"What?" That's pretty much what you will be saying while playing this game. Read more for clarification.
Now granted this is a sequel to the first Shadow Hearts, and I don't disregard that fact... but to put this nicely... Imagine the story is a 200 piece jigsaw puzzle ok? Instead of puting the pieces together properly, the jigsaw puzzle was put together by monkeys with sledgehammers banging the pieces into place. Yes, it's that haphazard and seemingly unrelated to one scene vs. another. In fact there was one point where I probably would have had no clue, storywise or just how to progress why and where you are supposed to go to this certain place.
I will say the pieces fit together in the end... but there is no fun to put the pieces of the story together. And it's sad too, because all of the characters are so likeable and the offbeat humor is engaging, but the frame in which everything is put together kind of tarnishes the lustre. For instance, common colloquial words and sayings from the translation like "Bite Me" which is Yuri's favorite sayings (the main or one of the main characters). Or when you have to use a wolf in your party named Blanca to sneak around a dungeon, he sneaks a la Solid Snake, pressed up against the walls and swiveling his head out to peer around the corner. Or for instance, a musclebound vampire named Joachim who is the ultra corny superhero from a Saturday morning cartoon wields obscenely large and usually blunt objects. The scenes where he finds them are hilarious, and the descriptions to go along with the items themselves are laugh inducing. For instance "Once used for sewage, then as a shelter for cats from the rain and elements, it begins its new life as a bludegon". This was describing the earthen pipe "weapon", and many other weapons are described thusly with that same humor and vivid description style.
Other handy little menus include the score where it keeps track of how successful you are at certain things, enemies you've defeated, allies you've met, etc. A little bit beyond your standard "Items, Equip, Magic, Status, Save, Load and Options" menu.
The game is full of charming intangibles like the characters and the quirky humor, but the game is so riddled with discontinuities and jumps in the story it really puts a damper on it. Not so much to completely turn you off the game, but it really did make me contemplate stop playing halfway through.
But now for the more tangible aspects of things. Gameplay : The game itself is a turn based RPG with a unique system known as the Judement Ring. Basically the little ring spins and you have to press the button in either the hit or strike zones. Hit means you do normal damage, strike does slightly more damage, but is in a smaller area at the end of the slice in the ring. You can have from 1 to 5 zones in the ring and they all vary in size of the hit and strike zone, and your ring can be customized with attack boosts, hit and strike zone expands and status effects and whether your ring stops if you miss or if it is smaller but does more damage/etc. Let's just say it keeps you from pressing the buttons once and then do nothing gor the rest of the game. Granted when you want a battle to end quickly this button pressing can get annoying.
Your ring can get shrunk in size (making it harder for the player to see), you can have false strike zones that can throw you off or make you completely miss, you can also have speed up ring (where your little sweeping arm thing rotates significantly faster), etc. Items get rid of these effects as do other healing spells. Also status effects like paralyze can affect you even before choosing the judgement ring for attack, magic or other combat skills or items (yes, the judgement ring affects EVERY action in battles).
Outside of that, the battles are turn based as I said, enemies appear from 1 to up to 6 I believe, placed around the battlefield, just like you. Your attacks can be single, line, pierce, area, or all. Basically they describe the area which your attack affects. A line attack will attack anyone caught within it's blast area which will be pointed out prior to your attack, area hits a circular area, and all hits al. Piercing hits in a line until it hits the target which does an area attack. Your enemies' positions are vital to your maximum efficiency, and the same goes for your positioning helping the enemies.
Again here lies a weak point in the gameplay. It is so damn easy to kill any enemies who are surrounded. The same goes for you being surrounded. I've never died to anyone in this game, except twice, when I was surrounded by magic wielders who all used area attacks and killed me (at full life). That is highly frustrating considering even my weakest team members were barely challenged by a boss I was totally unprepared for... Seriously, very unbalanced.
Other factors include using combos, which allow you to chain attacks with partners in a row. Normally this wouldn't matter, but for each chain you add to the attack, it adds bonus damage and can really rack up points, so for bosses, it is recommended to do so. But beware, combos mean your characters literally move up to each other, and are susceptible to area attacks and such. One key to remember is linking properly. There are 4 attacks, regular, knock down, hit up and push back. These refer to where your enemy goes when hit. regular results in almost no movement, knockdown puts them on the ground, up is in the air and push back goes flying. You have to realize the properties of your attack in order to not break the combo or just miss completely with the attack.
Finally, each character can attack, use magic (once equipped), items, defend and use their own special category of attacks (which for the most part outside of Yuri and Karin are somewhat useless I've found). Good magic crest setup with powerful magic users and even distribution is a key element to the game. One of my biggest drawbacks though is the complete lack of an overhead map if you get lost, and trust me, you will get lost going down a huge corridor to a dead end. And there are very little distinguishing landmarks in this game, this is hard to overlook. Thankfully they remedy that problem in the 3rd Shadow Hearts game.
Graphics : I'm aware that this game came out in 2004, so it's not the top of the line, but even compared to Final Fantasy X which predates it, it's graphics are a bit stale. The character designs are nice, particularly Karin *wink wink* and even the regular monsters are... but the bosses lack a certain flair. In fact one boss looks like a... well let's say large phallus and leave it at that. However the biggest problem I have is with the wooden animations which seem to be skipping like every 4th frame, giving a not ultra smooth appearance, particularly when running, but rather floating. Additionally the textures aren't that varied or detailed, at least in comparison to other games that are prior or contemporary to this one. Also, the full CGI cutscenes are very weak compared to something Square or Namco would have done. And not only were the general quality of the cutscenes bland, the hazing effects in it ruined any resolution that a quality CGI should have (I mean the game was on two discs... and the still managed to make them crappy?).
I'm also going to chalk this next point up to graphics, namely collison detection on the game screen. Not in battle, but when walking around somewhere, very often was I stopped seemingly in the middle of a passageway, but next to stairs. Somehow an invisible wall would stop me dead in my tracks, demanding a toll but never telling me how much. Try to walk around the area or to the side, wouldn't happen, you have to do a complete about face and then go way around. Just these little "snags" stick out and marr the playing experience. And it's not just once this happened, but multiple times.
Sound : One of the high points in this game. The sound track is amazing, particularly in Europe. The music has a very European village quality to it, but the fact that it's played in most places in Europe looses it's charm and basically knocks the sound down a peg or two.
In fact most of the game's soundtrack is highly repetitive. While full of awesome battle music and boss battle music and cutscene music, the in town music is just not varied. Other games (I cite Final Fantasy again) have distinct musical themes in each town or city you visit. Also, the voice acting is pervasive and generally well done, although it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the same dozen or so people do almost all the voice acting in the whole game. My biggest gripe which I attribute to the sound feature is that some of the dialogue/translation is completely lost/left out/stupid. For instance.
One character would say "Oh, I didn't know so and so was your father". The response? "Thank you". Or just out of the blue in a totally unrelated conversation "your name is Ann?". I'm sorry but if people can't work on localization or a translated script that makes coherent sense, don't bother with the stupid voiceover fumbling with awkward pauses and transitions in the dialogue.
Value : I paid like 45$ for this, almost 2 and a half years after it came out, and got about 43 hours of play out of it, so it's a pretty good value in terms of gameplay time... but the quality is lacking and I would never play this game again. So take it how you will.
Tilt : There are so many good things to say about this game... unfortunately there are a number of bad things that I can't overlook as well, so rather than going over them again, let's just say it's an excellent game with a lot of imperfections that only bring it down to the status of being "good".