Record of Agarest War Zero

 PlayStation 3
Metascore
50

Mixed or average reviews - based on 8 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 8
  3. Negative: 3 out of 8
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  1. Eurogamer
    Sep 13, 2011
    40
    It's impossible to recommend to anyone beyond its existing fan base.
  2. Metro GameCentral
    Aug 9, 2011
    40
    There are some clever ideas in this strategy role-player but they're suffocated beneath a weight of banal storytelling and tedious battles.
  3. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Aug 14, 2011
    30
    This would have been an embarrassment in 1987. [Sept 2011, p.116]
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Awards & Rankings

78
#78 Most Shared PS3 Game of 2011

User Reviews

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User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 34 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 34
  3. Negative: 8 out of 34
  1. Pepsi_Biofusion
    Jan 31, 2012
    8
    Do you love to be tortured by electronic software? Do you love to have to spend near 100 hours to beat a bland story across repetitiveDo you love to be tortured by electronic software? Do you love to have to spend near 100 hours to beat a bland story across repetitive backdrops? Or would you be thrilled if I told you it only costs about double the game itself (£40) to buy enough DLC to cut out the mindless grinding? If you're answer to all of that is no you may wonder why I would stick an 8 onto such a game, and its because, frankly, despite blatantly being built to rip you off with DLC or soak up 100 hours of you're time to accomplish very little, this is one fantastic strategy JRPG. I've allready got most of the bad out of the way but theres a few more bad points I'd like to warn you of, namely this game is very half-hearted-ly made, in that enemies/sprite/environments/sound effects/special effects by and large come from other IF games like Cross Edge and Trinity Universe, I can't imagine it took more than 2 months to patch this game together. However A Zero can get away with that based on a brilliant combat system, amongst other things. Battles take place on a grid and you can have 6 members in battle at any one time, its a lot like Fire emblem, only (dare I say it) better. You can excecute combos by placing party members in certain possitions in relation to each other, and you can further add to the skill element by selecting a map that suits you. For example you can choose a map with areas that increase you're attack power, especially usefull against enemies reliant on magic, you also have an SP guage which adds even MORE depth to the battle system allowing you to use extra powerfull attacks if that party member has taken a lot of hits (not damage but sperate hits) or has defeated some foes. Ofcourse this wouldn't be an IF game without insanely hard boss battles, which are brilliantly designed and will even challenge the most seasoned JRPG vet EVEN if you bought all the DLC the last few bosses will give you a run for you're money (quite literaly) Ofcourse battling waves of tough enemies and numerous brutal bosses could be stressful so A Zero attempts to relieve you're aching trigger fingures with laid back activities, from getting to know some very beautiful women that bit better (and earning the right to see them in more revealing... ahem interesting costumes) to the good old IF beach and hot spring scenes. Its not just pretty ladies ofcourse that will aid you through tough battles, although there is another way they aid you (more on that soon) as you can also do the industry standard of capturing monsters and having them fight for you, aswell as being able to combine them together to make all sorts of beings, you can also synthesise new items, inhance existing weaponry, earn titles (such as to win 100 battles or have a certain number of rare itmes) and enjoy vacation days where you can just chill and talk to your favourite characters. A Zero only has 2 generations, which for those of you new to Agarest (like I was) is a system where you choose one of 3 girls to have a child with (it doesn't show you how ofcourse) and that child becomes you're new main character for the second part of the game, the girl you pick affects various things from you're new characters appearance to his stats (the more the girl likes you the better they'll be) I also mentioned DLC (and bashed it) early on for one good reason, its really expensive but without it this game can last 100s of hours, especially considering there is A LOT of post game content, possibly more than the story itself aswell as new game plus with an even more brutal difficulty. To make life easy you will want at least £15/$25 to shorten the game, in all fairness its a cheep game in the first place, but the 2 PP packs plus a weapon pack will shave off 50 hours from the story, and save you from grindng AT ALL (just) Some DLC is ridiculously overpriced though but completely unecessary such as to unlock character voice samples. On a technical level Agarest Zero doesn't fair to badly, the graphics, although simple, are actually rather nice with high res textures and art aswell as adorable sprites, the music is great and very fitting and up beat and the loading times rather short. One last note there is no English dub, subs yes but no voice over, but you do get an excellent cast of Japanese voice actresses/actors to listen to. Long story short, this is a fantastic game despite obvious shortcomings and its well worth buying just to experience a genius battle system and to really challenge yourself.… Full Review »
  2. seieko_pherdo
    Oct 14, 2011
    6
    Well have you watched anime? Have you watched a lot, because if you have then you will recognize the story and characters for what they are,Well have you watched anime? Have you watched a lot, because if you have then you will recognize the story and characters for what they are, generic. As a primary story loving guy playing this game becomes difficult because everyone feels like a generic person from a generic anime you stop watching. Combat is what this game does best but it's also very hard. While I don't mind difficultly with the story bland as it is I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of it. The battles or more like animated chess than turned based beat the crap out of foes. But this is a long game and battles can get tiring when it's the only dynamic thing that happens. More so when having teams mates get killed rather often so you'll be spending money a lot which like in Tales Of The Abyss is really tight. Then we have the relationship faction every now and then you get a choice and it effects in ways that don't make a lot of sense. Such as: deciding to use your teammates ability to see the future so you know that walking into the forest won't get you killed, suddenly you feel less affectionate with someone. And during the times where you roam around towns you don't really learn much maybe you'll get a sentence or two. While I enjoy the battles it's all there really is, okay there is a second generation thing where you get child and he continues to save the world but once again the story being as dull and generic I just don't care. Music isn't all that good ether. The world map is also just a string of dots and anything that isn't a town is pretty much a chess battle. Even the quick battles can feel drawn out. It has it's moments but I feel it's a game that requires a lot of work for little payoff.… Full Review »
  3. blakfayt
    May 16, 2017
    5
    I wanted to enjoy this game when I bought it at a Vintage Stock for like $20. It wasn't at my local GameStop and it was appealing to myI wanted to enjoy this game when I bought it at a Vintage Stock for like $20. It wasn't at my local GameStop and it was appealing to my hardcore weeb with its anime styling. It was a gift from my father for having good grades in college that semester. And my hope of it being good died when I saw the studios behind the game. I can't tell you how sad that made me.

