Ok. So I've owned Shadow Hearts: Covenant for a while now (probably over a year), but wanted to wait until I get the first one before I play it. Well, long story short, I got impatient and decided to play it anyways. First of all, awesome game! I felt the reward of pulling off a good combo wasn't worth the risk, but the ring mechanic made up for it. Decent story. The ending left me a little disappointed, until the scene after the credits and my brain exploded. But here's what's driving me nuts!!

SPOILERS:

Karin clearly goes back in time and is found by Yuri's dad. They fall in love and marry. The evidence is all there throughout the game. BUT! Karin is German and Yuri says he's half Russian! WHYYYY??!?!?!?! Is this a typo or was Karin trying to hide her herritage from Ben?!

Am I missing something that was explained in the first game? Please.. help me sleep at night.. and please don't spoil the first game for me! I still plan to get it eventually.

Yeah, im not too worried about the time travel paradox. I've know for a long time that trying to wrap my head around time travel stories ends in mental break down. I'm willing to accept that it creates all kinds of unexplainable holes. Just the whole German/Russian thing bugs me. She obviously didn't lose her memory because earlier in the game Yuri says is mother said she named him after her first love. I guess she chose to take on the fake Russian identity Anistasia gave her because Russia had much better relations with Japan than Germany in the game. It would cause less social issues for her in Japanese society.

I think that is going to be the way I choose to understand it.

Well looks like your answer has somewhat been answered.

Love these games though. As underrated as they come. Though If you ever decide to play the third game after this one don't have your hopes to up.

More or less.

It was a pretty good game though. I'd give it a solid 8.5/10. The majority of the game was a 7 but the twist ending genuinely caught me off guard. That happens maybe once or twice a generation for me. And yeah, I'm not really interested in the 3rd one. I'll pick it up if I come across is, but I'm way more interested in grabbing the first one and the vaguely related PS prequel.

Aww, really? I know with soo many RPGs on PS2 that at least half of them are bound to be hot steamy turds, but I was hoping this series might be the exception. Sad. Still really interested in playing Shadow Hearts though. I'll get the other ones just for collections sake.

Play the first game now! It's pretty good! The third game is also quite good! Although the first one is still my favourite!

I want to! I have to wait for it to come through my store and I run my store whilly nilly in my free time so it might take a while.

Dont get me wrong, the first Shadow Hearts was good IMO. I loved every  minute of it. Only thing is was that Covenant was light years ahead of it in terms of graphics and game mechanics refinement. You should have started with the first as you'll find it under whelming when compared to covenant. Though story wise, it holds up pretty well, in fact, I think I enjoyed the first one's story more than I did covenant as it was darker and had very little humor sa compared to covenant. 

Kudelka, the psone game that has some references to shadow hearts was a horrible game. I found out of its connections after playing shadow hearts and covenant and decided to try and play it. (granted I emulated it as I no longer had a PSOne back then...). It was horrible horrible horrible. It was like survival horror meets srpg meets the uglies. I lasted all of 10 hours and still not getting it. I gave up after that. 

Shadow Hearts 3 the New World has some references from Shadow hearts 1 and 2 but is a completely new story and had no connection the the first two which was a major disapointment. I really wanted to continue Yuri's story, but sadly, it was not meant to be.  Its a disapointment as compared to covenant as covenant set the bar high for the seiries and suddenly the new world was average at best. Not to mention some parts were face palm worth. I'd still recomend it if you run out of things to play....ahhh... the PS2.... I sure wish I still had one...