Shadow Hearts From The New World - What Would I Change With The Script And Characters?

*In Progress*

Intro:
It was a game I was always conflicted with. Back when the game came out and I have to be honest despite being a huge Shadow Hearts fan I forgot that it was coming out back then.
It was actually one day when I was passing by gamestop and I saw it brand new sitting in one of their shelves and I picked it up and bought it instantly, I was like oh shit is this real. But yet I actually remembered following it a bit when it was coming out in Japan
in July 2005 in america march 2006 then europe may 2007 which i think sort of killed it along with having learnt it does not feature
yuri and alice then i kinda forgot about it. then when i actually played it, it is a solid game but it was just a huge disconnect
it wasnt even like from koudelka to shadow hearts 1 this felt much more.
but afterall it was mostly a different creative team who made from the new world compared to SH1 or Covenant.

What would I change? 
Note the goal is to keep the script as close to the original as possible, meaning even when big changes happen is to keep as compact as possible without having to rewrite the entire story.
Also to have it more connected and inspired by the previous Shadow Hearts titles. The theme and to create possible sequels.

The characters
Johnny --> Halley
Like when the game was going to be set in America so like why did they not use Halley?
He goes over, you can have a time skip and maybe they could not find Edward (Halley's father).And that is what motivated him to open his detective agency.

Lady/Grace --> Lady/Grace 
This is the first somewhat big unavoidable change as Grace can't be Halley's sister.
Option 1:
Lady/Grace becomes Shania's sister which I think could be interesting which probably wouldn't take too much editing, certain parts of the story lines would change from Johnny to Shania.
In previous SH games, Alice and Koudelka are keys they are rare exist only once every 100 years, so maybe the experiment was to create a new key rather than to revive the dead.
Option 2: Lady/Grace is complete a creation of malice / not human at all, an attempt to create a new key. It could be written into the story why she looks like Alice as do Killer to Yuri.

Lenny --> Koudelka
Option 1:
Somewhat a natural change, maybe from the events of SH1 she has lost her powers or became weak where she can't fight anymore since Lenny is not a part of the party.
Option 2: Lenny and Natan gets combined and becomes Koudelka so she can be in the party, although quite a bit of adapting would be needed.

Shania --> Shania 
Option 1: Becomes Lady's sister so she feels like it is her duty to kill her.
She gets her fusion powers from an experiment (revivial replaced with experiment)
(she was kidnapped along with Lady / Grace)
So she would (somewhat) replace Johnny's original role but differently.
Also Shania will not be a love interest for Halley but maybe a love triangle?
Option 2: Keep as is but maybe Killer replaces Johnny in the sequence during the experiment and he does not remember anything of it.

Natan --> Natan or Take out the character
Option 1: He has guilt over Shania being captured maybe he felt that it was his fault so he has dedicated his life to helping her.
Option 2: Take out his character from the story completely as I feel like his lines could be adapted to other characters and I feel that Shania could be more of a loner.
Other ideas would be to replace Natan with Koudelka or maybe even Margarette.

Frank Goldfinger --> Joachim Valentine 
I felt that some characteristics were similar and changing ninja to wrestler is possible and he would be (kinda like) a new character to the cast here, so the lines may not have to be even edited as heavily.

Mao --> Chris (London Rats)
Probably the biggest change a big change but one where it builds a strong connection to the original SH especially through Halley.
I would give her the name Christina and make her Halley's love interest,
I felt Mao wanting to get into acting this could work for Chris maybe she grew up became a beautiful young woman. she got scouted an opportunity but then it didn't go quite right and got mixed in the wrong crowd, certain parts would need heavy edits while others not as much.

Hildegard Valentine --> New Character. 
Well if we have Joachim then maybe 2 bats are too many but Hilda's character can be used for a different SH story. Anyways how about a cat person but who can transform into something similar like Mao or a demon cat.

Ricardo Gomez --> Qiuhua Zhen?
Maybe

Adapting the changes
Timeline - 1926 (3 years earlier). SH1 1913 SHFTNW 1929 Halley 28 -> 25
Edward - is missing (To start the events) this helps keeping the script as close to the original
London Rats --> Even though Koudelka promised to take them with her and Halley but they couldn't
due to that they couldn't adopt them. Joshua and Sharon got adopted.
Gilbert - change his reason for coming into the agency, claims to be Lady's father (lie) or searching for Edward etc...

