[DEMO] Shadow Hearts: Revenant

[Thorfax]

Shadow Hearts: Revenant is a darkly atmospheric RPG game designed as a fan sequel to the Shadow Hearts series released on the Playstation 2. Although not a direct sequel, this game does take place in a similar continuity as the Shadow Hearts series, and borrows from some of its gameplay/story elements.

Isaac Stowe is a strong, determined youth who dedicates his life as a vigilante of sorts, using his strength and swift moves to give a beatdown to criminals and other lowlifes. All small-time acts, until a particular newspaper clipping catches his eye: Killer of 13 Still At Large, which details the latest victim of the unidentified serial killer known only as the Red Ripper. Seeing this as not only an even bigger challenge than what he has gone up against so far, but also as a chance to do something great, he catches a train to hunt the killer down.

However, a dangerous encounter on the train leaves Isaac in control of a terrible power known as Malice, and makes him one of the only people who could stand against the true Red Ripper, who also controls the same power. With the help of a man who seems to know a lot about what is happening, Isaac must do what he can to stop the Red Ripper, all while holding on to a power which could threaten to turn him into a monster at any moment.

Isaac Stowe

A headstrong young boy, who's not afraid to take on any challenge he encounters. After a dangerous encounter, he finds himself in control of a terrible power known as Malice, which makes him among the only ones who could stand against an even greater threat that is present.

Elan

A warrior from an unknown tribe who now spends his time helping victims of the recent monster attacks. He seems to know a lot about what is happening, and desires an end to the needless suffering. Not much about his past is known.

Sunny

A young girl with a strange, calming aura about her. One of Marcus's prime targets, she seems to have a power of her own. Although shy and easily frightened, she has a great determination about her, especially when those she cares about are involved.

 

Marcus White

A mysterious man who is known by most as the Red Ripper. He also wields the power of Malice, but has decided to use it for more selfish purposes. He desires as much strength as he can acquire, although any alternative motives are unknown.

 

• A darkly atmospheric, story driven RPG experience, featuring a variety of unique characters and twisted enemies.
• The Judgement Ring, which tests your skills to allow you to perform attacks and spells at a greater strength with success, or hinder you for failing.
• Unique abilities for each character, each to serve different purposes, which can be learned by completing certain objectives.
• Orb Magic, a magic system which allows you to manually equip certain spells, as well as mix and match placements to gain new ones.
• A manually controllable lantern which can be used to light up dark places, but may also attract the attention of certain enemies.
• A bestiary which allows you to view the monsters you have defeated, along with their stats.
• A music room to allow you to listen to all the music you've heard throughout the game any time you want.

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The game is currently in a very early stage of development, with the first couple areas of the game complete. Being in the early stages, there is still a lot that is subject to change, including dialog, ally and enemy stats, skill damage formulas, level design, and more. As for scripts and features, they work well for the most part, although some bugs are present which prevent me from doing some of the things I would like with them. I am hoping to get some of these fixed if I can get some help from someone who knows more about scripts than I do, but for the most part, everything works fairly well.

I do playtest the game, multiple times, but as is to be expected, there are likely some bugs or eventing errors that I missed. From those who try the game out for themselves, I am definitely interested in hearing about any bug that I may have missed, as well as any suggestions to improve the quality of the game.

The current demo is playable up until the entrance of the Cliffside Ruins. The game is still being rapidly worked on, with new areas being added and ideas already in the works.

Scripts: Moghunter, CasperGaming, JV, Galv, Yanfly, V.M., Shadowmaster, Seiryuki, Zetu, Szyu, Estriole, Khas, DiamondandPlatinum3, Soulpour777, Victor Sant

Images: Various sources, all images not made by me are credited to their respective owners.

Music: Kevin MacLeod, Myuuju, Joel Steudler, Sacnoth

Original Game Series: Shadow Hearts, developed and owned by Sacnoth.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3vlubh3vgcem7z/SH%20Revenant.exe?dl=0​

Click this link to download the game. After downloading, open the file to extract the game and its contents, and launch the game from the "Game" executable file.​

 

[ItsBuffy]

I played your game, killed the boss and saved the girl. Then I came back to the village and the game kept freezing at the wood pole location when the native told me we had a lot to talk about. Maybe the game demo ended there ?

 I don't know the shadow heart serie at all.

I'll tell you my thoughts/opinions about the game in no particular order.

