There wasn't a lot of hype for Shadow Hearts upon its release. Unfortunately Final Fantasy X was released soon after and Shadow Hearts was a bit of a sleeper. Still, it's currently one of the better RPGs on the PS2 and shouldn't be overlooked.

Unlike most RPGs I've played Shadow Hearts is set in the real world...earth in the early 1900s. I thought this was an interesting concept and enjoyed playing a little more realistic of an RPG for a change. Don't expect it to be completely realistic though, because it's a fantasized version of our world featuring sorcery and monsters. The blend of real world history and fantasy was quite interesting. You follow the adventures of Yuri (who looks a lot like Squall from Final Fantasy VIII), a young man gifted (or cursed?) with the ability to transform into various creatures and gain their abilities. Yuri also hears disturbing voices in his head and when the voice begins to order him around he decides to follow it's orders in an attempt to shut it up. A young woman, named Alice, is being pursued by a powerful warlock named Roger Bacon, but Yuri follows the voices and rescues Alice at the last minute. As the game progresses Yuri grows a bit attached to Alice and dedicates his life to protecting her. Little did he know that he'd end up having to protect all of humanity. The story isn't particularly bad or good really. When you get into the game the story starts to dissolve into the same old "crazy guy who wants to summon god to clense the world" sort of thing, but there's plenty of side stuff and it keeps the game moving along nicely. Plenty of horror elements were added to the game, and the whole thing just has an eerie feel to it. The characters are a very interesting variety of people and everyone from a Chineese Wizard to a Vampire are lined up to help Yuri save the world. A few of the characters lack any real development, but overall development is done well. The character interactions is also amusing and the great cast keeps things from getting dull.

Graphically Shadow Hearts isn't too impressive. Especially when you look at Final Fantasy X, which was released shortly after. The graphics are a bit dated and they're better compared to Final Fantasy VIII than Final Fantasy X. The character movements are among my biggest complaints since they're pretty horrible. If I ever saw someone who ran like the main character, Yuri, I would probably call for an ambulance. Fortunately things look much better in combat, and the movements even improve significantly. The attacks are well done and some of them are just outright awsome. The Vampire, Keith, has some of the more memorable moves, and even his basic attack is pretty cool to look at. The monsters are really oddly designed in Shadow Hearts, and sometimes I wonder what the designers were smoking when they made this game. The monsters range from dogs with human hands in place of their mouths, to weird looking naked ladies that balance upside down on one hand. The cinemas are few and far between, but they're pretty nice. Graphically they aren't up to date with some of the best PS2 games, but they feature some neat events. The backgrounds are nice, but the dungeons are too small and you'll spend a lot of time running back and forth in about a three foot radius.

The music in Shadow Hearts is in a category all it's own. This game is a bit darker of a game than most RPGs I've played, and the music in some of the dungeons is almost as freaky as something from Silent Hill. Fortunately the rest of the game isn't that freaky so you probably aren't going to get scared away. Even at points when the game is going slow you can at least expect to hear some cool music. The game also has a decent amount of voice acting, but it isn't very good. Like most other aspects of the game, the voice acting isn't horrible, it's just nothing really impressive. Now, the dialog... that's just plain bad.

For the most part the game plays like any other other RPGs. You level up to increase your stats and to learn spells, and you've got a variety of abilities for each character along with lots of items and different equiptment. But to spice things up a bit Shadow Hearts added the Judgment Ring. The Judgment Ring comes into play pretty much whenever you're trying to complete a task. It's basically a circle with highlighted spots on it and when the spinning hand hits the highlighted areas you want to hit X and you will complete the task. The Judgment Ring is used to attack, cast spells, use items and even bargain with the shop owners on prices (gotta love that!!!). In combat hitting certain sections of the highlighted area will allow your character to do critical hits, which adds a new level of strategy to an otherwise basic game. Should you go for the small area on the Judgment Ring which will allow you a critical hit and risk missing the attack altogether, or should you just play it safe and attack as normal? The Judgment Ring is interesting and it sets Shadow Hearts apart from similar style RPGs, but it gets annoying after 30 hours of watching it spin around. Each character also has Sanity points, which lower every turn and cause the character to freak out and become uncontrollable when they're gone. This adds another level of strategy, but this is just an outright annoying one. With HP, MP, SP and the Judgment Ring all to pay attention too, the game could be pretty frustrating. Especially considering the fact that there were an awful lot of status effects.

The game will likely take you around 25 hours to complete, but there's plenty of stuff to keep you busy. There's a lot of fusion monsters that Yuri can pick up, optional boss fights and hidden equiptment for your party. There's also an additional ending if you feel like getting some replay out of it.

Shadow Hearts is nothing extraordinary, but there aren't too many good RPGs available right now on the PS2, which makes this a title that fans of the genre shouldn't miss. If you want to play a great RPG then just play Final Fantasy X, but as soon as you're done with that play Shadow Hearts.