Whether or not you enjoy Shadow Hearts: From the New World will depend on your tolerance of the bizarre. It’s all done with a distinctly Asian cheeky style of humor, but there’s no escaping the fact the story is just plain weird. You play as Johnny Garland, a Depression-era teenager living in New York City. After being orphaned, Johnny eschewed taking the reigns of his father’s corporate empire to instead open his own detective agency. Here’s where the suspension of disbelief begins. You’ve got a rich kid who’d rather start his own business from scratch in the middle of the worst economy the country’s ever seen who somehow avoids having the &^$#& beat out of him by the local kids for running around with long hair, a ponytail cowlick, and a cute letterman’s jacket with a cartoon ghost on the back. Things really depart from reality when his first real case involves tracking down a missing person who when found is promptly grabbed and killed by a demon. From there you’ll get swept up in a mystery that will have you traveling the country with magical Indians, ninjas, and vampires and meeting characters such as magical cats that own their own movie production company. You either have to roll with the whole thing or roll your eyes and look for your RPG entertainment elsewhere.

Aside from its bizarre storyline, Shadow Hearts departs from your typical RPG in several ways when it comes to combat. Like all RPGS of this nature, there’s plenty of combat to be had. Thankfully, the combat in Shadow Hearts is more engaging than your typical cycle of picking an attack from a menu and then watching the animated result. Shadow Hearts makes use of “Judgment Rings” that add some reflex action to the battles. After selecting your attack, a clock-like ring appears and a hand starts sweeping around it. Your job is to hit the attack button when the hand enters the highlighted zone. Miss the zone and your attack will falter. Furthermore, the farther to the edge you hit the button, the better your attack. Some chained attacks and combos will require you to hit multiple zones on the ring, with only the successful hits unleashing the corresponding attacks. It’s a simple and intuitive system, but it makes the combat far more engaging than in most RPGs.

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