Talk:Shadow Hearts (video game)

Judgment Ring
I was thinking about creating a seperate article for the Judgement Ring which would include information from all three games as well as information regarding the Ring Spirits from Covenant and FTNW. What does everyone think?

Can someone go through this article for grammar? I am really bad at editing so help from others would be appreciated. Waymond Tang 19:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think a separate article is necessary at this point in light of the fact that Shadow Hearts only has 3 installments. Remember to try to keep the information in as few places as possible as a courtesy to the readers so I appreciate you not creating articles for each of the characters. Axem Titanium 22:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with what you said so I won't be making a new article for these things. I appreciate the response. Waymond Tang 04:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Trivia
A number of players, including myself, have discovered some missing items in the North American and PAL format of the game compared to the Japanese format. This includes a weapon for Keith as well as an item that cures both HP and MP in the 'Tea of the X' family. I was going to add it but didn't know how to source it since it was never announced officially (not a lot of people would notice unless they played both versions or used cheats). Should I just include it without reference? Waymond Tang 20:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, is it really vital to the game? See WP:TRIVIA and WP:TRIV for some guidelines as to what kind of trivia is notable enough to mention in an article. Axem Titanium 22:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Merging Alice Elliot page
I'm not too sure about merging the Alice Elliot page with the main article (Shadow Hearts). My reasoning is that the Alice/Keith article contains information which users/players would like to know (images, age, special attacks, featured games etc.) which would be difficult and messy to place in the main Shadow Hearts Article.

Saying that though, we could perhaps move the characters section in the SH article and link it to a new page (List of characters in Shadow Hearts, for example) with the sufficient level of detail found in both articles (the SH and Alice pages for example) on the characters who feature in the game and perhaps get rid of the Alice and Keith articles altogether if the information was transferred to a new full single page.

Another reason for doing this is that certain games have huge amount of details/pages dedicated to a character and their exploits (Final Fantasy VII>Cloud or Aeris for example). I feel that a few lines dedicated to only the basics of the characters who feature in Shadow Hearts is not doing the game, or the characters, any justice.

Views?

Crafedog 00:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If there's one thing I don't like about the Final Fantasy articles, it's the fact that every character gets his own article. This is not something we should imitate. A character list is good but try to keep trivia out of it since it's hard to source. Axem Titanium 00:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I support the idea of merging the seperate character articles into a 'List of' article. That way the information isn't all over the place. Another thing to note is the fact that these characters don't have as much information released from the designers compared to Final Fantasy characters. So these character articles would be merely stubs. Another thing I was thinking of was something written about the relationships between all the characters. That would be a good way of adding more content to this article on the characters. What's your opinions on that? Waymond Tang 11:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixing References
I've been away for a while but I am back and I noticed some errors with the references I made so I will be editing these after I plan out what I am doing next. I will probably look into it by the end of the week so anyone can edit them right now if they want. Waymond Tang 10:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

GameFAQ Reviews?
Can user reviews on GameFAQS really be considered a valid source? Not that the reviewers opinions aren't valid, but their suitability for a dictionary-quality entry seems questionable. Should they be removed?
 * Not really sure. Probably not ideal sources.  Any precedent in other gaming articles?  That paragraph deals with what "fans" think, the "cult following", etc.  To be fair, the validity of including that paragraph [as is] in the lead should be considered as well, mainly to avoid any possible POV issues.


 * (I had tried to find evidence of a cult following or even something describing SH as a cult favourite, but couldn't. I also failed to find any mention of how many copies of SH were sold in Japan, US and PAL regions, which would have been extremely useful for this article.  As it turns out, most of the fan sites for SH are now gone.  The only resources I've been able to locate are gaming sites, like GameFAQs.)


