Playstation 2 game "Shadow Hearts"
MONEY TRICK FAQ
Version 1.0 - 9/15/2002
Copyright Baxil, 2002
(baxil @ tomorrowlands.org) or
http://www.tomorrowlands.org/contact.html
All rights reserved. Please do not post this FAQ on your website or to
public forums without prior written permission from me (contact at the
addresses above). Do not publish without prior written permission. Do not
modify.
CONTENTS
A. Introduction
B. What you will need
C. Where and how to earn
C.1 Location
C.2 Technique
D. What to spend your fortune on
E. Related tips, tricks, and questions
E.1 What's this "Secret Shop" you're talking about?
E.2 Building a starting bankroll
E.3 Why do you need a starting bankroll anyway?
E.4 Hitting the Ring Tests
E.5 Can you make the Ring Tests easier?
E.6 Why do you need all five Guild Cards?
E.7 Is there any way to streamline the process?
F. Credits
(To quickly navigate, you can search for "//X" to skip to section X.)
==========================================================================
//A. INTRODUCTION\\
This is the first video game FAQ I've written. I reached the end of
Shadow Hearts, found myself wishing I could upgrade all of my characters'
final weapons, and set about raising money. It was a slow process until I
discovered a creative way to break the game. After I reviewed existing
FAQs on Shadow Hearts, I was surprised to note that nobody else seems to
have made note of this trick -- or even of the shop that makes possible the
insane amounts of money it generates! So in the interests of helping
others power up their characters, I sat down to write.
The basic idea behind it is surprisingly simple. There are five
Wholesale Guild Cards in the game, each of which allows you to do a
Judgment Ring test in shops for a 10% buy discount and a 5% sell price
improvement. The basic sell price of an item is half of the buy price.
So, with all of the guild cards, you can make money simply *by buying and
selling items* -- five Ring Tests will allow you to buy items for the base
sell price, and then even one Ring Test on a sale will generate a profit!
Without leaving town, you can max out your cash reserve!
Using this method I have consistently made *over a million cash* per
hour -- far faster than fighting monsters, even in Neameeto. Not to
mention that, thanks to the power of compound interest, the more money you
have, the more efficient the process gets!
One word of warning, though: It is not for the weak of reflex. If you
hate the Judgment Ring, you probably shouldn't bother with this trick.
While completing the Ring Tests required is not impossible, even
experienced players should still expect to do plenty of saving and
reloading.
==========================================================================
//B. WHAT YOU WILL NEED\\
First, you will need to have a PS2 memory card (as if you'd try playing
through this game without one?) with a save file near the end of the game.
You can use this trick as soon as you open Nemeton on the World Map (i.e.,
the first time you can go back to Calios to get the fifth Guild Card), but
it becomes more efficient once you have unlocked the Secret Shop (see E.1).
Second, it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you have ALL FIVE GUILD CARDS.
There are some that you are required to get in the first half of the game,
and can't pick up after going to Europe -- so unfortunately this trick
won't work for every saved game. Also, if you have managed to lose a Guild
Card from penalty points, this trick won't work.
For convenience, I'll list the location of the Guild Cards here.
* SNAKE CARD. You have to get this one before leaving Zhaoyang Village.
First beat all three bosses and restore the town to normal. Then,
before leaving the village, talk to the peddler. He'll give it to you
as a gift.
* STAR CARD. When you reach Shanghai on the smuggler's boat, return to
the docks where the boat is moored. Go belowdecks to where the Save
Point used to be. The Star Card is the red lottery prize. (As usual,
save before you play and reload if you fail. Lottery tickets are
valuable.) You must get this one before finishing Kuihai Tower and
leaving Asia. If you arrive in Shanghai without any lottery tickets,
there's one in a barrel in Zhen's Bar.
* MOON CARD. A found item in Nina's shop in Bistritz. Go back and get
it if you haven't yet.
* SUN CARD. Buy it from a man on the street in the first screen of
London's Old Castle Street.
* ETERNITY CARD. Once you clear the Calios Mental Hospital, revisit it.
Introverted Chopin will be sitting in the electric chair. Talk to him
and win the Eternity Card as the red prize in his lottery. If you
arrive in Calios without any lottery tickets, there's one in a chest
on the right side of the hallway before the electric chair room.
Third, you will have to have a starting bankroll. Because every
buy/sell loop gives you profits equal to a percentage of your investment,
the more money you have, the quicker you will be able to earn obscene
profits. I will explain the math behind this below, but I _really_
recommend starting with 200,000 cash, and preferably 400,000. If you're
tight, 100,000 will do, but it will be slow going at first, maybe no faster
than fighting monsters.
