| “ | Score one for Frank! | „ |
| ~ Frank Goldfinger |
Frank Goldfinger is one of the main characters in the game Shadow Hearts: From the New World. Frank is Polish American citizen trained in ninjutsu by an ancient and secretive Ninja clan stationed in Brazil. Many details of his time in Brazil remain a mystery, but once he finished his training he began journeying the Americas looking to ply his talents fighting the forces of evil wherever he could find them.
Arkham University[]
By all accounts Frank was a highly ineffective hero for the bulk of his career, constantly on the look out for evil to face but almost always coming up short and never quite able to find a true villain to fight. In his travels across the United States, Frank eventually caught wind of a man named Professor Gilbert. According to rumor a variety of monsters were appearing at Arkham University in New York, Frank eagerly made the trip there to uncover the mystery. Though Frank could not find any monsters at first, investigation soon linked rumors of monsters with odd and unholy experiments conducted by resident Professor Gilbert. Both staff members and students disliked Gilbert and several incidents had lead to Gilbert being moved to a lab off the main campus. Just as Frank began piecing together all his information he encountered a boy named Johnny Garland and his Native American friends, Shania and Natan. Johnny and his friends were looking for Gilbert as well, but unlike Frank the three seemed oblivious to the rumors of evil doing and were instead looking for him to deliver some information and with questions of their own
Remaining wary of the new party Frank quickly crept off once he was certain the three knew nothing of Gilbert's actual location. Johnny, Shania and Natan began combing Arkham for information as Frank had. Eventually Johnny and his friends heard about the off campus lab and made their way there through a small underground complex that acted as the back door to Gilbert's study. While journeying through the complex Johnny and his friends encountered horrific creatures of twisted flesh and fierce blood-lust. Johny, Shania and Natan fought off the creatures and pressed on to find Gilbert, they would pass a large door that seemed to lead to the study but found it locked and so continued on hoping to find Gilbert in the complex itself or a switch to release the gate. Deep in the complex Johnny, Shania and Natan found Frank surrounded by monsters and saved him. Frank was very grateful and felt he could trust his rescuers with his secret, that he was in-fact a ninja and had come to seek Gilbert and make him pay for creating monsters. Johnny explained that he was a junior detective and was reporting in on a case Gilbert had hired him for and that Shania and Natan were tracking a monster they called Lady which had wiped out the rest of their tribe and tracked many of their leads to Gilbert. Once Frank understood the three other heroes were not lackeys of Gilbert and in gratitude for saving his life Frank pledged to help them in their quest and insisted on joining them to find Gilbert, make him pay for his crimes and continue to help them fight evil such as "the Lady" once Gilbert was punished. Though the three appreciated the sentiment they admitted they had hit a road-block since the main door of the complex seemed locked, Frank laughed though say that if they allowed him to join their quest he would gladly get them through the door using a very special ninja technique.
Arriving back at the door Frank used his special ninja technique...by opening the door with a key he found in the lab. Johnny was most disappointed in the technique, though Shania and Natan seemed to view the technique of slight of hand as perfectly functional. Once passed the door Johnny, Shania, Natan and Frank were able to get into Gilbert's main office via it's back-door. Johnny reported he had found Gilbert's old friend Marlow Brown as Gilbert had requested but that almost as soon as he had Brown was attacked by a monster; a monster similar to the ones found in Gilbert's complex. Gilbert was far from disappointed and laughed off the death, saying he had actually expected such a scenario to play out but could have been certain unless Johnny had gone to check. As to the monsters Gilbert admitted he had gotten a little carried away making them and had to start keeping them in cages in his complex to keep them from causing too much damage. Though Gilbert was causally admitting guilt of creating monsters Frank became filled with righteous-indignation once hearing Gilbert's confession and seemed ready to fight the mad professor. Johnny quickly brought the topic back to his part in Gilbert's plan s and asked why he had gained the power to expel Malice energy from his knives after his encounter with Marlow, demonstrating his powers with Malice to Gilbert. Gilbert seemed not to care too much about the display of power and simply stated it was also not an unforeseen consequences but that he would need to research it more, he however stated that his time in Arkham had yielded all the research it could and he needed to be moving on to expand his research. Though Shania, Natan and Frank had no intention of letting the mad man leave alive Gilbert simply snapped his fingers and opened a portal which immediately produced a particularly gruesome and powerful monster. While the creature closed in on the four heroes Gilbert casually made his exit.