I love the menu SE ! 

In the train, I feel like the monster shouldve been sprites instead of blind encounters. That made it feel weird and anticlimactic

Loved the game feel and ambiance overall. 

I feel like Isaac easily believe Elan when he talks to him about malice and all this. If that was me I wouldve think Elan is nuts and I wouldve need convincing.

Attack meter is way too easy to master. 

So far the money system is kind of useless. What I mean by that is I can always buy pretty much what I want without excess. I had no need for management or monetary dilemma whatsoever. When I killed the boss and came back I was able to buy every new weapon, armor etc and some items. Gold in my opinion is used to give the player options. It challenge the player to take key decision with smart purchases. If I can buy everything then it's useless I would rather just have it handed to me by elan tribe or progressively finding the gears during my quests.

I really like the blue arrow hovering on the character that warn me when im about to have an encounter.

I can go through the windows in the ritual room. I can go through the tombs in the hidden cimetery.

I easily found the hidden cimetery but I think I was lucky. Pretty sure some players could search over an hour before finding it.

Monster design is amazing, outstanding. So amazing that I wouldve loved to learn about them... maybe lore books or Elan could say things about them ?

The mapping overall is pretty average but not bad. A lot of empty spaces.

Overall, I was expecting/wanted more details in the story, lore etc because the game is interesting and I'd like to know more

Lantern doesnt provide a lot of light

As far as the battle is concerned, at no point during the game I have ever been challenged in the slightest, boss included. The game state as it is is very easy. Maybe because it's the beginning ? Fortunately your game is interesting and doesn't rely at all on the battles to be interesting.

Spells cost a fortune to use and frankly from what ive seen, they're not that great compared to regular attacks assuming that you hit the 3 triangles.

Overall id say enjoyed the game, too bad it froze.

 

[Thorfax]

Hey ItsBuffy, and thanks for the feedback, it really helps.

Some of the bugs you found, namely being able to go through things, was mostly just an oversight on my part, mainly me missing some of the passage settings. As for the game freezing at the training grounds area, I'm not sure about that, as it didn't freeze at all for me, but I'll look into it.

As for battle difficulty, yeah it' not meant to be overly difficult yet, mostly due to there not being an overly high variety of ways to heal yourself, and it still being early on in the game, but I do aim to make it more challenging. Same goes with spell/enemy strength balance, as well as money balance, that's something that's still gonna be worked on.

As for the monster lore, that is actually something I wanted to add, at this point I'm just still not sure how I want to implement that, as the script I use for the bestiary doesn't have an option for enemy lore. It is something that was present in the actual Shadow Hearts game series, so I do want to implement it somehow.

Anyway, thanks for the critiques and suggestions, they really do help.

 

[ItsBuffy]

froze twice in a row

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

I am a massive fan of the Shadow Heart series! I will give this a try and let you know my thoughts

 

[Thorfax]

I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say.

Also, for the next demo release of the game, I have replaced the bestiary with a different one, so now the monsters do have short lore snippets, just like in the Shadow Hearts series.

As for the game freezing at the training grounds, exactly what point does the game freeze? Is it when you enter the area to start the cutscene, is it after the cutscene, or something else?

 

[ItsBuffy]

We have a lot to talk about. then freeze. Tried a 3rd time and froze again.

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say.

Also, for the next demo release of the game, I have replaced the bestiary with a different one, so now the monsters do have short lore snippets, just like in the Shadow Hearts series.

As for the game freezing at the training grounds, exactly what point does the game freeze? Is it when you enter the area to start the cutscene, is it after the cutscene, or something else?

I have seen some battlers of the dogs with arms out of there mouths....... will have to find them for you. They were creepy enemies

 

[Thorfax]

That's honestly weird, I can't see anything in the event that would cause it to freeze. I've been fixing up a few more things, then I'm gonna playtest it again when I get a chance to see if it ends up happening again.

And to Nanaki, I actually know what you're talking about, and I have that exact battler image saved on my computer XD I was planning on using it somewhere

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

Ok this is a live feed as I play the game!

-  Image before the title screen? Nice! You must teach me how to do that!

- Love the title screen

- Starting on the train! Shadow Hearts Nerd-freakout! awesome job.

- Thera leaf! Nice attention to detail of the series.

- Train is nice, good atmosphere.