==========================================================================
//C. WHERE AND HOW TO EARN\\
//C.1. Location
Once you've collected all five Guild Cards, the only thing remaining is
to pick a shop, any shop. This trick will work at any shop in the game
(well, any shop in Europe, because you still need five Guild Cards). There
are three factors determining which shop you'll want to earn cash from:
* How close the shop is to a Save Point. In my opinion, this is the most
critical factor.
* The price of the most expensive item it sells. The more it costs, the
more efficiently the trick works in the long run.
* The music that plays while you're shopping. Don't laugh. This can make
a HUGE difference in how pleasant the process is. You'll be hearing it a
lot.
I personally find the Prague music very pleasant, which is fortunate,
because the best shop in the game by far is located there. (See the Secret
Shop information in E.1.) Once you've unlocked the secret shop, go to
Prague and buy from the Silent Peddler. It's the only choice. Until then,
here are some alternatives:
* Stay in Prague anyway. Peddler Rosa (in the bar) is 15 seconds from the
Save Point. Her most expensive item is the Silk Bolero (5,940), so the
theoretical maximum profit you can make is 73,507 cash per one "run"
(buying and selling a stack of 99 of them at full discount/raise). I find
it quicker to sell to her than the Silent Peddler (i.e., buy at the secret
shop and sell to poor Rosa), but it's not too efficient to use her alone.
* Go to Bistritz. The Chicken Heart weapon shop is on the same screen as
the Save Point and sells Royal Estocs for 6,230 (for a maximum profit of
77,096 per run). Only a tiny improvement but you may like the music more.
* The Rouen inn. The Silent Peddler is only steps away from the Save Point
and sells Cosmic Bracelets (11,500) -- a maximum profit of 142,312 per run!
He also sells them in London, but due to the Save Point proximity Rouen is
a better choice. This is the best place to go until you've unlocked the
secret shop (its Third Keys are 371,250 per run, which blows everything
else away).
* The vending machine in Nemeton. You can buy HiAlloySlingshots at 19,200
a pop (237,600 per run), and many other items sell for similar prices, so
theoretically you could buy 99 each of several high-priced items and make
800,000+ per shopping trip. But I can't recommend this. First of all,
NEMETON HAS NO SAVE unless you want to run five screens away into the
basement, so you have to go out to the World Map to save -- a trip of over
a minute either way. Secondly, the Vending Machine has the stupid "Touch
it?" query and the machine animation every time you want to enter the shop.
Nemeton's slow, annoying, and way too risky (because the only way to make
the process efficient is to get several 50% discounts or 25% sells in a row
without saving). Don't bother.
//C.2. Technique
Once you've picked a location to shop at, go there and SAVE YOUR GAME.
You will get very good at performing instant save/loads, trust me. Save
*EVERY TIME* you make a successful transaction (a 50% discount or a
successful price-raise sale). Reload immediately every time you try a Ring
Test and fail. That is an integral part of making the trick work, because
a single round of buying items at retail price (and the accompanying Guild
Card penalty point) can wipe out half an hour's profit.
I'll repeat that again: SAVE EVERY TIME YOU MAKE A SUCCESSFUL PURCHASE
OR SALE!!! You WILL be reloading a lot, so don't take ANY chances with
losing the work you've done!
Go into the shop with your starting bankroll. Pick the most expensive
item in the store (or any item that you don't have the money to buy 99 of)
and keep pressing right on the control pad until the numbers stop climbing.
This will get you to buy a stack of as many of the items as you can
afford, TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE 50% DISCOUNT. You do NOT want to manually
select only as many items as you can afford at retail price, because that
cuts the efficiency of the process dramatically! (And don't worry about
failing and earning penalty points on your Guild Card, because if you fail,
you're going to reload your saved game anyway.)
Beat ALL FIVE Ring Tests. You MUST buy at -50% to earn a profit this
way; reload the game you just saved if you fail. (Exit the shop and go
into the "Data" section of the menu screen. Shadow Hearts is nice about
letting you reload at any time.) It may take you a few reloads to beat the
tests, but sooner or later you will have a shiny new stack of items and no
cash left.
SAVE YOUR GAME AGAIN.
Go back to the shop. Select "Sell" and dump the entire stack of items
that you've just bought. You must "Raise Price" at least once for a
profit, but if you can hit a -50% Ring Test, you should have no problem
hitting +15%, +20% or even +25%. Raise the price as far as you feel
comfortable. If you fail a test and sell at retail, reload your game and
try again. When you sell for a profit, SAVE YOUR GAME again and repeat the
process!