 * Anyway, that paragraph could probably be moved down to the reception bit and rewritten minus the fan reviews/comparison to FFX, or whatever. I'm not opposed to seeing the sources removed and the paragraph reworked or deleted.  I don't think this article is quite yet reached "dictionary-quality" or preferably "encyclopedic-quality".  There's much to be done throughout, but there's a lot of good stuff here, too.  Considering that my wife and I met because of Shadow Hearts, and that I'm terribly fond of this game for that reason and many others, I do hope this article gets thorough, unbiased, and loving attention from experienced wiki editors. JordanSealy 12:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Japanese cast
I was considering adding the Japanese cast. I feel that it is necessary to add the Japanese cast to all articles related to Shadow Hearts, including here. This will improve the overall article and will not be an indiscriminate collection of information. Any comments or objections? Greg Jones II 20:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

PS1
I've heard that the reason the graphics for the game were subpar for the PS2 is because it was originally ported for the PS1. Can anyone confirm this? ~MegaZilla~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.242.82.149 (talk) 02:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Intro Battle Comment
In the intro, it says "The game was praised for its original battle system.[citation needed]", yet the battle system described a bit further down the page is a carbon copy of the Final Fantasy Games. So either one or the other is incorrect. Offkorn (talk) 12:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The differences are the Judgment Ring system and Sanity Points. Valhawk (talk) 15:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Similar games?
I'm sorry if this question isn't entirely appropriate to the wikipedia, but I'd like to ask, does anybody know of similar "lovecraftian" games? Games similar in tone or story to Shadow Hearts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.78.98.109 (talk) 07:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Erhu player
http://www.weiwei-wuu.com/e/index.html Just noticed in the credits, this erhu player in the Shanghai FMV. For future reference. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Greatest Hits
Neither this game, nor any others in the franchise, were rereleased under the Greatest Hits program, in spite of the fact that at least the first two Shadow Hearts games (and quite possibly the third and Koudelka, but I'm not sure) were eligible. I got to this page to find out why, even though I'm pretty sure I know why, I only have circumstantial evidence. The entire Shadow Hearts franchise now sells for ungodly amounts of money due to its rarity (and lucky me, I have three of the four games in my collection, including this one, the most valuable). I believe this was the reason the game was never rereleased as a Greatest Hits. To force rarity and drive up the price. If someone can find a source on that and post the reason it never got a Greatest Hits release, that would be much appreciated. At the very least, please mention that it didn't and that, because it didn't, the game is a valuable collectors' item now. Thanks50.130.11.182 (talk) 16:55, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Driving up the price only helps the secondary market - e.g. used game shops, entities which have little say in whether a game is reprinted (except something like Gamestop's deal to publish Xenoblade itself).  Therefore it's an unlikely motive for the actual publishers, who will make more money if they think a reprinting will sell. SnowFire (talk) 20:30, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * So, then, what IS the motive? Is there any source for it?  Even if there's no source for the motive, the fact that a Greatest Hits release was declined not just on this game, but across the entire series, and that has resulted in a high-value collectors market, especially for this game, seems especially notable.50.130.11.182 (talk) 21:58, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Same reason any random game might not be reprinted - risk it won't sell and be a money-losing proposition. (Especially now that the PS2 market is two generations behind.)  You could ask the same about more infamous cases like Suikoden II.  I should add that price is not a perfect guarantor of whether a reprint is worth it.  Assume we have some "cult" game with a small 30,000 copy printing, of which 3,000 copies are "in circulation" and being resold.  If 10,000 gamers are interested in said copies, they could very easily drive the price of those few copies quite high, but outside those 10,000, few gamers are interested.  Thus, a reprint of 10,000 copies would sell out, but not at the high price caused by low supply.  A reprint of 30,000 new copies would take a bath and only sell half before deep discounts are used to move the rest to uninterested gamers.  Now consider that there's a high "fixed price" for a reprinting so that small, safe reprintings are still rather expensive, while the larger reprintings, while cheaper on a per-unit basis, bring greater risk if you overestimated the size of the market.  So, even if a reprinting would make perfect financial sense, it could be any of A) the publisher doesn't want to take the risk, or B) the publisher just plain makes a mistake, or C) the publisher doesn't have the money & time to spend on it anyway and need to devote all of it to other projects. SnowFire (talk) 22:17, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, Midway no longer exists, but even barely acceptable copies of this game are selling for more than $30 on the collectors' market. Copies in good condition are going for considerably more.  Brand new copies are getting close to $100.  One might say that opting out of the Greatest Hits release was a mistake for everyone except people who already had a copy.  They could have made more money off more copies, and the consumers could have spent less money, because of the larger supply.  Still, I think the effects of their choice to not go for a GH release is notable, regardless of their intentions.50.130.11.182 (talk) 00:18, 5 May 2014 (UTC)