- Random battle. Hmmmm Could do with a creepy sprite crawling up the train.

- Judgement ring! OMG.

- Judgement ring a little too fast. But still awesome.

- You MUST tell me how you got the judgement ring to work!

- little sound effects from the series. Nostalgia kicking in.

- Bone boss battle. Very creepy.

- Conversation in tent a bit "laxed". Ruins the tone a bit. Instead of thing perhaps monster?

- Hunting red ripper. Who? What? Why? When? Jumps straight into a story with little background. Provide a bit more context.

- is that guy naked?

- maps are a bit "empty" but it is early days yet

- like the way you pick the next area.

-how do I use venomous winds?

- green shard! very cleaver.

- Oh! green shard didn't activate venom winds.....

- No heal after level up?

- Lots of gold dropping.......nothing to spend it on.

- found a key in a house.

- Need another key.....got a pick axe. Now what?

- Tent of course!

- Hehe graveyard! nice touch

- When saving in a place that is dark it is hard to see what option you are selecting, i.e save, tent, exit.

- this house is really dark, even with the lantern. Didnt see the side exits........

-......wandering around in circles.....

- Died. lol.

Over all impressions: nice combat system, great atmosphere. Captures the dark gritty theme of the originals. Maps need more detail they are very sparse at the moment. The house needs just a touch more light, or maybe dont have such wooden floor so thick that it looks like walls! haha. Overall I will be keeping an eye on this

 

[Thorfax]

I'll keep an eye on your live feed, and I'll reply to things that need replying as I see.

The main intro I gave the Red Ripper was the newspaper clipping at the beginning, not much but it's meant to introduce him a little.

Venomous Wind is a unique skill, and those require TP as well as MP to use, which you accumulate during battle. The green shard is meant to be used with the Orb Magic menu to give you a new spell.

Also, like in the main Shadow Hearts series, you don't heal from leveling up, but can use tents at save points. As for the money, there are gonna be places to spend it on between dungeon areas, possibly during depending on the place.

Pickaxe is meant to be used in the middle tent. I'm actually changing it up a bit so it makes a little more sense with its usage.

The options being hard to see, namely while saving, is an odd interaction the choices have with my lighting script. I noticed that, I'm just not exactly sure the best way to fix it yet.

Anyway, glad you seem to enjoy it so far, still tweaking several things so hopefully things will get better in the future

Also, here's a sneak peek at the new bestiary that I'm using.

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

Oh another thing I will add:

What I meant about the back story is why was the main character on the train hunting him? Considering I get the impression he has never seen him before why was he there? Later I get the impression that he wants to kick his ass for killing the people on the train but nothing about the back story before hand. Going deeper into this would be awesome.

 

[BerryB]

Played the game for a bit before stopping because of bugs.​

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My Opinions on: Shadow Hearts Revenant​

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-        Very good animated looking title screen.

-        Very nice looking intro with great graphics. I liked it already. Keeps you hooked in for more.

-        Good looking Menu Screen with Music Tracks as well, pretty handy.

-        Battle system is very good, with the Shadow Hearts’ style, I enjoyed the atmosphere both in gameplay and in look.

-        Character setup is nice and fluid with good progression in-game, I liked it a lot.

-        Loading and Saving bar? Hmm.. Pretty interesting.

-        Amazing selection of music. I enjoyed it.

-        A lot of bugs (menu screen has problems, maps have bitmap errors). I ended up stopping.

Overall Thoughts and Conclusions: A potentially amazing game. If the bugs are fixed, maybe it would be so much better. It had such great build up too. 

 

[Thorfax]

So far, I'm wondering how many of the bugs are a result of scripting errors that I wouldn't know of because I'm script illiterate, and how many are simple mapping or event errors that I'm missing. The weird part is, I haven't been able to recreate some of the bugs that I've been hearing about.

If anyone who tries out the game has a way of creating video recordings, I'd be interested in seeing them, it may help pinpoint specific issues. Maybe upload as an unlisted video to YouTube or something.

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

I am having another play through. Taking thing a bit slower this time

 

[Thorfax]

I'll try to put out updates as often as I can, but just a heads up that it might be slow, considering I have work and am the only one working on the game.

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

Any news on this?

 

[jvcscasio]

Pretty interesting game, even though the maps are using normal tilesets (as far as I've played though) but the menu, the combat style, everything looks unique and interesting!