Record of Agarest War: Review

Record of Agarest War is an SRPG originally released for the PlayStation 3 released in 2007. An updated port of it: Record of Agarest War: Reappearance was then released for the XBOX 360. The Agarest project is a collaboration of Idea Factory, the guys who brought you Spectral Souls, Red Entertainment, known for their Sakura Wars releases, and Compile Heart, who are actually a division of Idea Factory.

Record of Agarest War tells a typical tale of an ancient evil demon god, Summerill, rising back to power and a young man by the name of Leonhardt and his descendants are the last, best hope for the world of Agarest. Their journey will span generations and continents as they strive to once again bring peace to their beleaguered world, even as the cost of their own souls.

Will Leonhardt and his descendants be successful in this epic long quest? Well, they probably would be considering that the good guys always win in games like this but the story, although interesting, isn’t the main highlight of the game!

Note: This review is based on Aksys’ localized version of Record of Agarest War: Reappearance.
Ghostlight’s badly localized version (I know it’s bad because I’ve bought and played that) and the Japanese release (which I’ve also bought and played) on the PS3 are the originals with no additional content from the “Reappearance” version.

Loved

Longgggg (literally) story: What’s different from the usual stories you see is nowadays is that this story spans out five generations. An interesting and new method of storytelling, I might add. You first begin the game with Leonhardt, a renowned solider and aristocrat, also the main-est of the main protagonists. He gets killed in an attempt to save an elf girl, Ellis. At the point of death (or as he’s dying), he is approached by a strange witch-like person, Dyshana, who gives him a choice of either sacrificing his, and his descendants’, souls in exchange for being “reborn” and fulfill her goal of defeating Summerill or well, just die. Having the righteous “I-have-to-save-that-girl-no-matter-what” personality, Leonhardt, of course accepts this proposal and from then on, his and his descendants’ destiny were set on stone.

And so the quest begins… Every generation, you (the main protagonist) will develop relationships with some of the girls introduced and at the end of each generation; “mate” with the girl you like the most. Your offspring, the star of the next generation, will carry on the quest to thwart Summerill.

While the main objective of the heroes is constant, each generation has its own flair to it. Different places, settings, characters and execution keeps the game fresh (yet keeping to the main story) and leaves you wanting to know more and more as the game progresses.

Soul-breeding: Record of Agarest War introduces a new system: soul-breeding. This works together with the nature of the story and adds some dating-simulation aspects to the game. The basic idea of this is, as mentioned above, your hero mating with a girl at the end of each generation and having a child who will star in the next generation.

As you go through the story, there will be scenes where you chat with the girls and your responses will affect them differently. The strength of your bond affects your child’s initial statistics and statistical growth and the girl you marry affects the child’s looks and weapon preference so there is quite a variety of combinations to consider if you’re going into the game to make full use of the system.

A problem I found with this system is that your “spouse of choice” is limited to only one of the “special three.” This means that you are not able to pick some other girl you’ve been introduced to and like more than the “special three.”

Nonetheless, you don’t see something quite as cool as this in RPGs every day so a plus to this.

Characters, characters, characters!: When I thought Tears to Tiara had a long list of characters, boy, was I surprised when I finished Record of Agarest War. By the end of the game, you would have about THIRTY playable characters which is a really huge selection because you only ever need six of them in any battle.

A smart thing Idea Factory did was NOT having just humans and demons in the story. There are different species of human-like creatures ranging from elves to harpuias. I thought this was a smart move because if every character was human, they’d all die at the end of a generation and the story would definitely crumble…

So yeah, having different species just gives them an excuse (a good one, too) for not killing off characters due to “natural death.” You’ll see some familiar faces every generation so don’t worry too much about losing them.  You even get to see some of them grow up!

Unfortunately, because there are so many characters, some of them just don’t get enough attention. There really isn’t much character development in this game. Sure, a couple of them do shine but most conveniently appear at one point to help the party, get recruited or whatever and then slowly fade out and you forget they even existed. This is especially so for those who are not in the “inner circle” of the protagonists. Some are seen for just like twice the whole game…

Even though some characters barely get into the spotlight, every character has a different, noticeable personality so you can actually see the amount of effort put into the planning of these characters. You might find yourself liking or hating some characters because of their personalities at first but as you go on with the story, you might have second thoughts.

All in all, I found that the characters’ personalities were portrayed really well.  The funny scenes were genuinely funny, dramatic scenes believable and sad scenes actually sad. The game is fully voiced and features voice actresses like Kana Ueda and Ami Koshimizu. Speaking of voices, the game only has Japanese audio; no English dub but Aksys’ release comes with English subtitles.

Strategically tactical battalica: Battles in Record of Agarest War are your traditional grid-based battle system where each unit has to wait for its turn to attack. Without going into much detail that could possibly bore you readers, I’ll just bring up what sets the battle system apart from the usual SRPGs.