Shadow Hearts PS2 Lets Play With Imbroglio Difficulty Mod Part 5 (Smuggler’s Boat)

Subscribe to my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSnL95moNV6JKFXEJ-19A0w

So here is the fifth part of my let's play of Shadow Hearts with the Imbroglio (difficulty) mod.
Link to the patch: here
The mod basically adjusts the stats of almost every enemy and boss in the game, making the game overall much tougher. Even random battles can feel like a boss at times, with mistakes or getting ambushed could be fatal.

My review of the Imbroglio mod for Smuggler’s Boat:

I liked it, not a whole lot to say considering its a smaller area with a good bit of story.
Everything felt balanced, a good challenge and exp gain was good also.

One minor thing although it is actually the game itself rather than the mod is that Alice does not gain levels during Dalian although characters do gain levels off screen other times ie when Alice was captured by Dehuai or when a character is not accessible or a while.

I enjoyed the boss fight vs li li. 1st round yuri was the attacker and alice the healer then in the 2nd round the roles reversed due to li li attacks targeting the whole party. Taking advantage of a boss or monster weakness but then also to know when to be that extra bit careful, I really like it.

Shadow Hearts PS2 Lets Play With Imbroglio Difficulty Mod Part 4 (Dalian)

Subscribe to my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSnL95moNV6JKFXEJ-19A0w

So here is the forth part of my let's play of Shadow Hearts with the Imbroglio (difficulty) mod.
Link to the patch: here
The mod basically adjusts the stats of almost every enemy and boss in the game, making the game overall much tougher. Even random battles can feel like a boss at times, with mistakes or getting ambushed could be fatal.

My review of the Imbroglio mod for Dalian:
I really enjoyed the boss Yamaraja: Wind I used Tornado Fusion and B. Tortoise Fang plus Bronze Daggers items. Stuff I never really used normally. Boss fights prior with the mod main thing was to be extra cautious but now tactics are more heavily involved even with me using a fusion to take advantage of the boss's weakness which never really had to be done normally in game (unless if you are like blazing through the game) but here it is vital and I have the sense of that will happen even more with future boss fights. Other notes: exp felt a bit low in this area, it felt barely higher than
Fengtian, it felt strange because I have spent more time in other areas but here it felt like a lot of time just to level up by 2. Also exp for bosses remain the same where I would not really see the harm in getting a bit extra just to feel like you've earned it compared to normal enemies (even if the increase not is less than random enemies but just to make sure that you get more - granted here it has not happened but it will for sure in future areas.) I don't mean to sound critical because I absolutely love this mod as it brought a new spin to the game and fixes a few issues that the original game had. A few tweaks and I would not be surprised if someone just thought it was a tuff retail game.


Note:
A few people had asked what I use so here it is:
I use OBS Studio to record, Shotcut to edit (both of which are free software)
Emulators I use PCSX2 latest dev version with config from Zombeaver's github *Note I removed the no interlacing patch due to it causing flickering at the victory screen*
I also use attract mode with rocketlauncher so therefor I can load config per game which saves the hassle of having multiple of pcsx2 or having to change settings constantly.

Updated my post on what ideas I have for Shadow Hearts

Can be found on original post: here

Shadow Hearts PS2 Lets Play With Imbroglio Difficulty Mod Part 3 (Fengtian)

Subscribe to my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSnL95moNV6JKFXEJ-19A0w

So here is the third part of my let's play of Shadow Hearts with the Imbroglio (difficulty) mod.
Link to the patch: here
The mod basically adjusts the stats of almost every enemy and boss in the game, making the game overall much tougher. Even random battles can feel like a boss at times, with mistakes or getting ambushed could be fatal.

My review of the Imbroglio mod for Fengtian:
Not a huge amount to say, similar to Zhaoyang in the sense of when you just have Yuri and Alice in your party it is very tuff but wasn't as bad as Zhaoyang mainly due to shorter distance to get Margarete in the party and I got luckier with not having as many back attacks. One part I felt here that there was a good bit of grinding to do and having spent quite a bit of time in a smallish area although it wasn't too bad and I did enjoy it as it was a good way to really get into the game and especially the mod. Boss again you just have to be very careful and manage your HP well and you should not have issues just remember prior to the boss you fight a couple of battles. One thing which was my fault I was kind of left short on supplies so I advise anyone playing to stock up before going down to the sewers.

Note:
A few people had asked what I use so here it is:
I use OBS Studio to record, Shotcut to edit (both of which are free software)
Emulators I use PCSX2 latest dev version with config from Zombeaver's github *Note I removed the no interlacing patch due to it causing flickering at the victory screen*
I also use attract mode with rocketlauncher so therefor I can load config per game which saves the hassle of having multiple of pcsx2 or having to change settings constantly.