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Record of Agarest War ( Agarest: Generations of War )
PlayStation Network
Generations of Grind
2/5 stars
I imported the European Collector's Edition of “Agarest: Generations of War” based on the premised that it was going to be an old-school TRPG experience with liberal amounts of semi-nude anime women and risque jokes thrown into the mix. One of the things I like about anime, and that I think makes it superior to Western animation, is the fact that the Japanese aren't afraid to get a little saucy. So I went into “Agarest” expecting something along the lines of an anime such as “Green Green,” only in a high fantasy setting and with a simple TRPG engine tossed-in to add some story cohesion. What I found was exactly the opposite.
Presentation
The graphic designs for the game interface in “Agarest” look really nice. The menus, frames, text boxes, and other ornamentation create a cohesive visual experience that is pleasing to the eye. It's obvious that somebody in the art department for this game had some aesthetic sense. Unfortunately, it was mostly squandered, as the rest of the game is graphically limited. The sprites used during tactical battles are well-animated, cute, and old school. Unfortunately, they are used very rarely for cutscenes. The weapon designs are incredibly cool, for the most part. I especially like the fact that each and every weapon has a unique sprite. It had to be a huge undertaking to make all those sprites, considering how many weapons there are in the game. Unfortunately, the battlefields are all 3D, low-polygon-count affairs that could have been done on PlayStation1.
Outside of battle, the character portraits and backgrounds look good in HD. The character portraits are, unfortunately, un-animated and visibly fade out when switching emotions. These character portraits are used for the majority of the game's story and dialog presentation, which is done in “talking head” mode. Thus, very little of the game's “action” is shown, but instead insinuated by dialog cues and sound effects. In the few cases where the sprites are actually used for story telling, they look great but have terrible sound effects for footsteps that sound more like people chopping cabbage than people walking.
Like most TRPGs, “Agarest's” world is almost entirely menu based. The world map is extremely nice looking, and is exactly what I would expect from a current generation RPG. However, instead of an openly-navigable map, the world is covered in lines connecting a series of dots and icons, each containing a “random” battle, event, town, or exploration point. The few explorable areas in the game that aren't navigated solely by menus are uninspired assemblies of a handful of different rooms for the type of area. Thus there are maybe five different swamp, forest, cave, snowfield, and desert rooms that are assembled in slightly different configurations to create every swamp, forest, cave, snowfield, and desert in the game. Not only does this cheapen the experience of exploring new areas (that look exactly like old areas), it makes finding one's way through the areas more difficult than necessary just because all of the rooms look alike.
Battles feature a variety of flashy animations for attacks. Unfortunately, the useful attacks take an extremely looooong time to animate. The animations can be skipped by mashing O, much like the sound effects, or turned off completely from an option menu. Some of the animations are really interesting and impressive (but still too long to sit through more than once). Others look like something out of a Windows 98 screensaver.
The voiceacting in “Agarest” is fairly horrible. As an anime fan, I've heard a lot of Japanese VA, and these are incredibly generic with several characters falling into the “annoying” and “awful” categories. Most annoying of all are the quotes that characters randomly spout in battle. None of them are subtitled, and they just seem to go on and on and on. The death screams of fairy-type enemies stand out as sounds that really put my teeth on edge (“tamena-oh!”). Fortunately, most of the horrible spoken sounds can be skipped by mashing on the O button.
“Agarest's” soundtrack is absolutely awful. With a few exceptions, mostly battle themes and the map theme, the music made me want to mute the TV. The worst offenders would have to be the tracks that play in the Blacksmith and Adventurer Guilds. I have played many RPGs and many other Japanese games that are not RPGs, and have been almost universally impressed with their music, compared to Western games. The soundtrack in “Agarest” is absolutely shameful and brings so much dishonor that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the composer committed Japanese ritual suicide to compensate for it.
“Agarest” also features one major technical flaw. When changing equipment, the statistic increases are colored red while the decreases are colored blue. Every other game in the history of the world has used blue for increases and red for decreases. This switcheroo takes some getting used to and is just plain annoying.
Story
“Agarest: Generations of War” is an overly-long, drawn-out, convoluted mess featuring strife between various nobles/kindgoms and internal politics in each of the 5 generations. These internal conflicts are all interconnected by an overarching evil that is manipulating them, but the way it's handled is really ham-handed. There are cursed pieces of jewelry involved and names are thrown around liberally without any explanation of who or what they refer to. The main connective feature between the 5 generations is the Spirit Vessel and his descendants. In Generation 1, the first hero is killed, but offered a chance to live again by a mysterious woman in exchange for promising his soul and the souls of his descendants to her cause, thus becoming the Spirit Vessel. Each generation takes place on a different continent and, apparently, the player characters are the only ones who can travel to other continents. Others who try to sail from one land to another find the task impossible, as they cannot even see the other lands.