The four heroes defeated the creature but found Gilbert as long gone without a trace once the creature was defeated. Johnny still wanted to get answers from Gilbert, Shania and Natan still needed to find out about Lady, Frank wished to both make Gilbert pay for recklessly endangering lives and to stop the new evil that was Lady and decided to continue own with them, formally joining the party. Though the team had no clue where to find Gilbert let alone Lady, it occurred to Frank his old master might know.
The cruel tutelage of Master Mao[]
Frank said his master, Mao, was a very well informed individual who kept informed of much of the more odd affairs that occurred within the U.S. and was sure his master would know Gilbert's whereabouts. Mao was living in Chicago and with no other leads, Johnny, Shania and Natan follows Frank to his master hoping to find Gilbert's trail. As it turned out Mao was working as a lieutenant for the Capone crime family and the group needed to actually fight their way into see Mao. When they finally broke through the security Frank gave his greetings to his long master, who much to Johnny's surprise, was a giant, talking cat. Johnny asked why he was the only one surprised but Natan stated that in his and Shania's tribe cats were considered most intelligent and seeing one learned how to talk was easy to believe. Mao states she did not like being gawked at and asked why they had bothered to visit her. Shania stated they were looking for Gilbert and wanted to know where a strange Lady was, who had killed their tribe. Mao seemed bored at the prospect and stated she hadn't the foggiest who or where the so called Lady was and that she had heard of the mad Professor Gilbert and might be able to locate him, but was far too busy attending to her duties as a crime lieutenant for Al Capone. Frank became crushed he heard his master was openly working with mobsters and asked how she could do such a thing. Johnny added that they had needed to also ask Gilbert about his new powers and pulled out his knife ready to show Mao his power. Though Mao's guard began concerned once the knife was pulled Mao motioned to let the boy demonstrate his condition. Upon seeing Johnny's powers Mao suddenly became far more interested, enough so to propose a deal, to help her break her boss Al Capone out of jail. Frank objected to the notion of helping a common criminal, which promptly provoked the up until then relaxed Mao to leave her seat and begin threatening Frank for daring to judge her. With no other choice to find Gilbert the four agreed to help Master Mao break Al Capone out of jail, the first step in their new quest to find Gilbert and Lady.
Skills and Abilities[]
Though a trained ninja, Frank relies mainly on brute force. Frank carries standard shinobi weapons in his arsenal like kunai, shurikens and smoke bombs and knows some Chi-based moves that enhance his natural abilities and use of his weapons. Frank's main weapon is a katana hilt which he uses to attach to various objects he finds in his travels. Once Frank finds what he considers a suitable object to be used as a blade Frank attaches his hilt to the object, locks it into place and carries the object as a new sword using everything from a log, to a cactus to a giant meat skewer as a blade. In addition to his odd taste in weapons and Ninjustsu, Frank is considerably strong and fast, delivering heavy damage and wielding his oversized weapons as if they were weightless. Like most playable characters Frank can use Crest Magic once given a crest, but lacks particularly high magic stats, making Frank a far more effective fighter character than magic caster. Most of Frank's ninja clan remain scarce over the course of the game, but his fellow ninja, Britney, often checks in on him. Like Frank, Britney is terrible at using stealth despite otherwise being a seasoned warrior.
Personality[]
Frank is very overblown and dramatic, often playing up any given situation. Frank states he sees himself as an outright hero and believes it his duty to apply his ninja skills in the fight against the forces of evil and actually looks for evil villains to face similar to Shadow Hearts: Covenant 's Joachim Valentine. Though brave, noble and dramatic Frank is very clumsy and Mao views Frank as an immense dimwit. The extent of Frank's training with Mao, or how he met her is barely touched upon but while Frank is devoted to Mao as his master Mao is not very fond of Frank and views him more as a troublesome child who will get into trouble if she is not there to hold his hand. Frank is very fond of Johnny and looks upon him as a noble young charge he owes his life too, Frank's main two reasons for helping the party are wanting to find a worthy foe and repaying Johnny's kindness in saving his life.
[]
| Shadow Hearts Heroes | ||
|
| ||