The Let's Play Archive

Shadow Hearts: Covenant

by The Dark Id

Part 1: Episode I: Domremy

Episode I: Domremy


NEW Music: Deep Meditation ~ Title
(Very soothing.)



At no point, once the DVD disc is stuck into a Sony PlayStation 2, does this game make any remote attempt to call itself "Shadow Hearts: Covenant." It is just Shadow Hearts II. Full stop.



This statement is patently false. Shadow Hearts 2 has a goddamn conga line of actual dead historical figures showing up doing weird shit in several places you could hop onto a plane and visit right now for the most part. Also perhaps Yuri got a wolf buddy at some point. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Music: ENDS



Instead, let's affix our bayonets...



...and head to the sleepy burg of Pueblo, Notspain. That's right. We're going back, baby! The President's daughter has been kidnapped and it's up to special agent Leon S. Kennedy to ta–



Oh. Wait... Shoot. I'm getting my wires crossed. False alarm... It turns out we're heading to the town of Domremy, of a currently unknown country, about 90 years before Leon Kennedy sent the better part of the population of Notspain to Suplex City.



We follow the first person view of presumably one of the German soldiers advancing on the rural town. We're at some point after the end of Shadow Hearts, a game which ended on the note that a minor regional conflict occurred shortly after the events of the main plot concluded.



Believe it or not, this game actually predates Resident Evil 4 by just a couple weeks short of a year. Shinji Mikami has some explaining to do...



For all the games I've played with silly dress-up helmets, I feel as though there is not enough dumbass pickelhaube representation. Put more opulent spikes on top of helmets, you cowards.





Our squad of German soldiers links up with another unit already hanging out outside the church. Waves, stern looks and finely groomed mustache inspections are exchanged between the groups. The man with the largest mustache, indicating his leadership over the group, as I understand was the ranking system of the era, nods to our perspective character.





Squad tactics and building breaching techniques hadn't really been developed yet at this point in history. So tactics are mostly just selecting all units and rushing a point then hoping for the best. The Great War's meta was rubbish.



The war has taken its toll on poor Super Mario. Luigi fell at the First Battle of Krithia. Wario lost a leg at the Battle of the Frontiers. They say Yoshi was shot for desertion. Countless young Toads have been sent into the meat grinder by an uncaring Mushroom Kingdom.





The ravages of war aside, the squadron kicks open the church doors, an impressive feat considering they're about fifteen feet tall, and the men shuffle into the interior. They proceed to... kind of just mill about looking around the area like they're in a dull tour group.





The door to the church slams shut and there is some manner of ruckus outside. As per standard operating procedure, everyone opens fire wildly and screams without giving any verbal indication of what is attacking, how many enemies there are, where its position is located or anything remotely relevant to anyone not seeing the assault.





All we get is a quick shadow of a winged... something, wrecking a rando squaddie. RIP. The poor lad only had one more deployment before he earned an actual name.





Super Mario keeps his cool. After seeing both Waluigi and Donkey Kong struck down by sniper fire in a single day, little can shake his resolve anymore.



We finally lose the perspective gimmick for the opening movie and get a look at our perspective character...



Surprise: It's a pretty anime girl.



DID SOMEONE...



...SAY...



...ANIME?!







Our heroine finds herself star-struck by meeting THE Devilman all of the sudden like this. She also appears to have forgotten to equip a weapon. She is just on full blunder lord mode today, it would seem.





Super Mario rushes to the rescue by shoulder checking the woman hard enough to send her flying halfway across the church floor. He takes her place in the Devilman face-off.



With a fiery resolve in his battle-hardened eyes that have been there since he cut down Bowser Jr. with a bayonet in a muddy trench in the south of France, Mario takes aim at the creature and...





...instantly gets incredibly owned. Welp. I hope he got a 1-Up ration recently.





The rest of the men, seeing the only one among them with an actual detailed face model get taken out so easily, naturally instantly fall into a panic and fire madly at the monster.







Shockingly enough, it doesn't go well.



The lady soldier, still stunned from Mario's powerful shoulder check, rolls onto her back to sees what all the fuss is about.







She is just in time to see a full montage of all of her comrades getting EXTREMELY wrecked by Devilman.



One enterprising soldier attempts to do what any common newbie tries when they know they're done. Lob a grenade and hope to get at least one kill before you eat shit. It's my go-to tactic anytime things go south with a bad team in a battle royale game. :v:





Unfortunately, he attempts to throw that thing at point-blank range and the monster slaps that shit away instantly. You should have just thrown it at your feet, you idiot. Now you look the fool.



The problem is, that grenade parry sent it flying directly toward the face of the only character who might actually have a name or character portrait in this group of incompetent redshirts.





This expressionless hell face somehow still manages to muster a look of "oh shit..."





The soldier lady uses her cat-like reflexes to—



...Not so much as gasp in surprise and eats an explosion along with the rest of the soldiers in the near vicinity. That dude is gonna eat a week ban on this server for all that TKing. This isn't the finest showing for the German army today.



However, the smoke clears and what's this...?



Meh. Bored now.





The woman admires her tall, buff demon savior.



His work here done, the demon begins strolling off out of the church. The doors of which he apparently uses telekinesis to open onto a sun going supernova outside.



But what's this...?!



Why he transformed into an anime man with messy hair. Now, where have we seen a dude that can transform into a Devilman before? I feel like I should know this one. But it has just plain slipped my mind...



Oh well, I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.






Video: Shadow Heart 2 Intro
(Hey go watch this!)