This is my Final Fantasy: An RPG with nothing to do with Square.
Story: 9/10.
Ah yes, the most important part of any RPG... Or should I say, any RPG that isn't Final Fantasy.
You can read all the normal details in the main Gamespot review, so I won't go over them much. Basically Shadow Hearts Covenant is an RPG set primarily in Europe during World War 1, so don't expect any typical Swords and Sorcery stuff. Like a lot of good RPGs popping up (see: Shin Megami Tensei), Shadow Hearts is based on 'what happens when bad, supernatural **** happens to the real world'. Or happened, in this case. The story begins focused on a woman named Karin a lieutenant for the German army, but quickly switches to the main character, Yuri. Within the first few minutes, you've 'borrowed' a holy artifact, had your squadron annihilated by a demon, and then not even 10 minutes into the story, one of your party members betrays you. That should be a pretty good indication of the chaos to come.
So the story is mainly a mix of the kind of Modern/Fantasy mixes you might see in Shin Megami Tensei or one of those brilliant Japanese cult flicks, the kind of religion bashing that you frequently find in JRPGs. Okay, so it's the combination of two not-as-frequently-used-as-some story ideas. While that's better than the whitewash Highschool Drama trash of Final Fantasy VIII, it's not exactly a 9/10. What amps it up? Character depth.
Yuri is quite possibly the least developed of all the characters, because all his development was done in Shadow Hearts 1, a frightfully bad game in comparison to this one. So while that's a shame, the rest of the crew is great. Gepetto manages to seamlessly alternate between the wise old man, and the perverted old man, he's completely out of place against Yuri's 'damn new generation' style, yet he still fits in. Karin is fairly shallow, but she gets her share of development wondering why the hell she could like Yuri and, more importantly, how she could stand up to Alice, Shadow Hearts 1's deceased heroine.
You see, as Shadow Hearts 2 tells you, Alice died in SH1. That's right - the ending they built off was the BAD ending. A nice twist, to be sure. Since SH2 is quite fresh from SH1, Yuri is still in the mourning process. Karin obviously likes him and as oblivious as Yuri is, it's not hard to see that he shifts towards her. But it's also just way too soon for him. Psychological problems aplenty, enough to give FFVIII a run for its money.
Mix into this a bodybuilding, superhero vampire who's both comic relief and a touch of cartoon-like 'moral of the story' input, a mostly normal dog who CAN NOT talk, but thinks to himself, giving the game the kind of observant, disconnected commentary that you'd otherwise need to ruin immersion to achieve. I won't go into any more because the distance between earning characters is quite lengthy. That and I haven't actually gathered them all yet, hahah. Either way, each of the characters is, just like real life, a combination of elements from various stereotypes that makes them quite hard to pin down. You can spend a while trying to analyze these people and predict their actions, just like in real life, and you'll often fall short, unlike other generic RPGs where every character fits right into place. They can be spontaneous, and you'll often get thrown off when you think you see what's coming and someone does something nicely out of character - yet not out enough to be weird.
So, it's no psychological, philosophical mind-rape like I would so enjoy, but it's definately a huge improvement over a lot of the other things we're offered.
Gameplay: 9/10.
And yet, as much as I emphasize story, SH2:C also has great gameplay. Shadow Hearts 2 would be just your standard RPG affair - if it wasn't for the Judgement Ring. You'll be seeing this ring a lot. The Judgement Ring is a fairly-circular object with a little timer that spins across it. There are various coloured sections, which you have to make the cursor land on. Often, you'll be presented with a few large sections, each with a smaller, differently coloured section after them. This dictates... Well, pretty much everything. Every time you attack, you'll see this ring. The blanks will break your combo. The blue spots will be a hit, and the small red spots mean a nice boost in damage. Around the +25% mark. In other words, you don't HAVE to be a master of the Judgement Ring to beat this game. In fact you could probably treat it much like a normal RPG, just hit the comfortable blue sections for every attack and if you're good with strategy, level up a bit and buy a lot of items, then you'll make it through. Though that would kind of defeat the point.