That's it! Keep buying and selling until you have as much cash as you
want!
==========================================================================
//D. WHAT TO SPEND YOUR FORTUNE ON\\
Moxibustion! Upgrading each character's Ultimate Weapon to +3/+3 costs
up to 300,000 cash apiece. For stat-tweakers, that's the way to go -- huge
attack increases without any ring narrowing. Totally powering up all six
characters' weapons will only take you about two hours' worth of
fund-raising, from scratch -- probably less than the time you spent to find
them in the first place!
I also recommend revisiting the Secret Shop once you're finished
raising money. The Extracts he sells are invaluable; stock up. Also buy a
supply of Third Keys -- having even ten of them on hand can turn bosses
from challenges into jokes. If you're good at Attack Rings, it's like
tripling your attack power for free. (Sick = Yuri with +3/+3 Ultimate
Weapon + Mind's Eye + Third Keys, hitting consistently. You can take down
Messiah in two rounds that way.)
One thing I'd recommend is, once you've built up enough money to go out
and start spending, keep 1 million cash or so on hand in case you find the
need to perform the trick again. Ideally, 1.5 million, enough to buy 99
Third Keys. That's the maximum useful starting bankroll, so you can always
earn money at full speed.
I don't know of any place in the game to buy Seals (or Lottery
Tickets), even for ludicrous prices. And all of the best
armor/weapons/equipment are only available from treasure chests or the
Lottery. So once you've Moxibustioned your gear and stocked up on the
Secret Shop's wares, there really seems to be no point to accumulating any
more (except for bragging rights). So, unless there's a Seal shop I don't
know about, the most you will need to max out your gear and equipment will
be a little over 5 million cash. (= 99 Third Keys and Thera/Mana/Pure
Extracts at 50% discounts, and six powered weapons.)
==========================================================================
//E. RELATED TIPS, TRICKS, AND QUESTIONS\\
//E.1. What's this "Secret Shop" you're talking about?
In almost every city he appears, the Silent Peddler will offer to sell
you items. Every city ... except Prague. In Prague -- in the farthest
screen, next to Meiyuan -- the Silent Peddler mysteriously withholds his
wares.
But make no mistake, he does sell items there, and it's the good stuff!
You have to unlock the store by doing the following two things:
* Beat Amon in Nemeton Basement.
* Return to Old Castle Street and watch the cutscene with Koudelka on
the top floor of the Street Rats hideout.
(If you find other conditions, e-mail me. This always works for me.)
Once you've done that, simply return to Prague and talk to him, and
"Shopping" will be added to the list of options. His shop is called
Tight-Lipped Merchant (as usual), and sells the following items:
Weird Bottle 18,000
Thera Extract 5,000
Mana Extract 10,000
Pure Extract 20,000
Third Key 30,000
Third Keys are the most expensive buyable item I have found in the
game. I _suspect_ there may be a place you can buy Fifth Keys for 40,000,
because they have a sell price of 20,000 (unlike Seventh Keys, which are a
find-only item because they sell for 10), but so far I have not found a
shop which holds them. Please e-mail me if you find one.
//E.2. How do I build up my starting bankroll quickly?
First, try selling off all your unneeded weapons and armor.
_Definitely_ sell off all of your Extracts, Third Keys and Weird Bottles --
you can buy them back later from the Secret Shop. If you've been running
through the game like a completist, that should bring you an easy 400,000.
You can also try beating up monsters in Neameeto or the Nemeton
Basement, preferably with Brigand Earrings equipped on at least one party
member. (If you're strong enough to take on the Masks, this might be a
good time to do so. They each drop 30,000 cash the first time you beat
them. With Brigand Earrings, beating all four gives you 144,000 cash
quickly.)
One way to augment your winnings if you run around fighting monsters:
Equip a party member with a Pedometer and Accelerometer while looking for
encounters. Every 100 steps can be traded at the Silent Peddler for a
Thera Extract, which has a base sale price of 2,500 cash. (Again, don't
bother saving any. You'll buy them back later.)
//E.3. Why do I need a starting bankroll anyway?
With the way the trick works, every time you make one "run" at a shop
(buying a stack of items and then selling them again) you are earning a
profit that is a percentage of the amount you spent on the items in the
first place. This means that you will encounter two limiting factors while
playing super-merchant: One, the 99-item limit, because a single -50% Ring
Test will only get you a limited number of goods no matter how much you
have available to spend. The second, far more common, is if you don't have
enough money to buy large numbers of items.
