Shadow hearts story has the players facing powerful foes who posses incredible power. One power we were introduced to a great power which was held back by 2 doors. One door is in Apoina Tower in Shadow Hearts Covenant the other is a structure in Shadow Hearts From the New World. Both are doors that should never be open. Today we will be talking about them.
First Lets talk about what these doors hold back. The tower is in Rome sealing Malice that when opened by Nicolai releases hatred and darkness that plunges the world into dark times.
““(The Malice) will creep into the hearts of people all over the world. All their petty, paltry vices would become magnified…warped into anger, bittnerness and envy. Don’t you see? men will slaughter each other like cattle to get ahead!”
This Malice was gathered over the tower bloody history as it served as a dungeon and prison before becoming a safe place for the church sacred relics. Now we don’t if this went into 2nd world war but it did the 1st.
For the gate we are looking at another dimension filled with Malice. This dimension was locked away by the Native tribes of the Americas. It was opened in FTNW now we don’t know the implications as the ending shows no matter which one you choose the gate was opened and something got out.
Now unlike when Nicolai released Aponia tower malic vault we have no true idea what Lady big plan was because she didn’t have one. At best Lady was being controlled by Malice or driven by it as she showed emotion but didn’t really show much character until Killer was defeated.
Now what makes these 2 doors so important when they were stopped. Nicolai did open the vault but humanity survived WW1 and as for the gate Johnny and the crew stopped it. Well I think this was to continue more lore. We know thanks to From The New World that Malice can turn things into monsters and in Covenant that it can strengthen monsters as well. Meaning that while Shadow Hearts normally looks to lore and mythos to usually create its monsters they could have used the doors to introduce brand new ones.
Now there are some monstered SH has made up before. Both in normal enemies as well as in bosses. At the same time we can see that as we look more into it the game always like creating new ones or recreating them. As such these events would survive as a way to bring back enemies with a new look. For example lets say we got Sh4 right and Machida along with the rest of the team decided to return to the current time. With it we could have Yuri or the valentines deal with classic monster who have been changed and given reason or mythos behind why they have changed.
Or in some cases why they keep changing. As you have noticed in one of my pictures we have had a bosses appear in all 3 SH games. Most of the time this happens in long running games as a fan favorite or creators. Janus for one example was disgusting and comical in SH2 but in FTNW we see him become more rock and roll with the spikes. Then we have Tamaris who if you wont to be technical goes all the way back to Kodelka. He changes with each one but it is for the most part a baby on top of a monster ball or head. For the most part he is a sub quest boss but by From The New World he is not optional but still a pain as he introduces us to spirit ward.
Now SH monsters whether they be normal enemies or big bad bosses that have you cursing at them are from lore as we discussed and with these changes made by the doors we can see hunters such as Natan have more back story as they record these creatures change from creature to monster.
But it doesn’t stop there as you must consider that there maybe other doors or vaults like these that should never be opened. In case of Aponia tower we have a dungeon where so many people died they haunted it and the church only option was to seal the malic away. If you give it some thought we are basically talking about a place haunted by malevolent entities. That can be anywhere on earth where people died horrible ways from prison to hospitals or battlefields.
In The gate case we are talking about one of the many Alien constructs hidden or in this case attached to this planet. Since it is one of those structures we are talking about we know there are many as Roger stated in SH1. Whether he was counting this as one of them is unknown since the prior 3 where used to summon gods to earth. The gate is to another dimension so this might be different. Either way there could be more and as such other ways Malice beings can enter our world.
But that closes this post on the doors and why they are so big. If you have anything to say on it pleas let me know. This goes for other subjects regarding Shadow Hearts.
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