#SuperOldGameSaturday - Shadow Hearts (PlayStation 2) - Part 1
0Originally Recorded/Aired on October 29th, 2022
To celebrate Halloween weekend here on #SuperOldGameSaturday, we're starting the next RPG in our line-up thanks to TheCrochetNerd64, who was eagerly awaiting sharing this game with all of you and also, with me, since this is the first game we've covered on this show that I've never played. It's 2001's Shadow Hearts for the PlayStation 2, which was developed by Sacnoth, the company of ex-Square Soft musician Hiroki Kukita that first specialized in strategy games on the Neo Geo Pocket Color before going into horror with 2000's Koudelka and then, this spiritual successor to that from writer/director Matsuzo Machina (whose background ALSO included work at Square Soft). This is a blend of horror, history, mysticism and much more that follows Yuri Hyuga, a 24 year old man with a dark past and a penchant for lechery who finds himself teamed up with Alice Elliot, a British woman who was being sought by Roger Bacon circa 1913 for unknown purposes. That's honestly all I know about this game, which TheCrochetNerd64 kept hidden from me so I could share my natural first-time reactions to it all for this show, so I'm basically being a viewer on my own show for this one, along with the chat that, for this first part, had a cross-section of people who played it and those, like me, who didn't, as we set up this dark, deep and Mature-rated tale full of demons, blood, deadly creatures and other dangers, explored the first four areas and got a taste of the unique gameplay mechanics of this one, particularly the timing-based judgement ring, which dictates attacks, magic and even in-game puzzles. Also, we're bringing this one to you in glorious picture quality via the RetroTink 5X and in 16:9 widescreen that, despite the game not having native support for, looks too natural for us to not run it in that aspect ratio. Most of the discussion was about this game, our history of the series, its other entries, our/my reactions to what we saw so far and the kind of unexpected randomness from us and chat that is a hallmark of this show. This is a very personal game to TheCrochetNerd64, so I thank him for his willingness to share this underrated game/series and the love he has for it with us on this show (especially since there's currently no modern re-release of this now $150 game or any of the games tied to it), since after all, sharing the games that mean the most (or least) to us and our memories of them are what this program is all about. We're already looking forward to the next part of this, which is actually this Saturday, November 5th, but we had a great time with Part 1 of Shadow Hearts and hope you do, too (and if you like what you see here, stop by https://www.twitch.tv/captainditrag each Saturday at 7 PM EST to see these streams live and join/help drive the conversations on what we play each week)!
Also, here's the Link List, with links to everything we & chat referenced on this show:
A link explaining the real-life concept of point cards from this game in Japan, courtesy of BestLivingJapan.com:
https://bestlivingjapan.com/guide-to-point-cards-in-japan-how-to-earn-and-redeem-points/
A link to the 2005 Geico Speed Racer commercial, which had Veronica Taylor, voice of Alice Elliot and Margarete Zelle in this game, courtesy of
kaseyi on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7gybVe2yE
A link backing up the concept of being able to get the best rank in this game by winning 10,000 battles, courtesy of GameFAQs.com:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/915253-shadow-hearts-covenant/63843800
Links to the voice cast lists for this game, courtesy of IMDB.com and BehindTheVoiceActors.com, since they conflict with some of the research I did for this show:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316586/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm
https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/Shadow-Hearts/
A link to the parts of our play of the other RPG we're currently playing on this show, thanks to Emetics, Parasite Eve:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrOxkvwdJ2y-tP3UHlIMCGjXOTN4W-kgM
A link to our play of Pokemon Snap, where Todd is voiced by James Carter Cathcart, who voices Roger Bacon in Shadow Hearts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9_FFl_fSFI
A link to our first part of Shadow the Hedgehog, where Vector is voiced by James Carter Cathcart, who voices Roger Bacon in Shadow Hearts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF1NtUO1Tpo
A link to the parts of our play of Kingdom Hearts, including the Finale where I fought Sephiroth blind (which I referenced on this show):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrOxkvwdJ2y_5E_eiTYtYNAWlSOtBJDYu
Other Videos By #SuperOldGameSaturday
Other Statistics
Shadow Hearts Statistics For #SuperOldGameSaturday
At present, #SuperOldGameSaturday has 218 views spread across 8 videos for Shadow Hearts, with the game making up over 1 day of published video on his channel. This makes up 5.14% of Shadow Hearts content that #SuperOldGameSaturday has uploaded to YouTube.