I talk about the "theoretical maximum" profit for a single run of Third
Keys being 371,250 cash. But that is assuming you have the starting money
to buy a stack of 99 in the first place! Even if you buy at -50% and sell
at +25%, if you only have 150,000 cash as a starting bankroll, you will
only be able to afford 10 Third Keys, and you will sell them for 187,500 --
a measly profit of 37,500. So, obviously, your profit per run will be
higher if your initial investment is higher.
For an example of how big this difference is, let's look at two
hypothetical situations: a starting bankroll of 50,000 and a starting
bankroll of 200,000. Let's say that your goal is 1 million cash, and that
you are selling at +20%. With 200,000 cash, if you spend your entire
bankroll on every single run, it will take nine runs to get there. With
50,000, it will take SEVENTEEN runs, almost twice as long! The bad part is
that eight of those 17 runs will be spent on just getting you up to
200,000!
If it takes you an hour to do four runs (which is a reasonable guess if
you're just starting out with this trick and haven't been practicing with
the shop Ring Tests), that hour's worth of work will double your money
(selling at +20%). If you're doubling a 400,000 starting investment, that
means you've earned 400,000 cash in an hour -- very respectable. If you're
doubling a 50,000 starting investment, you'd have been better off fighting
monsters! You can earn 5,000 cash per encounter in Neameeto and it doesn't
take six minutes to win a fight.
Of course, that doesn't mean this trick can't be truly ludicrous. I
would estimate that a high-powered party can clear about 180,000 cash per
hour with random encounters on the top floor of Neameeto. Eight shop runs
per hour is reasonable once you've gotten into the groove of the Ring
Tests; eight runs of 99 Third Keys sold at +20% is nearly 2,400,000!!
That's over THIRTEEN TIMES faster than monster fighting!
The far edge of money cheese with this trick? I actually completed
three runs in ten minutes while playtesting the technique for this FAQ.
That's eighteen runs per hour. Those runs were for full stacks of Third
Keys sold at +25%. So if I had kept going at that pace I would have made
*6,650,000* cash in a *single hour*. 36 times faster than fighting
even the toughest monsters!
//E.4. Argh, I can't hit the Ring Tests at the shop! Challenging a 50%
discount is impossible!
Practice, practice, practice. You _can_ do it. Despite how crazy some
of the Ring Tests are, not a single one of them is impossible, even the
fast one where two of the hit areas are half an inch apart. Some are
harder than others, though, and one or two are (while technically possible)
almost certain killers. Keep at it. Have some patience. Luck _does_ play
a role, not only in whether you hit a ring but also in which test you have
to face; one or two of the 50% challenges are easier than the 40% ones. Of
course, if you can't get a 30% discount to save your life, this trick may
not be for you. ;-p
One thing that I've found can help is that once you get to the third
ring (-30% or +15%), raise your right wrist above the level of the game
controller. This makes the thumb motion to press X quicker to perform and
causes less muscle strain. You may even want to set the controller on your
lap and hit X with your index finger. Either way, that can help you get
the lightning speed to hit those two target areas that are a half-inch
apart.
Personally, I find the rings with a single target at the beginning and
two targets close together at the end aren't nearly as hard as they look.
Sacnoth (the game developers) did a _very_ good job of measuring the Rings
to make the timing natural; if I have two close-together targets and a fast
indicator, I'll just whale on the button twice as fast as I can, and 9
times out of 10 it'll work. (The other 1, I won't be fast enough.)
Always be prepared to hit X *instantly* when the target areas show up!
There are a few patterns where a target is RIGHT at the beginning. Again,
though, Sacnoth made the timing very natural; anyone with reasonable
reflexes, when trying to instantly hit the button when the indicator starts
moving, can land the "instant" target, because they seem to time it to take
into account people's reaction speed. You won't know how fast the
indicator is moving until it's about a quarter of the way through the
circle, but about half the time it won't matter on the "instant" targets.
(The other half of the time, the indicator will be sweeping at "fast ring +
Flash Badge" speeds, and it would have killed you anyway. Oh, well.)
There are one or two -50% patterns where the indicator sweeps at a
reasonable speed but you have to hit ludicrously small target areas. The
only suggestion I've got for this is to go into combat for a while and
practice hitting "Perfects" (three hits in the RED AREAS of the attack
ring). Personally I never had any trouble with the "precision" discount
tests, but then my "perfect" rate is over 50%. :-)
I've gotten to where I can reliably score a 50% discount four times out
of five. The 25% raise still drives me nuts, though. (It seems to be
harder.) So if you can't hit _that_, don't worry, and just sell at +20% or
+15%. The trick will still work as long as you can get a 50% discount once
in a while. I sell at +20% because I've found it to be more efficient for
me than wasting time continuously reloading and failing at +25%. Your
mileage may vary.