Want cheaper items? Judgement Ring. Entering the lottery? Judgement Ring. Even consumable items like potions or, even more amusing, Permanent Stat Up items? Judgement Ring. Sure, you can use the Permanent Stat items out of battle with no risk of losing and wasting it entirely, or you could use it in battle to turn that nice +2 into a very nice +3. Shadow Hearts 2 rewards skill, but not enough to not make it feel like an RPG.
Combos between characters also play a big role, although you'd better hope you're used to the PS2 control, as this uses QTE. At the end of your character's move, if someone else is in a combo with them, the screen flashes up a button and you have to press it. The timing isn't TERRIBLY strict, but I'm (and many others) not used to the whole X Square Circle Triangle layout. Combos are fun though. They don't add a terrible amount of extra damage... In fact considering my current failure rate on the QTE, it's really not worth the damage boost at all. But for one thing it's fun, and for another it's amusing. Plus, something special may happen if you manage to combo between your entire party... Possibly in the form of extremely cool magic.
Graphics: 10/10.
Which brings me to my next point. Graphics. Effectively, and it isn't hard to tell, this game is actually running off the Final Fantasy X engine. So it already looks pretty damn nice. It may just be the shadowing, as the game's atmosphere is quite dark and... Well, European, but it looks to me like it's been upgraded a bit from FFX. The cutscene graphics are nicer than FFX's normal graphics, although perhaps not quite as nice as FFX's occasional hardcorely-rendered scenes. But FFX only has a handful of those scenes in the ENTIRE GAME, so you can't really use that as comparison. So overall, the graphics are just a smidgum nicer than FFX's, which is great.
One thing I commend this game with about graphics is its consistancy. As I said, the out-of-cutscene graphics are bit beefed up from FFX. And since there's no ridiculously, over-the-top rendered scenes, unlike FF where you're often faced with good graphics and the occasional scene that you really admire, Shadow Hearts 2 has consistantly great graphics. No bad scenes, no ridiculous scenes. Every background is just as good as the next, with no major gaps where it just seems... Half-assed. It really adds to the immersion.
Sound: 7/10.
The only failing of the game. I can't say much here, because there really isn't much. The sound effects are nice and suit just fine, and the music is appropriate. Sadly I've never really found any pieces of music that actually jump out at me. This (at least not in the roughly half of the game I've played) isn't the kind of game that you rush out to buy the Soundtrack for, unlike others. Its ambient music is significantly more fitting than FF's, but it doesn't have the occasional, really well done track that FF has. On the upside, it also doesn't butcher those tracks. If I hear Suteki da Ne or One Winged Angel one more time, I'm going to scream. So it's not bad, but it's nothing special either.
Value: 10/10.
I'm a power gamer. I've been playing this game for about 40-45 hours. I am not past the first disk. That is value, enough said. There is simply so much to do in this game. Every character has specialties about them, often involving sidequests. Yuri's Fusion abilities involve you spending points you earn in battle to unlock various forms and then further powering them up, Karin's fencing specials revolve around the collection of the pages from a play whose name escapes me, Gepetto sees you collecting... Well, Cards... You'll see what I mean... To buy new marionette costumes, and Joachim generally just picks up anything big and heavy he finds and uses it to clobber people. There is more, lots more, and that's the idea. There is ALWAYS something to do in this game, always a sidequest around to take your mind just a little bit away from that main plot. No game that lasts 100 hours can have consistant storyline to keep you engaged, and sidequests are a handy tool in diverting your attention.
Prime example: The .hack series on PS2. Awesome story, no sidequests to fill in the blanks. (That and the game was FOUR BLOODY DISKS LONG.)
Overall: 9.1.
Shadow Hearts 2 is a fresh splash of water on the genre. It has a much, much better storyline than anything you'll find in a Square title, it has enough sidequests to rival the Tales Of series, the gameplay itself is plenty fun and the graphics are not lacking in pretty. The character depth really is the best part about this game, and if you're like me and you find yourself playing the one game for hours and hours at a time until it invades your daydreaming, then the characters are deep enough to have you occasionally wondering, "Hm, what would Joachim do?"
If Square's stories aren't enough for you, get this game. If you were confused by FF7's story because it was 'too confusing'... Well, you might want to try renting this one first. Or just playing through it 5-6 times. If you like RPGs lacking the 'Square' sticker, get this game.