Record of Agarest War (アガレスト戦記, Agaresuto Senki), known in Europe as Agarest: Generations of War, is a tactical role-playing game for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.[7] The game is a collaboration between Idea Factory, Red Entertainment and Compile Heart.[8] An updated port of the game was released in Japan for the Xbox 360 on November 27, 2008.[1] HyperDevbox Japan released an Android port on December 19, 2013,[6] and an iOS port on May 16, 2014. A Nintendo Switch port was released on March 9, 2023.[9]
The story progresses through various points plotted on a map. By visiting each point, the player has to battle the creatures, complete a quest, visit a town or go through a conversation to advance through the storyline and open up more points.
Fighting plays out like a strategic RPG where each character has his/her own set of moves, but by moving each character to an appropriate square, you can chain characters together and pull off combos. After each round of combat, each character will regenerate AP and accumulate SP points. When enough SP points have been accumulated, characters can unleash special attacks.
The game includes dating sim elements through its "Soul Breed" system in which the player creates a new character by pursuing a relationship with a female character[10] as the game's storyline extends for five generations, each one having a different male protagonist. For the first four generations the protagonist marries one among three of his female companions and their son becomes the protagonist of the following generation who inherits stats and abilities from his parents.
The game was localized in Europe as Agarest: Generations of War by Ghostlight. The company planned to publish a standard retail version and a collector's edition, both released on October 30, 2009 for PlayStation 3.[11] Initially, the game was set to use a cover art featuring a realistic version of the protagonist; however, negative feedback led to the publisher changing the cover art for one more faithful to the original.[12] The 32 packs of DLC were put on the European PlayStation Store by Ghostlight.
Aksys Games released the game in North America under the title Record of Agarest War on April 29, 2010. The game was released as a download on the PlayStation Network, and on disc for the Xbox 360. It is available as a downloadable title on the Xbox 360. The game retains the original Japanese dialogue.[13]
A port known as Record of Agarest War: Reappearance was released exclusively for the Xbox 360 in Japan on November 27, 2008. The Xbox 360 port featured additional voice acting, and a gallery mode. New items and a new dungeon are available over Xbox Live as downloadable content.
The Fate of Agarest is in your hands!
Leonhardt and his descendants are the last hope for a world devastated by a war between the gods. Their journey will span generations and continents as they strive to restore peace.
Includes all add-on dungeons and extra content packs, featuring tons of extra items, weapons, and upgrades
- Explore a tactical RPG with over 100 hours of gameplay
- Features upscaled 2D art, full HD movies, and new music
- Raise future generations of heroes with the unique Soul Breed system
In a time long forgotten, the gods of darkness and light fought in a savage battle across generations, ravaging the land they had created. A deadlock ensued leaving the Scarred Mountains to divide the continent between the sworn enemies.
With wounds running so deep, the balance could not last forever and soon the darkness would arise to face its foe once again. In this most pivotal instalment of our epic tale, we take you back to that most ancient of battles revealing the story of events preceding Agarest: Generations Of War...
When you will finish the ZERO the first time (no matter the ending), when you will make the NG+, you will get the chance to begin the game in harder difficulty, and this difficulty will add the Agarest 1 Digest mode (aka the true story from Agarest 1). So you will play Agarest 1 and unlock generation when you continue the story from ZERO.
Unlike the Agarest 1, the Digest Agarest 1 from ZERO will always lock into the True End and you will never be able to choose one of the 3 women for each generation. All battle point for farming has disappearing in Digest mode, and you have only event and boss fight inside.
In Digest mode, you can only obtain the heroes/heroines from each gen (the other playable characters from Agarest 1 cannot be played in ZERO initially, if you want them badly, you must buy them in the PStore).
Thank you so much AntoShin, you have answered most of my questions that I was going to ask after your comment, it's fantastic to know that I don't really need to get Agarest 1 in order to understand the story, very much appreciated!
