Shadow Hearts' 25th anniversary celebrated with a message from director Matsuzo Machida

by Kite Stenbuck on 29 June, 2026

June 28, 2026, marked the 25th anniversary of Shadow Hearts, which was released for PlayStation 2 first in Japan on the same date in 2001. Celebrations for this anniversary notably came from a tweet by Matsuzo Machida, the game's creator.

Matsuzo particularly worked on Shadow Hearts as its director and scenario writer. However, it is also worth noting that this was the last game where he was credited as Matsuzo Itakura, which was also used during his work on Squaresoft games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, and Xenogears. He only started using Matsuzo Machida in the credits from the 2004 sequel Shadow Hearts 2, where he had the same jobs as the first game.

You can find the Japanese tweet below, followed by our English translation of the tweet:

みなさん、こんにちは。シャドウハーツ25周年ということで、お祝いの言葉をいただきありがとうございます。最近は忙しくてSNSから離れ気味でした。その忙しさも一段落しましたので、本日はSH25周年の御礼と近々出版予定の書籍についてお知らせさせていただきます。… pic.twitter.com/cdbmLET9ev
— 町田松三 @PENNYBLOOD (@MachidaMatsuzo) June 28, 2026

Good afternoon, everyone. Since it's the 25th anniversary of Shadow Hearts, thank you all for sending celebratory messages. Recently I've been feeling like detached from social media since I've been busy. That business has also settled down for now, so today I would like to express my gratitude for SH's 25th anniversary while informing about the books that are planned to be published soon.
Although Shadow Hearts was an RPG made in the PS2 era, I am very grateful that enthusiastic fans of it are still around even now. That time was a period where people created many new titles that changed the track from fantasies like FF (Final Fantasy) and DQ (Dragon Quest), and Shadow Hearts had its cry of birth in that era. When I think about it now, this game was able to be delivered to this world thanks to the hard work of every staff member and multiple small miracles piling up.

As an additional note, Matsuzo confirmed in this announcement thread that he is still working on Penny Blood. The upcoming RPG has the companion action roguelike game Penny Blood: Hellbound available formally on PC via Steam since late 2024. In addition, the books announced refer to The Magnificent Grimoarel series, which was originally planned to be made into a video game but ended up becoming novels. The first four volumes are set to have renewed releases, with the new 5th volume set to appear via Amazon around July 10.