Shadow Hearts: Difference between revisions

** Johnny falls into some degree.

* [[All Myths Are True]]

** You actually need to look in the library and look at certain key items to do some side quests. Quizzes, anyone?

* [[Always Check Behind the Chair]]: used surprisingly often. On the plus side, you'll get a little ? over your head when there's an item hidden nearby. Plot-important items have a ! instead.

* [[The Atoner]]: Lenny in ''From The New World'', perhaps best shown by his solemn look as Shania describes how {{spoiler|Nicholai unleashed the world's Malice from Apoina Tower}} in ''Covenant''.

* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: Many of those flashy moves that hit lots of times - as well as the Melt Crest. Wind Magic can hit both mid and high levels with many hits, making them useful for getting bonuses.

** The first game subverts this, only giving you Yuri's fusions and the library. Until you have enough SP, you can't use higher-level fusions.

** Also, Lucia and Ricardo both have a skill that give all party members save for them the Third Key effect AKA allowing three spins of the Attack Judgement Ring. But you only get the skill late in the game, after completing their side quests. You can do it first, but the MP cost is HIGH. How much? 750 MP. According to Ricardo's leveling chart, he needs to be Level 65 to pull this off. By that point, the [[Bonus Boss]] should be a cakewalk! Oh, wait, both him and the [[Final Boss]] have a skill where they remove all buffs and get a extra turn! (There is a item that reduces MP cost, but it's still too high to actually use in battle.)

* [[Back From the Dead]]: In all four games, someone attempts to resurrect someone else using the Emigre Manuscript. How deeply this affects the plot varies from game to game.

* [[Cain and Abel]] / [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: {{spoiler|Nicholas and Anastasia}} in ''Covenant'', {{spoiler|Johnny and Lady/Grace}} in ''From The New World''.

* [[Call a Rabbit A Smeerp]]: A [[Painting the Fourth Wall|fourth-wall-breeching]] example in ''Koudelka''. The player can rename ''any'' item in the game, be it equipment or consumables. Want the cast to be healed by vials of crystal meth, or to attack enemies with the [[Chuck Norris]] Gun? Have at it.

** A fat man in the third game mentions how rich he is...in 1929. Ouch.

* [[Came Back Wrong]]: A recurring theme in all four games: anyone brought [[Back From the Dead]] by the forbidden Emigre Manuscript returns as a hideous [[Cosmic Horror]]. {{spoiler|Only one person (Johnny) has ever returned with both mind and body intact, and it took a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] on the part of his sister to do it -- even then, he still eventually developed a [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] as a result of his resurrection}}.

* [[Casual Danger Dialog]]: The party have a habit of deadpanning villainous monologues: the more hammy or ridiculous, the better.

* [[Chain of Deals]]: ''Covenant'' has a long trading quest inspired by an old Japanese legend about a man who started with a single piece of straw and traded it until he was rich. The quest starts with the main character being told this story and then being given a piece of straw. {{spoiler|Depending on how you trade, you can get useless stuff, a squidload of money, or you manage to save the world from a horrible plague (oh, and you get Lucia's [[Infinity+1 Sword]] and the Dating Outifit as well). Good job!}}

* [[Character Title]]: ''Koudelka'', natch.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Koudelka's amulet that she loses while scaling the monestary's roof.

* [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: In every game, your party will eventually consist of one character of each element, plus one non-elemental. The "hurts more" pairings are Fire/Water, Earth/Wind, and Dark/Light. There are spells that change your physical attacks to one of the specifics, as well.

* [[Empty Shell]]: {{spoiler|Get the bad ending in ''Covenant'' and Yuri becomes this.}}

** Anastasia gains attacks from certain enemies, but needs to be in battle to see the enemy's stats. Johnny gets a card, but doesn't need to be in battle to see the enemy's stats.

* [[Even the Dog Is Ashamed]]: Blanca in ''Covenant''. Coupled with [[Only Sane Man]].

** Ricardo looks more than a little similar to the protagonist of Robert Rodriguez's Mexico trilogy.

* [[Fight Woosh]]: A swirly-thing in ''Koudelka'' and the original; ''Covenant'' and ''From the New World'' have a glass screen-shatter fight woosh for the normal battles, and a exploding ball of energy for bosses.