When it comes to finishing off Zero, you get the chance to play in the Harder Difficulty, and it has a "Digest Mode" of Agarest 1, is it like a small portion of Agarest 1's story in Generations of War Zero?
Digest mode is essentially the entirety of Agarest 1 with dungeons and random battles removed. Almost every cutscene and every boss fight is included. The only changes, as AntoShin pointed out, are that you won't be able to choose who to marry at the end of each generation, or choose which branching paths to take (which are mostly for party relationship purposes and do not significantly affect the story).
Also it's completely separate from Zero's story and runs in parallel to the main game. The way it works is shortly after you start NG+ a portal will open on the world map that will allow you to come and go between Zero's world and the Digest world, and you can progress separately in each however you like. At first only generation 1 is available but as you make progress in Zero's story more generations will become available for you to play in digest mode. You could almost think of it as "buy Zero, get the original for free". If you're just after the story there's no reason to buy the original at all.
I have all 3 games (Zero, 1, and 2) and I only managed to platinum Agarest 2 while I am only 2 gold trophies away from Agarest 1. Eventually I would like to start Zero, but I am scared in regards that I will probably have to collect all weapons/accessories/armor. Is the difficulty in Zero almost identical to that in Agarest 1?
Yes, which is why I haven't got the very first game. Also, I'm fairly certain that EU version of Zero's bonus for having the previous game's save doesn't work with a save from the first game's NA version. So you wanna get them all in NA version.
Bit of a late response I guess but trophy-wise the difficulty is roughly the same. You will have to clear the entire post-game which requires playing on Hard mode and getting the true ending, collect all the titles and completely fill the encyclopedia. Having a clear save file from RoAW 1 helps since it saves you from having to do a second playthrough for Digest mode. Gameplay-wise I found Zero quite a bit harder than the original, but that might just be me.
No not really, unless you specifically want the trophies from the original. And they're both pretty difficult platinums. Probably looking at around 150 hours, more if you have to do a second playthrough. Hard mode is pretty brutal and will require a lot of grinding unless you use DLC equipment. And the post-game bosses will pretty much wreck you no matter what without a solid party setup / strategy.
Oh, and there's another bummer, for example Agarest Zero, not all the DLCs are available for everyone. I heard it was because they were having issues with translating the PSN store information to specific languages, because that was something Sony required. You'd think it would just be to browse the store in English, but nope, instead you can't access it with an account from a country it hasn't been translated into's language. I've never browsed the store in Norwegian, and I still can't see any Agarest Zero DLCs in the PSN store, and I'm pretty sure there are some for UK and NA. What this means is that I need to use an account from UK to purchase the DLCs, download and install them on my PS3 for then to play them on my account to get access to them. Some are free though, so it's just to use a second account for that. I heard it wasn't released for Australia either though... They had a massive issue with this stuff for a long time a couple of years back. Just go onto the EU PS blog and check out the release announcements, and you will see a lot of of their stuff not getting released in all countries.
This updated version of Agarest: Generations of War includes all DLC for the game, as well as visual enhancements such as upscaled 2D art and full HD movies. The opening movie features music never before released in the West.
The fate of Agarest is in your hands, as well as your reputation with the ladies. Choose a bride at the end of your adventure and give birth to the playable hero of the next generation. Perfect collaborative attacks by positioning your forces on the battlefield and wait for the right moment to string together massive combo attacks using multiple party members, both in melee and ranged attacks.
War darkened the skies of Agarest. Not a simple war between mortals, easily ended by divine intervention, but a war that split the gods themselves. Armies such as the world had never seen before, and would never see again, clashed in the skies of Agarest, across its surface, and even in the caverns that wound their way through its interior.
As is the way in war, many died on both sides, gods and mortals alike, and the war left Agarest broken, blackened, and dead. The gods wept for their paradise, and in a final act of creation, sacrificed themselves to bring life back to its charred and twisted surface. Though the gods are long dead, the withering darkness that caused their war is not. Imprisoned for millennia, its bonds have begun to weaken, and a shadow once again spreads across the surface of the world.
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