Significant differences are Extended Areas, Combination Arts and Break System. Every unit has an “Extended Area” which can link them up with teammates when positioned on the right grid squares. Linked units have some benefits such as bonus Ability Point (AP, spent to do anything and everything on the battlefield) boosts and can perform linked attacks. AP carries over to your next turn so if you can’t do anything with a character during a turn, fret not because next turn, that character has even more AP to spend. Units involved in linked attacks will probably move from its initial position so these movements can be used strategically to get a better positioning. A unit at the far end of the grid can be used to attack a unit at the opposite end when linked up so you’re going to have to think ahead and anticipate the enemy’s moves.

Combination Arts are combined skills. Using two or more specific skills in a specific order will combine them into a new skill, which is of course, a stronger attack. A combination skill usually can either be ‘Break’ or ‘Combo’ oriented so choose your arts wisely. This brings us to the Break System.

The Break System is a system to reward the player’s positioning and relentless attacking. Every unit in battle has a “Break Bar.” Within a single combo, a unit can get “Broken.” Broken units take more damage and specific combination skills gain more hits, hence getting a higher combo count, when used against a broken unit.

So logically thinking, you’d want to link up all your characters, dish out all the ‘Break’ combination arts followed by the ‘Combo’ ones to maximize the battle system so positioning is key to mastering the battle system.

Because battles are (really) strategic, it might take quite some time to finish each battle, which can be quite a drag when you have easily 400 battles to go through just to get to the end of the story.

Equip(ment)ality: Equipments play a huge role in this game. Apart from the usual synthesis of stolen or obtained items from enemies to create weapons, armor and accessories to equip, skills also have to be equipped. Each character has a number of attributed skill slots. You can only equip skills of an attribute that you have a slot for. To make it easier give more freedom to the player, weapons also have attributed skill slots.

You’re free to develop your characters according to your preference and decide which skills you’d rather use, which is a good thing in the sense that there’s no “best” strategy or method to develop your character’s statistics.

Would you rather use the stronger, more damaging weapon or the weaker one with better skill slots?  There is no right and wrong in this game, only strategy.

Oh no, please don’t “grind”: With every battle won, you get experience points, gold and additional resources for use in the game. Record of Agarest War has an intuitive way to reward, or punish players, for their actions. There is a multiplier that modifies amount of resources gained based on the party’s highest character’s level and turns taken to finish the battle.

Let’s say you’re at level 25 and you have a decent strategy that works; you get more experience points for killing a “stronger” level 30 boss in 3 turns and level up to 30 because of the multiplier. In the same scenario, at level 30 this time though, you still beat the boss in 3 turns, but the multiplier will not be as great and you end up still being level 30. This is a great system to punish players who grind early in the game “to make the game easier to play later on.” I’d rather take the challenge and have fun without having to grind, thank you very much.

Piece of advice – There’s really no need to grind to finish the game. Just think more.

Saucy CG: You’ve probably already seen the risqué images of women in revealing positions and such if you’re interested in this game. There is an in-game gallery where you can view these images, which can be unlocked through the course of the game by meeting specific and possible hard to meet requirements.

But hey, you deserve to see these images after all the hard work unlocking them, right?

Soundtrack: The soundtrack, composed by Kenji Kaneko and arranged by Ayako Saso, is real awesome. I loved every single track and found them all very fitting to the current scene.

The music is split into different parts; orchestral, rock, and random bouncy-pop fun. I found that the battle themes were of  very high quality, which is something you’d normally expect from bigger franchises like Final Fantasy  or Atelier Iris. Oh yes, the themes are really that awesome. I’ve found myself humming these themes countless times while playing the game!

Hell, I thought it was really awesome that I’m having the OST shipped over as I type this.
The REAL JAPANESE OST, not Aksys’ release.

Neutral

Graphics schmarfics: Non-battle scenes of this game is done like a visual novel. Character designs are very anime-like and unfortunately, there are barely any anime-like cutscenes.

Record of Agarest War goes classic with its 2D sprites during battle. It’s either a hit or a miss and I personally think it’s a hit only because the 2D sprites bring back the memories of playing the classics like Final Fantasy Tactics and Advance Wars.  Of course, those of you who think, “Hey, the PS3 can do so much more than this crap,” give it a chance! Games have never been just about graphics unless you’re a graphic whore.

The animations of these sprites are pretty crisp too. Attacks have really cool effects and even though 2D, they’re still visually appealing. What’s more, weapons equipped are reflected on your 2D sprite, which is pretty cool considering these small details are usually overlooked in most games.

One would expect a 2D game on a new-gen console to be running smoothly, but not with this game. There are some frame rate issues with the game at different points in the game. While it isn’t such a huge problem, I have to admit that it gets irritating at times. There you are running through a maze-like forest, lost, helpless and frustrated. Then the game lags. RAGE!!!1111one

Every decision counts!: Every choice you make in the game affects something. It leads you to the dark side, or maybe light, have a girl hate you, or love you, lead you to an awesome ending, or not (yes, the game has multiple endings) Anyway, sure it does all this but some of the decisions make so sense.

