's a returning character from the first Shadow Hearts and he lost his lover in the course of that game. He attempts and sort of succeeds at reviving her in this game only to lose her again. His struggles and failure to posess this one small bit of happiness in his life is what makes him believably sympathetic and even as he plans to go back into the past and remake the world, he still manages to come off as a likable guy...you know, if he wasn't ending the world as we know it. It's a less cut and dry confrontation than the Nicolai or Rasputin ones are and a perfectly fitting end boss for the game.

That's a brief summary of the unconventional characters of Shadow Hearts Covenant. Next time is a closer focus on one of the last two characters: Karin Koenig.

Keep on Gaming,

Jenna Darknight


(Just because I'm having far too much fun with the embed feature, I included this vid of the party undermining one of the minor Japan arc bosses, enjoy.)



(all images/videos property of Midway and Aruze who produced this awesome series of games and are nice people and...don't want to sue me.)

Okay, Tim Burton, we need to talk.

Well, I need to talk and though I doubt you'll ever find this blog entry, you need to listen. I finally had a chance to see Alice in Wonderland, and while it wasn't a total mess of a film, it illustrated a lot of problems I have with you and was bad enough that I'm using it as a basis to write this. Now I know you're making fantastic money off all the goth kids buying Nightmare Before Christmas stuff at Hot Topic, but really, Tim Burton, that's not a legitimate excuse for these half assed efforts you've been turning out in recent years. Granted, many of them are enjoyable, but they lack the creativity of your earlier films. So, let's get this little discussion rolling and maybe, we'll get some work done here.

5.) Stop using CGI for everything.

Now, I understand that CGI is a great tool for film makers. It lets them accomplish things they couldn't have before and it's great that it helps you do your job (entertaining your audience) better, but it's no reason to phone it in. Your movies lack any sense of danger because you're not bothering to make good CGI. Your Bandersnatch and Jabberwocky made Power Rangers villains look threatening. Think about that. You just made Rita Repulsa threatening. That's bad and you should feel bad.

4.) Stop being creepy for creepy's sake.

Look, Tim, you do great creepy. We love your creepy. Mars Attacks!, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice....all really great, but you've pretty much fallen into replicating two basic atmospheres for your movies: "whimsically creepy" and "dark and creepy". While you're really good at them, it wouldn't hurt to mix things up. I mean, couldn't you do another Big Fish type movie? something that's charming and whimsical without pandering to the goth kiddie crowd? Or what about another arty sort of film like Ed Wood? I know that one flopped at the box office, but you still put yourself out there and tried, so why not do the same now?

3.) Please put plot ahead of visuals.

This is sort of a common problem in Hollywood now, so don't feel too bad that you fall into this category. However, you've always been able to balance style and substance pretty well so maybe this is just a sign to re-evaluate things. Alice in Wonderland was ALL about the visuals. There was little in the way of plot and what was there didn't make sense. Same with your re-envisioning of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it was gorgeous but ultimately forgettable. That's not the reaction you want from a filmgoer, so you might want to think on this.

2.) Stop doing remakes

Seriously. Just stop. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was a classic, as was the original Planet of the Apes and Disney's 1951 version of Alice and Wonderland, even if the latter did sort of scar me as a kid. Your best stuff in my book: Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas, Mars Attacks! and Big Fish were all original pieces. Because of that, they stand out all the more. Don't fall into the remake pit, Tim, be better than that.

1.) STOP PUTTING JOHNNY DEPP (AND HELENA BONHAM CARTER) IN ALL YOUR MOVIES!

The Helena Bonham Carter thing is a new one, since she's only been a regular in your films since '01, but seriously Tim, Hollywood's a big place. There have to be other people you can hire. And that's not to say they're not good actors, they are, but Jesus Christ on toast having them in every film is not the greatest idea. Depp was not the best choice for the Mad Hatter and he was not the best choice for Willy Wonka. You could have done better, so why didn't you broaden your scope? Does Depp have some blackmail material on you? Did you lose a bet? What? Whatever it is, get rid of it and fast.

And there you have it Tim Burton, my suggestions for your improvement. Take them or leave them (seriously, take them, at this rate I will stop going to your movies seriously), but I've gotten them off my chest and that's what matters to me.

Intends to do more than rant eventually,

Jenna Darknight