By: Patrick Hawes-DeFrias
Background:
(SPOILERS may apply)
Frank Goldfinger is from one of my personal favorite JRPG’s,
Shadow Hearts: From the New World. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. Shadow
Hearts was a lesser-known JRPG series on the Playstation 2, though it actually
started on the PS1 with the game Koudelka, the series’ progenitor. The Shadow
Hearts games are a bizarre, but interesting, mismatch of quasi-historical
settings, fantasy elements, goofiness, Anime character tropes, and
Eldritch/Lovecraftian horror, all wrapped up in a fun and interesting
turn-based battle system that utilizes the “Judgement Ring” (a spinning dial
which you use good timing to determine hits, misses and critical hits), combos,
combo finishers, manipulation of turn order, and so on. It’s weird, really
weird. And From the New World is possibly the strangest. How strange is it?
Well, you bust Al Capone out of Alcatraz with the help of an anthropomorphic
talking cat who is a master of Drunken Fist.
No, Really.
Anyway, back to business. Before We get into Frank’s story,
it might be helpful to discuss the setting and introduction of the game itself
a bit. The game takes place in the Americas of 1929. Well, a version of them, anyway. Magic is
something that certain people know about, there are the aforementioned talking
cat-people, and so on. But generally speaking, it’s just Prohibition-Era
America spanning from New York, where the game starts, all the way to Brazil in
the latter half of the story. The amnesiac hero, Johnny Garland, is running a
detective agency. He gets a job from an incredibly sketchy-looking guy named
Professor Gilbert, who happens to look like the Penguin from the Batman comics
(see below).  |
| The most trustworthy of clientele. |
He wants Johnny to find a missing person, which serves as
the game’s tutorial and opening dungeon. You find the guy, Marlow, who’s
completely deranged. And then… an Eldritch horror comes through a portal and
eats him. After Johnny is saved by a Native American shape shifter and her
Gun-Fu practicing bodyguard (starting to see how strange this game is?), he
realizes that Gilbert isn’t in town anymore. The group decides to team up, and
look for Gilbert at his workplace, Arkham University (I swear that Gilbert has
no actual relation to the Batman mythos whatsoever). It’s here that we meet
Frank, who is at first introduced as a strange Brazilian man in a business suit
who is investigating Gilbert. After exploring an underground facility and
discovering Gilbert has locked monsters down there for experimentation, the
party once again meets Frank Goldfinger. Properly this time. He’s seen trying
to do the classic Ninja trope of hiding behind a sheet to make himself
invisible. Unfortunately for him, he decided to pack a sheet about as loud and
vibrant as a Mardi Gras parade, leading to a strange scene of slapstick comedy
where the eldritch abominations mercilessly beat on the would-be ninja.
Finally, after being saved from the monsters, Frank goes into his backstory.
Originally a Brazilian businessman, he survived a plane
crash in the South American rainforest where he was saved and trained by a
secret ninja clan. His mentor is Mao, the talking cat from earlier, and he both
fears and respects her. He is a skilled, but eccentric, fighter and lock pick,
and despite his goofiness, his skills allow the party to get out of many tough
spots. His goal in joining them on this adventure? Simple: to fight for the
FREEDOM OF AMERICA.
His fighting style involves creating makeshift weapons by
attaching katana hilts onto random objects. Interestingly, the weapons all have
their own introduction cutscene, with each of them giving Frank some kind of
personal revelation, almost turning them into characters in their own right.
Take, for example, the Marlin Saber:
 | |
| Sorry for the image quality. |
“Epoch-making ninja sword with a swordfish for a blade. Forget
about the spike—there’s nothing in the world quite as unnerving as an attack
with a dead fish’s eyes.” –in-game description
While traveling through an old, wrecked pirate ship, the
party comes across the body of a dead marlin. Frank immediately recognizes the
fish as Mike, the fish that got away from him in a fishing competition. He
decides to honor his “old rival” by turning his remains into a mighty weapon.
Through these scenes we see a surprising amount of his
personality and history, especially when compared to other characters. He’s
incredibly memorable, and the zany things he brings to the adventure present
much-needed levity to the fairly dark story.
Why We Love Him:
- His character and backstory are utterly ridiculous, even in the context of a world with drunken talking cats.
- Despite Frank being a joke, he is a fairly strong character. We learn more about him than any of the other supporting class, and his abilities help out the party on several occasions.
- Having said that, he’s really goofy, and it’s fun to see that in both gameplay and story. Gameplay-wise, we get to see him swing around crazy weapons, and he has silly abilities such as using ice magic to create a giant bowling ball, which he rolls at his enemies while shouting “A nice spare!”
- Story-wise, his humorous presence helps to calm down the dark tone of the plot, such as when the heroes find out some horrible revelation and all have these expressions of shock or horror, but Frank responds by raising his hands in the air and screaming “OH MY GOD!”
- He fights for the FREEDOM OF AMERICA.
Links:
http://shadowhearts.wikia.com/
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