By: Aridane Avalon

Last month marked the 21st anniversary of Shadow Hearts: Covenant, the beloved sequel to cult classic Shadow Hearts (also called Shadow Hearts II in Japan.) Many gamers around the world had held onto hope as the spiritual successor Pennyblood would one day be brought to life by the series creator but the future looks uncertain.

The Legacy of the Shadow Hearts series

Shadow Hearts has been a game series that has been near and dear to my heart since I was a teenager. It was always a dream of mine to see the series either get a remake or a remaster one day. Though back in 2007, it was rumored that Nautilus had went under and there were no plans to have a new Shadow Hearts game.

I think since the Playstation 3 allowed for emulation of past games it could have served to have it on the classic console along with other classics like Xenogears or even Digital Devil Saga or the Playstation 4. However, I don’t know either how likely that would have been since it’s unclear on if the original developers still have the code of the original game.

The Shadow Hearts games always felt like B-rated horror movies in a way. They’re campy in a good way in the same vein of the Scream series. It’s definetely a game series that can be said to be on the same caliper as the Final Fantasy games, given that had a different way of giving us a control based game or ctb system.

The Judgement Ring was an added feature for the series, given that there was certain hit areas you had to hit when it came to combat, magic and even getting discounts. There were also status ailments, and even items that affected the Judgement Ring which added onto the strategy element.

A Hope Rekindled But Dwindled

When Pennyblood’s kickstarter came out and blew every goal out of the park, I was ecstatic. While it’s a spiritual successor and not a remake or remaster of the old games, I was still happy to get the same Lovecraftian type horror game that I fell in love with. I always felt that with video games now, every studio tries to make that AAA hit instead of making campy games like Shadow Hearts or even Shadow Hearts.

However, while they keep pumping out content like a prequel game and several comic book prequels, there’s still no news on there being a publisher that is willing to pick up the game. Though it’s a struggle, hopefully at some point in the future Studio Wildrose can either generate enough funds for them to self-publish the game or that someone can finally pick up the game.

That way we can play the next continuation of the legacy of Shadow Hearts. Or maybe one day we’ll see a remaster or remake of the beloved video game series starting with Kouldelka.