YMMV / Shadow Hearts: Covenant

• Abandon Shipping: Happens to many Yuri/Karin shippers after they beat the game. Long story short, thanks to time travel, she's his mother.
• Accidental Innuendo: Yuri: "That is one giant pussy." This is said to Andre, the giant pink cat, although Lucia standing with her legs spread wide right next to the cat didn't help.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: The "good" ending of changes depending on whether you view it as Yuri meeting Alice in death after losing his soul to the Mistletoe or enacting a Stable Time Loop and getting a chance to start over to go for the ending where Alice lives. Japanese guides - and a line from From the New World where Roger Bacon has never seen a successful Emigre Manuscript ritual - tend to favor the latter.
• Crazy Is Cool: Joachim. Vampire? Check! Superhero? Check! Professional wrestler? And check! From the New World gives Frank, the Polish-American McNinja.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Nicolai gets some of this, particularly in relation to his feelings for Karin.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Joachim doesn't really do much of note in the story past his introduction, but he is one of the game's most well-liked characters, whether due to being a powerhouse, openly gay at a time when that was still uncommon, very kooky or a combination of all three, most players enjoyed him especially among the new cast.
• Even Better Sequel: The first Shadow Hearts game is widely considered a solid horror RPG, with an interesting combat system and a refreshing protagonist; Shadow Hearts: Covenant, while cutting back a little in the horror department, is considered by many fans to be the apex of the series, improving upon almost every facet of what was already praised as good.
• Game-Breaker:
  • If used properly, Lucia's Aromatherapy ability can make the game much easier with the only drawback being it will effect everybody but her. While most of her Aromatherapy abilities are lackluster or somewhat useful, the one ability that really makes her stand out is her unique ability to increase the effectiveness of 'Strike' areas (increases effectiveness on many actions taken by 20% if hit) on the Judgement Ring by 50% for a turn. If one can consistently hit 'Strike' on buff spells, their effects are dramatically increased, and if combined with the 'Technical Ring', the results become godly. In the sequel, Lucia's successor Ricardo also retains this ability, and although it was nerfed to only increase the 'Strike' effect by 20%, it is still considered to be very useful.
  • The 'Spikes' equipment enables the combatant to be in permanent Resist status, which cuts down all damage received by roughly 50%, render them immune to ailments, and prevents them from being knocked away when attempting to create a combo. The only downside is that for every hit received, the combatant's SP is reduced, which makes multi-hit attacks a massive threat with low SP combatants. However if Yuri casts the 'Stand' spell, which he can obtain as as soon as he acquires the Sorm Fusion, the spell outright removes this penalty. Combine the two together, and it's highly unlikely that any enemy will deal near enough damage to KO anyone ever again.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Karin's role in the plot. In sum: Karin, a German soldier, meets and falls in love with Yuri over the course of Covenant. If you make the right decisions, each of the characters is thrown back in time and Karin meets Yuri's father Jinpachiro Hyuga and marries him, reuniting with Yuri in a roundabout way by becoming his mother. Karin finally obtains what she wanted — to love and be with Yuri — in an unexpected but certainly not unwelcome way, only to die in front of a young Yuri's eyes before the events of the first Shadow Hearts ever happen. The Stable Time Loop also ensures that, of all the party members, Karin is the only one to die a true death as a result of the villain's plans if Yuri then proceeds to get the good ending from the first Shadow Hearts.
• Ho Yay:
  • Joachim with pretty much any other male character.
  • Pierre and Gerard Magimel probably have this with themselves, but Gerard definitely has this towards the male party members. You'll see him more often than Pierre since he runs the shop, so count on some sort of comment any time he shows up.
• Low-Tier Letdown: While no character is outright bad and the player is generally rewarded well for investing in the characters' abilities, some characters are considered less worthwhile than others:
  • While Kurando does have the highest attack power in the game, he is also the worst spellcaster, while also being unable to use Crest Magic. He also only has two Fusion forms, and his spell collection during Fusion is severely limited in comparison to Yuri. While he gains his first Fusion eventually after he joins the party, he only gains his second Fusion after fully completing his exclusive sidequests, which are only unlocked after gaining access to the final dungeon. Kurando also suffers from the fact that he only joins the party at the second half of the game.
  • Gepetto is considered to be one of the weaker, if not, the weakest party members. Despite boasting the highest magic stat, he has the lowest Health, terrible physical attack and defense, and is also the slowest. His unique Marionette abilities aren't all that better than the spells he can learn from the Crest Magic system, and while his ability to change his innate Class and be granted a boost in a specific elemental power is useful, he's still too slow and fragile to take full advantage of it, and he can only change his innate Class outside of battles.
  • Anastasia is a stronger, faster, and more durable mage character than Gepetto and Lucia, but her abilities tend to be marginally useful at best and niche at worst (such as stealing Cash and Items, removing debuffs, and removing an enemy out of battles with no rewards), and they also require her to be actively partaking battles and taking a Snapshot at the enemy whose ability she can use.
  • Joachim is the second strongest physical attacker of the party who, unlike Yuri and Kurando, can equip Crests to cast magic. He can also change into up to three alternate forms to change his battle style and potentially boost his offensive power even more, with his Grand Papillon form being his strongest. However, Joachim can only take on certain forms after partaking in a certain number of battles, and while his unique accessories can alter the chances of certain forms from appearing more often, it's still quite a hassle to continuously battle enemies until the right form emerges.