    Agarest War Zero is a prequel sequel (Takes place before the first game but was made after it) and is one of a DOZEN CARBON COPY "strategy" games by the same developer. Now, you read that and think, "That can't be right. Only Assassin's Creed and CoD repeat themselves, and even they have minor changes" but you'd be wrong. There's a strange series of games that use this strategy turn based thing with the same title shop, weapon forging, useless item shop, and excessive grinding to be mediocre, just with different characters. When I saw the developer my face dropped from excitement to worry, and finally into despair as I got into the first town.

    The long made short is that this game boasts being strategical, battles take place on a grid and your job is to place all your units in formation to hit the enemy a whole bunch of times as hard as you can to kill them. Unfortunately, enemies will either be damage sponges or pushovers. The most common grinding technique in all of these games (including ones not called Agarest) is to use a turbo controller to mash X/A, with all the battle animations off, go to the hardest area you can fight in without dying, and let the game play itself on auto while you sleep. This is because the auto battle will most of the time pick decent attacks, heal itself, and turn 10-20 minute long fights against BASIC MOBS, into 10 minute auto battles you don't even have to look at.

    At the core of this problem are two things. Everything has to be crafted. Want better healing items? Grind out the low drop rate materials to make them. Want a new sword? Grind out the materials to make them. All they had to do was put new weapons and armor in the shop every chapter or so, nothing overpowered, just some new standards for the player to benchmark themself. Instead you'll often find yourself stomping a hole through everything until a boss suddenly knocks you flat in one turn and you realize that leather jerkin was from chapter 1, you're in chapter 5, and nothing has dropped the materials you need to make the iron armor so it's back to farming bats in a cave for six hours. It's pointless tedium designed, LITERALLY DESIGNED, to sell you on downloadable content that costs as much, or more, than the game itself which makes grinding faster or completely unnecessary.

    The second issue the game has is that 90% of the strategy is just setting your team up and leaving them where they are. The game has a link system where other units will join in attacking the same enemy as an ally if they're in a certain figure around that ally. This means you'll find a way to position most of everyone inside everyone else's union zone and fights become little more than animatics between cutscenes, until the previously mentioned difficulty hike boss shows up to make mince meat out of your party, and then a simple helping of three hours of grind to get materials and levels turns him into pudding.

    The greatest let down here is that I played a game EXACTLY like this on the PSP with a different story. Same combat, same everything, and it was equally as boring in the long run. There's nothing technically broken here, everything works as intended, it's just that working as intended the game is repetitive, uninspired (it's a clone from the company, there's literally dozens of games with the same gameplay across several generations of consoles), and ultimately not worth anyone's time. Even the story, which starts off with a good premise, falls horribly to the wayside for B anime tropes like harems, beach trips, swimsuits in a fantasy game, and dating sim elements that block your path to the true end. If you're interested in that portion of the game, just download a save, buy the game on PC, and watch the cutscenes. It's not worth "playing" the game to see them.    … Full Review »
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