For example, “Would you rather break through the enemy forces or go the longer route to avoid unnecessary battles?” I’d think breaking through would be the “dark-side” choice because you’re risking your party. But how the hell does that affect a girl’s feelings for you? There’s barely any hint of their preferred path and you’re left thinking “Damn, she hates me now.”

Flat battle terrains: While I didn’t think this was a problem, one of my friends brought up that the terrains during battles are just flat and although the battling is strategic, one could say that without terrain advantages (like in Final Fantasy Tactics) almost every battle could be won with the same strategy. So this might turn some people who want bigger challenges off.

Here’s my advice: Start the game on Hard mode. You have nothing to lose and all to gain.

Auto-battle: One great (questionable) thing about this game is that you have an in-built AI to help you do battles. Relying on this AI to get you through battles will just make you cry, especially when you’re playing on Hard mode. Fortunately, the AI is not so pathetic that it lets your party die for no reason at all. AIs can only do so much…

It gets useful in easy battles where you know your party will definitely win though. It will definitely get you through those filler battles without losing your mind.

Think of the AI as a player who prioritizes healing and defense but recklessly attacks, thinking nothing of the aftermath.

Not so Loved

Filler quests: Exploration points are just a drag sometimes. It makes me think that they’re just to keep the player play the game longer than they should. I found them unnecessary but well, that’s just me. I’m sure some like the fact that they can still do some exploring and treasure hunting despite the game being a “visual novel” thing. But seriously, some of these exploration areas were designed to get you lost and I literally spent an hour (including battles) at one of these places.

Oh, and I have to mention that the exits are not even clearly shown.
And that was just to find a way out; not even treasure hunting yet.

What happens between?: I’ve given praise to the story but you’ll be left wondering about some things sooner or later. What happens while “Son A” is growing up? Why the hell did it just jump to when he’s older and ready to carry on his father’s quest?!

We never find out. There are hints as to what happens during the child’s upbringing but one can only speculate from the little information given.

Battle camera: The battle camera is great in the sense that you can rotate the camera as and when – No, you can only rotate it during your “Move” phase which is kinda weird. Good thing is that it focuses on the currently units attacking/being attacked. However, the rotation function is pretty much useless when you can rotate exactly 90 degrees each time and some huge bloody tree or rock or whatever damn thing is blocking your view at every angle you change to except the default.

EDIT: It seems you can also rotate during your attack phase (Thanks to Vicious7 for this information) but still, I stand by my point of the rotation being useless at times when there are objects obstructing your view.

Biased

Trophies and Titles: There are titles in the game that you can unlock as you play through the game. These titles have requirements like “Kill 5 of X monster and 10 of Y monster”, “Have all weapons and armour” and “Deal 1,000,000 damage.” I really like this kind of “reward” system in a game only because it gives the player a sense of accomplishment after delving deep enough into the game.

Trophies are the same thing. With all these rewards, you gain more bragging rights!

Leader boards!: The game has an online leaderboard which records information like Max Damage, Max Combo  and Max Stats of players. This is great as it keeps everyone playing to get higher on the leader board. Sooner or later, you’ll see someone with a higher score than you and wonder how he/she did it and then commit your time to beat the score … or not.

This is great and all but once people start hacking the game…

Liberal translations (localization): Not saying that I have any problems with the translation, but I found that they were pretty liberal. Yes, they get the point across but not every line was a direct translation. Then again, there is a reason why it’s called localization. Sometimes, localizing is a better choice for weird lines anyway but yeah, just my two cents on it.

Physical release?!: As most of you already know by now, Aksys’ PS3 release is digital download only. It’s about a 10gb download so that might take a while to get. Fortunately, it only took me an hour to download it so yeah, lucky me. Still, not having a physical release for keeps is kinda sad but what can you do? Things change and digitising everything  is apparently the current trend.

tl;dr

Love dating simulations and your traditional SRPGs? Record of Agarest War is both of those, coupled with a long but engaging adventure that spans generations! Despite its flaws and questionable content, it’s very entertaining and is definitely an enjoyable experience.

Battles are similar to that of other SRPGs with the inclusion of Extended Areas and Combination Arts which gives the player a whole lot more options and things to consider every battle! Non-battle scenes are like visual novels with very anime-esque character designs and the scenes involving these characters are convincing, even if ridiculous.

I would say that the game is targeted mainly at the anime and visual novel fans but if you’re sick of just living through just one lifetime, looking for an enjoyable battle system, love dating simulations or just want to check out CG photos of 2D chicks, then this is the game for you!

So release the inner perverted otaku in you and get Record of Agarest War!
Support Aksys (so they’ll bring us the prequel)!

P.S. I don’t remember if Aksys kept the name Leonhardt or changed it to Leonheart. Hmm…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 7:23 pm and is categorised in Game Reviews.