//E.5. Is there a way to make this easier? Do Judgment Ring-modifying
items make a difference in shops?
Not that I've been able to tell. I've tried shop Ring Tests with
standard equipment, and then with Iron Clogs and a Pocket Watch equipped on
Yuri. The latter wasn't any different (and I'd think a half-speed change
would be noticeable). If you find an item or process that helps, please
e-mail me.
One thing that DOES seem to affect shop Ring Tests is the price of the
item(s) being bought or sold. Hitting a 50% discount ring for a single
Thera Leaf is so easy it's a joke; hitting a 50% discount ring for 99 Third
Keys takes some skill. Of course, you can't use that to your advantage
very well here, because the point is to buy expensive things. But it's
nice to know if you want to try increasing your discount/raise percentages
for a better score rank.
It is possible that a character's Luck score may influence the
difficulty of Ring Tests, but as far as I know you can only get a Seal of
Luck in two treasure chests or in the Lottery, so I don't think it's a
theory worth testing.
//E.6. Why do I need all five Guild Cards?!
Well, let's take a sample transaction with a Bronze Arrowhead (cost:
100). If you have four Guild Cards, you can challenge a 40% discount (buy
price: 60). Now, when you go to sell the Arrowhead, you can challenge a
20% price raise. Profit, right? No, because that 20% is based on the
_sell price_ of the item, not the buy price. So you can challenge a raise
of 20% of 50 cash. That's 10. So your sell price is 60. With four Guild
Cards, the best you can do is break even. (If you buy at -40% and sell at
+25% you earn a tiny profit, but that requires five Guild Cards.)
With five guild cards, you can challenge a 50% discount (buy price:
50). Now, this is equal to the base sell price of the item! Therefore,
even a 5% raise (sell price: 52.5) generates a profit!
//E.7. Is there any way to streamline the process?
Once you have over 500,000 cash, you need to buy items that are
expensive as possible, which means unlocking the Secret Shop and going for
Third Keys. Until then, you can actually streamline the process a little
bit by buying cheaper items. Of course, never buy an item where you can
purchase 99 of them and still have money left over (unless you're rich and
are buying Third Keys because that's the most expensive thing you can
find). But if you're buying less than 99, it actually makes things faster
to buy weapons, armor, or maybe accessories. Why? Because they're closer
to the top of your list when you go to sell them again. It saves you
scrolling repeatedly through your inventory.
Personally, I feel Weird Bottles from the secret shop are the most
efficient item (until I have 900,000 cash and I hit the buy limit, anyway).
They're more expensive than any easily buyable weapon or armor, and in my
games they always seem to show up exactly seven screens down from the top
of the list, so I could just tap R1 seven times to scroll to them and mash
X until the Ring came up for the first test. (Third Keys were twelve
screens plus two lines, but sold for so much more that it didn't matter.)
Also, as an added bonus, this lets me say that Shadow Hearts encourages
you to make a fortune by becoming a European antique dealer. ;-)
If you find you can't consistently hit a 25% sell raise, then sell for
+20% (or even +15%) instead. You won't make as much per transaction, but
you'll make far more per minute. Remember, a ring failure and a reload
earns you NOTHING, so minimizing failure means more profit. (Of course, if
you can't consistently hit a 50% buy discount, practice. You need to buy
at 50% off or you can't make money.)
Also, only having one Memory Card in the PS2 seems to save you a second
or two every time you save or load. Those seconds can add up.
==========================================================================
//F. CREDITS\\
This was pretty much a one-man job. However, the following people
helped make this FAQ possible, and I am indebted to them for their work:
Mizura (nazari_mizura @ yahoo . com)
I referenced his Shadow Hearts FAQ for information on Guild Cards'
locations, lottery ticket locations and some shop information.
(
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/shadow_hearts.txt)
Joe Messer (Grand Admiral) (firstlove81 @ aol . com)
I referenced his Shadow Hearts Side Quests FAQ for information on Guild
Cards' locations.
(
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/shadow_hearts_sidequest.txt)
Sacnoth, Aruze and Midway
For bringing this cheesy but lovable game to the world.
Squaresoft
For making Final Fantasy X. Every time I started getting aggravated by
repeatedly failing to challenge a 25% raise in Shadow Hearts, I would think
of the hours I spent dodging lightning bolts in FFX, and say to myself,
"Geez, this isn't NEARLY so bad."
==========================================================================
Happy money-making!