All-in-all, “Agarest's” story gives me the impression of a mash-up between the long-winded classic fantasy, “The Lord of the Rings” and the train-wreck anime, “Hunter X Hunter.” The setting is a nonsensical mix of fantasy and modernism, with most characters opting to use melee weapons, despite the fact that there are guns available. There is also an airship in the opening FMV that doesn't make any appearances in the actual game.
“Agarest” features a large cast of playable characters. Many of them are anime stereotypes, but there are some that are actually unique and interesting. Unfortunately, since the cast is so large, few of the characters receive any meaningful development. Some of them are so neglected that they feel tacked-on and have no real reason for joining the heroes' cause. In fact, in Generation 5, the mysterious woman from Generation 1 goes to each party member and grills them for information on why they have chosen to stay with the heroes for the nearly 100 years covered by the game. Predictably, the reasons given by the least-developed characters are paper-thin. Other characters receive a lot of character development during the generation in which they join but drop into obscurity later on.
The translation by Ghostlight is awkward in many instances, as it is a direct translation with very little localization or idiomatic work applied. I have seen anime fan-subs of significantly higher quality than this, though I don't think the base material provides a good enough foundation for even the best localization team. There is just too much time to fill over the course of 5 generations and not enough interesting story to fill it.
Finally, the story features a huge number of optional events that have esoteric and seemingly-random triggers. Some depend upon having fought a low number of battles, others just seem to appear or not appear for no reason. Any player trying to find their way through the game without a strategy guide could only hope to stumble upon a handful of these events. I find it absolutely aggravating when games don't paint a clear picture of objectives and the outcomes of various choices. It is even more unforgivable when a game as long as “Agarest” (I spent two months on one playthrough) allows the player to make “mistakes” in the early parts that can completely eliminate options at the end.
Gameplay
While it disguises itself as a tactics game, “Agarest” has about as much in common with TRPGs as it does with Chess: all three use a grid for movement. “Agarest” doesn't actually encourage strategic movement of characters, as movement detracts from the amount of Action Points (AP) available to that character for the turn. Since AP are also used to attack, it is best to have characters stand still and make the enemy come to them. Yet another way in which “Agarest” discourages tactics is through the Extended Area mechanic. Each character has certain squares on the grid that fall into their area of influence based upon their location and facing. Other allied characters standing in these squares are able to link up with other connected characters to perform combo attacks. Since the only way to get the valuable loot from most enemies, that is required to make new equipment at the Blacksmith Guild, is to Overkill them (i.e., deal damage to them in one turn that is enough to take their HP into the negative equal to their max HP), massive combo chains (called Secret Arts) are a necessity, and take an annoying amount of time to input every turn.
All enemies and characters have a gauge that displays a simplified view of their most pertinent stats. These include Hit Points, Action Points, Skill Points, and Break. Hit Points are self explanatory and represent the character's life. Action Points allow a character to move at the cost of 1 AP per square and also allow the character to perform attacks, each of which requires a set amount of AP. Each character starts with a set amount of AP and can store a maximum of double their starting AP. AP regenerates at the start of each turn, and characters gain AP during their turn if they are linked with another character. Skill Points build-up slowly from 0 in each battle and allow characters to perform powerful finishing moves (all characters have Extra Skills that can be used at 50, 100, and 250 SP). Break is a semi-hidden stat, as the exact number is never displayed. Instead Break is represented as a yellow bar that goes down as a character takes damage, but refills between each attack. When a character's Break bar is empty, many attacks against them will execute as extended versions that have a significantly greater number of hits (and likewise a longer animation).
The main gameplay in “Agarest” comes in the form of Grind. The player must grind for loot drops in order to make better equipment, Enhancement Points to upgrade existing equipment, and Technical Points to trade for books that teach the recipes for new equipment. The typical Gold and Experience don't really figure into “Agarest's” grind, as early in the game, the amount of Gold given by battles is laughable, especially when compared to the amount it costs to revive a fallen character. This kind of imbalance went out of fashion with “Dragon Quest 2!” The only practical way to get more Gold is to synthesize bullions of various precious metals at the Blacksmith Guild and sell them in the shop. There are also Titles to be earned in the Adventurer's Guild, many of which involve killing a certain number of enemies of specific types. On top of the ridiculous amount of grinding required to work with equipment upgrades, the game actually punishes the player for being of a higher level than the enemy by reducing the amount of all points earned by a small percentage. Being lower level than the enemy, of course, results in bonus points, but the battles are usually so difficult that defeating enemies of a high enough level to get a meaningful bonus percentage is impractical or impossible.
