Collecting Shadow Hearts in English
Four games, seven discs, two variants that matter, and prices that took twenty years to wake up.
The English shelf is small enough to complete and strange enough to stay interesting. Koudelka (PlayStation, Infogrames, 2000) is a four-CD jewel-case set. Shadow Hearts (PS2, Midway, 2001) is a single DVD. Covenant (2004) sprawls over two DVDs. From the New World (Xseed, 2006) returns to one. No game in the line has ever been remastered, ported or re-released digitally, so the discs are not one option among many; they are the archive.
COMPLETENESS, CHECKED IN NUMBERS
The catalogue numbers are the checklistKoudelka: four discs, four numbers
The US cover itself prints the set: SLUS-01051, SLUS-01100, SLUS-01101, SLUS-01102. A copy missing any disc is a project, not a purchase. The Japanese set runs SLPS 02460 to 3.
Covenant: the two-disc trap
North American Covenant is SLUS-21041 and SLUS-21044 (Japan: SLPS-25334 and 25335). Lone Disc 1 copies and listings with a damaged Disc 2 are the most common defective offerings in the series; both discs, then the manual and registration card, are what “complete” means here.
The promotional Shadow Hearts
Midway’s 2004 Covenant pre-order campaign gave the first game away free, and those copies are a distinct variant, marked “Promotional Copy, Not for Resale.” The disc content is identical to retail. Collectors price the marked variant below a clean retail copy, and sellers do not always say which one they are listing: ask.
The Japanese shelf, for the completist
Japan adds editions the West never saw: a Shadow Hearts the Best reissue with a bonus DVD, Covenant’s black-boxed DX Pack, the expanded Director’s Cut of Covenant that remains Japan-only, and the FtNW Starter Pack with its two guidebooks. They are pictured in the gallery.
PRICES, AS DATED HISTORY
Snapshots, not live quotes2004 · free
The most famous price in the series is zero: a new copy of Shadow Hearts, bundled with Covenant pre-orders at North American retailers in the autumn of 2004.
2008 to 2009 · the quiet years
Period forum records put complete copies of the first game at around $60 on eBay in 2008, with the promotional variant changing hands near $23; by 2009, GameStop’s used shelves held the trilogy at roughly $25 to $30, $25 and $18.
Late 2025 · the cult wakes
PriceCharting snapshots from late 2025 list complete North American copies at roughly $234 for Koudelka, $95 for Shadow Hearts, $70 for Covenant and $61 for From the New World. PAL Covenant completes nearer $58 in October 2026 snapshots. Treat these as dated readings of a thin market, not as appraisals.
Why Koudelka leads
The prequel is the expensive one because it is the scarce one: a late, niche PS1 release whose four discs must all survive, attached to a series whose reputation was built by its sequels. Scarcity times story is the whole formula, and this line has both.