of staff wishes and fan feedback. Kato designed all the characters, with some going through notable redesigns; one was Natan, whose early character design was far leaner than his final appearance. For Shania's Fusion forms, she was given the direction to make them appear like goddesses rather than monsters. The game used a modified version of the Covenant engine. More detailed character expressions were incorporated, and load times were decreased. Unlike Covenant, From the New World used only one PS2 DVD, which caused problems with data storage. The CGI cutscenes were created by computer graphics studio Avant, with motion capture being handled by Dynapix. Avant had previously created the CGI cutscenes for Covenant. Many of the motion capture actors had previously worked on Covenant. The real-time cutscenes were made more cinematic, with more attention paid to camera angles and character movement. Despite the change to a lighter atmosphere, monster designs continued to draw inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, an influence reaching back to the first Shadow Hearts. Music Yoshitaka Hirota, composer for the previous two Shadow Hearts games, returned for From the New World. Hirota was joined by Ryo Fukuda, who collaborated on the first Shadow Hearts, and Tomoko Imoto and Hirotomi Imoto. Imoto also acted as sound director. For the music, Hirota researched Native American music and made heavy use of vocals and ethnic music, fusing ancient instruments with electronic elements. The series theme "Icaro" was reprised in an arranged form. Choral work was led by Akiko Shikata. The main theme "Spread My Wings" was composed by Hirota, and was performed and written by Takehara Tomoaki from the indie funk band Taste of Chocolate. A soundtrack album was released by Team Entertainment on August 24, 2005 in parallel with an arrange album of tracks from across the Shadow Hearts series. Release From the New World was first announced by publisher Aruze in March 2005, with the first trailer being included in the director's cut edition of Covenant. The game was released in the region on July 28, 2005. It came in both standard and limited editions. The latter included a soundtrack CD, and additional merchandise including a themed T-shirt and keyholder. Other separate merchandise was produced, including several guidebooks, and an artbook which included character illustrations and developer commentary. While previous Shadow Hearts games were localised by Midway Games, From the New World was licensed for a