The difficulty curve in “Agarest” drops precipitously in Generation 4, when the player finally gains access to some decent attack skills which deal a reasonable number of hits and amount of damage compared to the game's ridiculous expectations. But in Generation 5, the difficulty ratchets back up to ridiculous levels as enemies are given cheap, utterly broken abilities that the player can't hope to match, such as having Secret Arts as normal attacks, regenerating large amounts of HP every turn, and having an Extra Skill that costs 0 SP to use. Regardless, every battle holds the potential for at least one character dying, as the monsters will abuse their Extended Areas to gang up on one character and maul them, provided a monster gets the first turn. While most normal battles are reasonable throughout the game, boss battles are universally broken from the very beginning to the very end of the game. Many bosses have the ability to take the entire party from full health to dead with one broken attack. This makes boss battles more a function of luck and hoping the computer will be stupid than a function of strategy and skill.
The Soul Breeding system that was hyped to be the key feature of “Agarest” is a joke. The only way to learn the outcome of any particular pairing is to consult the Fortune Teller, and that is only possible for women who are already in love with the hero. It makes it impossible to discern if one should choose a particular woman over another, as, by the time one is in love with the hero, it is too late to sway the others. Most women are swayed into liking or disliking the hero by player decisions in dialog sections. Many of these make little sense as to the reactions they create, but almost guarantee that one of the three possible choices will hate the hero. The dialog and love system is also tied to a meter that shows the hero's alignment (Dark, Neutral, or Light), which may or may not have anything to do with women liking the hero as well as the triggers for optional events. For a system that is supposed to be the core of the game, it feels very tacked-on.
The Smithing system is interesting. It is incredibly deep and allows for a lot of customization of characters. Unfortunately, a large percentage of crafted items don't become available in the shop after creation, meaning that the player must craft these items every time. Many of these items have rare components that require grinding to collect. The Smithing system also shows the player many pieces of equipment long before the player will have the ability to create them, which can lead to confusion and frustration regarding the type of equipment that one should have at any given point in the game.
In addition to the ridiculously large cast of characters, “Agarest” features a monster capturing/breeding system that is a bit like the one in “Dragon Quest Monsters.” Almost any enemy monster can be captured and made a party member. Of course, domestication greatly weakens monsters, so any allied monster will be a powderpuff compared to a wild specimen of the same species at the same level. Some special monsters can only be acquired by combining two other monsters at the Monster Guild. The Monster Guild also trades sometimes-rare items for monsters, which is the only way to obtain monster-specific weapons. Overall, I liked the monster system quite a bit, but was infuriated at the nerfing my monsters underwent upon capture.
Finally, as one of its few redeeming qualities, “Agarest” features a New Game+ that carries over all inventory, accumulated points (except experience) and captured monsters (with their experience intact!). Unfortunately, a New Game+ file played on Easy difficulty is only compatible with an Easy new game and a New Game+ file played on Normal difficulty is only compatible with Easy and Normal new games. Thus players who want to get the few esoteric extras that are available in Hard difficulty will have to endure multiple runs through the game on Hard.
Overall
“Agarest: Generations of War” is an incredibly long game. It feels like 5 smaller games tacked together into one boring grind-fest. I honestly think “Agarest” would have been better as an episodic game, so a player who didn't like Generation 1 could choose not to waste their money on the other generations. Despite the fact that there are many alternate paths and choices to take, there is very little replay value in “Agarest” simply because a single playthrough takes so long and is so non-fun. The game amounts to a long, torturous slog that pendulums erratically from excruciatingly boring to infuriatingly frustrating... and then expects the player to do it over and over until they stumble upon the correct set of choices and random occurrences to get the “True” ending. It is the first game I've played in 15 years where I have felt that I absolutely needed a strategy guide. Playing “Agarest” never felt like fun, but was instead a chore or, even worse, a punishment. The weak presentation, boring story, lack of promised fanservice, spastic battle system, and grind-centric gameplay combine to make this an incredibly bland experience. I cannot recommend this game to anyone except that special breed of TRPG fan that thinks the amount of grind in the Disgaea series isn't enough.
Presentation: 3/6
Story: 1.5/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 2/5
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