Shadow Hearts as a series has may things that has involved during the game life cycle. One of those things is Malice. What started as measurement became something fare more power. Today we will go over it.
Malice has been in all 3 Shadow Hearts. Each time it role in the story grew. 1st one Malice was used as a measurement. The measurement was for the graveyard to let you know when it was time to go to the graveyard. This where you face the mask champion or you stay out and face fox face.
This would be the Malice role but this changes into Covenant. Here we see Malice as an energy that has been contained by the church. By the end of the disc 1 Yuri and the other true to hurry and stop Nicolai from opening the door to Malice and filling the world with it only to fail. But bring in World War and plunging the world into war isn’t the role Malice has in the game.
The role is that something of a lethal power. This we see in Ashtaroth. In his neo form he is power by Malice which as described by Kato apes as poisons. ” One scratch and you are gone.” Is the description we are given. So at this point not only do we see Malice has evolved to effect people but it can change creatures as well as be deadly in some cases.
This is a big step up but not the last. In From The New World we see Malice has become a big part of the story. Lady goes through the story using Malice to not only kill people but also bring people back to life. This was attempted through out the series but in From The New World the resurrection works in away thanks to the energies Malice and Will.
Malice big role is that it seems to be able to revive people but in a way that contaminate them. They brought back but not the same with Edna who becomes a monster. We also see this with Killer and Gilbert but they seem to have better control as not only can they transform but they also are able to open windows to unleash monster most likely from the other side of the gate. Now Lady and Johnny are what I call Awakers as that is what Johnny transformation is called in the game. The awaker is able to use Malice and Will freely to this point they are the only ones able too. Killer is able to use Malice thanks to Lady so he doesn’t count and we don’t know how Gilbert became able to do so. What we do know is that Malice was trying to come into our world through something called the gate but Native tribes of the Americas stopped them using Will. This stopped the gate from opening.
Will is seen as the opposite of Malice as it doesn’t just stop it but allow those controlled by Malice to retain there true selves. That as one Malice takes hold the person becomes an agent of destruction. This is what happen to Lady as Lady let her will go into Johnny to save him and lose self in the process. Thus we need both Will and Malice to revive someone Malice for the body and emotion with will for the soul. This lead both Garlands to become Awakers.
Now there is something we don’t know as it is hard to tell if awakers are form this world naturally? If malice and will are the only thing it or if there are more than awakers and monsters living there? It is hard to say as when we go into the gate we see the world on the other side in final dungeon alone so we don’t get a lot of info there. But we do get something as maybe Malice is also used in making curses. I saw this based on 3 things. 1 Lady summons a Malice umbrella which you must defeat to win the battle. The umbrella uses spells with hex in front of it for all of it attacks. Hexes a similar to curses
Now the bad ending has us rewinding time with Shania having Malice eyes. I think if we were to get another game that she would have had a curse on her as well as a power up from the Malice as way of a mechanic. This is a wat if but I think we saw this work in Shadow Hearts 1. In the first one we had the Malice build and when it reached full we face fox face until we rest it by going to the graveyard. If we can look at Malice being part of the spell than we can say that the mask were using Malice to power the curse on Yuri. Something he over comes by the end of it. We see this in Covenant when Yuri souls keep the Malice away from Alice.
Now it is unclear if the Malice would be able to corrupt Alice the same way it did with everyone else. Remember Alice is a key of light giving her exceptional magic powers. With Yuri being able to keep the Malice at bay chances are she might be able to as well We don’t know but if Malice has a connection with magic and with it to curses it most likely we might have seen that through Shania if we had got a sequel to this spin off series. But that is a thought of if Sacnoth and Aruze being around to give us to series not in the franchise let alone one. Hopefully we get that back. Some day.
If you like what you see please like and follow. As always thank you for reading.