* [[Five-Man Band]]:

** In Shadow Hearts:

* [[Guest Star Party Member]]: Nicolai in ''Covenant'', mainly to try and fool you into thinking that he would be a main character. Which, he actually ''was'' going to be during the early developmental stages of the game.

* [[Guide Dang It]]: Getting the Good Ending in just about any game. Unless you explore every millimeter of each area. And even then, knowing just ''what'' the requirements are for some sidequests is still [[Guide Dang It]]. Averted in Covenant where you're presented with a question right before the final boss. Choose one answer, you get the bad ending. Chose the other, get the good ending. Yup, it's actually that simple.

*** For those who have suffered from the "[[Lost Forever]]", not exactly. You go to a certain place to fight a certain cat that will grant you the key item. But yes, that place is hard to find for people who aren't aware of this.

** It's also important to note that it's actually the ''fans'' who declared the good ending the "Good Ending" and the other the "Bad ending". {{spoiler|Mostly because in the "good" ending, Yuri dies...but is reunited with Alice. And in the bad ending, he doesn't die but loses all his memories.}}

** Bacon aside, played straight in the first game. Characters will still be called by their real names in voice-acted cutscenes, but those are pretty rare.

** You can also name your teams in ''Covenant''. Cue people naming their teams stuff like "Team Fortress" and "[[Homestar Runner|Girl Squad]]".

** Say, don't Lucia and Alice sound familiar? They sound a bit like [[Bleach|Rukia Kuchki]], [[Tales of Vesperia|Rita Mordio]], and [[Digimon Tamers|Antylamon]] - albeit with a weird speech pattern.

** ''Covenant'''s narrator and Tsar nicolas are even voiced by [[Kingdom Hearts|Ansem, Seeker of Darkness]].

** Frank the [[Highly-Visible Ninja]] is the [[Large Ham]] of the party in ''From The New World''.

* [[Laser Blade]]: Johnny has one in ''From The New World''.

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: The later two games compared to the first two. ''From The New World'' is ''especially'' [[Lighter and Softer]] compared to the first two. ''Covenant'' is rather dark for the first couple hours and then starts to embrace its sense of humour.

** Part of the reason the series has a Fanbase of course is that even the lighter and softer games retain their dark parts - In one scene of ''From the New World'', you see Frank ham it up and attack with some of the most improbable weapons ever, and then in the next, witness malice take over an unwilling woman alive and are forced to fight her.

** Even more used: Light-elemental spells, despite being named things like "Holy Edge", are used by both heroes and villains with no comment from either side on the morality of the magic involved.

** Also used in a [[Fridge Brilliance]] manner. Due to the fact that some of your best party members are Dark aligned- Yuri and Shania being the class examples- Light will ''fuck you up'' in battle, since they're weak to it. Since those same characters are strong against Darkness, however, Dark elemental enemies are easier to kill and less of a threat. Thus, a player always regards Light with more fear than Dark, exactly the way the main characters do.

** In ''From the New World'', abilities can get ''ridiculous'' with how powerful they are, though. Especially if you set up a combo with them and rack up the bonus damage. Boom.

*** Stock applies to enemies too. Either you kill it, or the boss combos you to death.

** Shadow Hearts 2: A man who can fuse his soul with demons, a ''female'' German officer/fencer, a perverted old man puppeteer, a ''wolf'', a vampire masked wrestler, an air-headed tarot reader/dancer, Anastasia fucking Romanov, and a samurai.

** Shadow Hearts FTNW: A boy who can use the embodiment of humanity's malice as a weapon, a female [[Magical Native American]], a [[Magical Native American]] who uses Gun Fu, a Brazilian ninja with a saw-katana, a giant drunken cat, an [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]], and a mariachi which a guitar-machine-gun.

* [[Recurring Traveller]]: The Magimel brothers in ''Covenant'' are a classic example.

* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: Ouka in ''Covenant'' ({{spoiler|She is a clone of Yoshiko Kawashima, Kato's dead love-interest.}})

** Also, the [[Hard Gay]] / [[Camp Gay]] shopkeepers being ahead of you. In every area. Even if you literally travel from one area to one you've visited before. They're ''always'' ahead of you. Even in places no human has set foot in forever. (Also see [[Lampshade Hanging]].)

** Roger Bacon has two. Naming him, and getting him perverted magazines.

* [[Send in The Clones]]: The Mutant Apes, ''Covenant's'' [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] for the last third of the game.

* [[Senseless Violins]]: Ricardo and his loaded guitar.

* [[Shooting Gallery]]: ''Covenant''.

* [[Shoot the Medic First]]: The final battle in ''Covenant'' has four targets. Defeating one actually ends the battle, but the other three make the battle much longer if you ignore them. One of which ''heals''. {{spoiler|If you don't take down any of them? Well, let this troper just say that the game gives you a chance to kill the big boss with all four characters getting a turn each. After that, it's better to restart the Playstation.}}

* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: Yuri Hyuga will ''not'' take that sort of crap.

* [[Skippable Boss]]: Hilariously subverted. When Johnny arrives to the altar in the Aito cave, he founds out what looks like a colossal statue of a winged minotaur/centaur hybrid wielding a blood-stained sledgehammer. He tries to sneak around it...only to get caught in the middle:

* [[Talking Animal]]: Mao from the third game is a [[Mega Neko|giant talking cat]] who ''loves'' action movies. She's also an aspiring actress.

* [[Tangled Family Tree]]: Most of the main characters are related to each other in some fashion.

** Specifically, all of Lucia's special effects have a random chance of being "reversed". That means that the fantastic ability to kill all enemies in one hit may instead hit your own party and cause instant game over. Cards with yellow sparks double the effect, but can also be reversed. Lucia's special accessory gives the effect to give the cards the double effect, but you can still draw a reverse card...

* [[Telephone Polearm]]: Joachim.

* [[There Can Be Only One]]: The Wolf Bout and the Cat Pagoda

* [[Unrequited Love Lasts Forever]]: {{spoiler|Karin.}} And how!

* [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight]]: In the ''Shadow Hearts'' universe, monsters are treated as an normal part of the world. However, the average person apparently doesn't handle them too well, as the Sanity Points mechanic seems to reflect with its constant ticking down to berserk status.

*** Anastasia actually mentions this and {{spoiler|Gives Karin a fake identity, Karin.}}

* [[Useless Useful Spell]]: Altered; you're not using MP on them, they're junctioned effects to your attacks. And you'd be surprised how nice Instant Death is against late-game [[Demonic Spiders]].

** Kato in ''Covenant'' is the ultimate well-intentioned extremist.

* [[What Could Have Been]]: Early trailers of ''[[Shadow Hearts]] Covenant'' actually showed a beta...in which Yuri was actually nowhere to be seen in the party. But the harmonixer was still there...who was this Harmonixer? ''Nicolai'' - Kind of odd considering what his role in the final version was.

* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: Sanity Points, a staple of the series. Each character starts battle with a number of Sanity Points that gradually trickle away with each turn. When they hit zero, your character goes temporarily insane and you [[The Berserker|lose control of them]]. A character who ends the battle in this state doesn't gain any experience points. Those with Fusion powers start with significantly more Sanity than anyone else, but the use of their powers [[Deadly Upgrade|drains their SP much faster]]. Interestingly, the trio of playable vampires in the series all have exceptionally high sanity, which makes sense since they'd be much less alarmed by monsters and supernatural elements.

** And this actually makes [[Fridge Brilliance|a bit of sense]], since Anastasia, Alice, and Johnny have the least amount of SP - Alice is quite delicate, Anastasia is a little girl, and Johnny got his start watching a man being eaten. Even Halley, who's younger than Alice, has some SP to spare - and this makes sense when you consider that he's probably been ''quite'' jaded and toughened after what ''he's'' gone through. <ref> Let's see, he's Koudelka's son and inherited her psychic powers - when he was young, he watched his own mother get taken away to a mental "hospital" and left on the streets, with almost ''no'' training of his own psychic powers</ref>.