    • One of his unique forms, Invisible, is essentially useless due to turning the party's designated tank invisible, prompting all enemies to point their offense towards his allies instead. and should Invisible Joachim be the last combatant standing, his invisibility gimmick stops working entirely.
• Magnificent Bastard: Masaji Kato started off as a comic relief character, but after suffering tragedy grew into one of the most formidable in the series. Formerly Kawashima's bumbling assistant, after her death Kato changed, becoming a high commander for the Japanese army and Yuri's good friend. In charge of forming an alliance with Nikolai and Russia, Kato had other plans: making a deal with Nikolai to steal the Emigre Manuscript for him before capturing him for his powers, Kato used this to see his desire to resurrect Kawashima as the Mutant Ape Ouka come to fruition. However, when he lost Ouka from Nikolai's rampage, Kato snapped, setting up the Japanese government's downfall for letting this happen betraying them to Yuri. After their defeat, Kato planned to return the world 100 years in the past so he could rebuild it, but set-up Yuri to stop him in hopes he could fix the world in his stead, even arranging things to let him see Alice one last time to motivate him. When Yuri defeats him, Kato gracefully urges Yuri and his group to build the world they wish for before thanking Yuri for being his friend one last time. Savvy and sharp, Kato's growth has made him a character the many look up to as a magnificent antagonist.
• Narm: The scene late in the game where Yuri and Roger attempt to revive Alice so she could say goodbye to him is intended to be genuinely sad... though some players found themselves laughing instead once Yuri started crying and his face contorts into a hilarious expression.
• Squick:
  • Kato creating Ouka as a Replacement Goldfish for his dead love interest. It gets even more disturbing when Raiden and Hien discuss, in a cutscene, about Kato and Ouka wanting to have a baby together. It's probably the Intended Audience Reaction though.
  • Karin's attraction with the inhuman Amon, who is also her son. More so after it's revealed that she is stalking him through time itself to be with him as a child. Assuming she retains her memories after the time travel (debatable), that's one messed-up family.
• Strangled by the Red String: Anastasia and Kurando appears to be entirely one sided for the greater part of the game. Anastasia develops a crush on Kurando the moment she meets him, obsesses over him and even gets engaged to him behind his back, thanks to his mother. While Kurando does warm up to Anastasia throughout their journey, we don't really get to see what his feelings are for her. The ending heavily suggests that they will end up together, given that both of their wishes seemed to be about staying together. While a sweet relationship, it feels very forced on Kurando's part due to his lack of screen time, and would definitely be frowned upon if their genders were switched.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Nicolai. Revelations about his character with Rasputin reveals that he is Tsar Nicolas's bastard, and is using Kato to take over Russia from Rasputin's hand. Instead, once they get to Japan, Nicolai is tortured, Astaroth takes over, and he is killed by Kato. In particular, there's no dialogue with his own sister, Anastasia.
  • Karin herself also qualifies. She is introduced as a Decoy Protagonist who initially assists Nicolai in his quest before his betrayal and killing of her men, and afterwards is immediately replaced by Yuri, the hero from the first game, for the rest of the story. Karin herself is given no backstory and no motivation to join Yuri in his quest besides being set up as his second-love interest after the death of Alice, and her background as a former lieutenant on the run is never explored again after a throwaway line from Anastasia. If it weren't for the end-game twist that reveals that Karin goes back in time and becomes Yuri's mom, Karin could easily have been written out of the story altogether.
  • Kurando is the final character to be added to the party, and his introduction ends up being more about the Kawashimas. His backstory ends up being more about Yuri and the Harmonixer bloodline than himself. He's the only other Harmonixer that Yuri has met outside of his own father, he's Yuri's cousin, yet the two barely interact with one another. Kurando's main purpose seems to be the love interest for Anastasia, and even that can appear one-sided given that Kurando doesn't really get the chance to show how he feels about Anastasia in return though the ending does imply that he has feelings for her.
• Tough Act to Follow: From the New World had the daunting task to be the sequel to this game. While the sequel is far from mediocre, not having Yuri, among other things, have made fans of the series a bit unhappy with it.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The boss that is a giant spider with human fingers for legs and mandibles, a human nose placed in the middle of it's head, and a realistic human mouth with teeth and lips.
• Underused Game Mechanic: A Malice mechanic is alluded in the game, but, like its apparent plot significance, never comes up in-game.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Many of the Queer People Are Funny moments and the "Mental test" in the "Man festival" is definitely a product of the Turn of the Millennium the game was made in. It probably would not be Played for Laughs if it were made in The New '10s or The New '20s.
  • Values Resonance: At the same time, Joachim is a character who is gay — but his character arc has very little to do with him actually being gay.
• The Woobie: Anastasia's family is being gaslighted by Rasputin, and he is easily able to turn them against her by using mind control to make it look as if she's going to stab her little brother. Anastasia has no other choice than to run away with Yuri and the rest of the party, even though she knows Rasputin is pure evil, and that both her family and all of Russia is in danger. Anastasia's mother is particularly cold towards her even before the incident with Alexei. While things do eventually turn around for Anastasia, she's still a pampered fourteen year old girl thrown into a world she knows little about.