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Record of Agarest War Zero on Xbox 360

A Modern Review

By Aaron DennisPublished 7 years ago 6 min read
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Record of Agarest War Zero, known as Agarest Senki Zero in Japan, and Agarest: Generations of War Zero in Europe, is a tactical role-playing game developed by Compile Heart and Red Entertainment in 2011.

Yeah, that’s a friggin’ mouthful. Agarest War Zero is the prequel to Agarest War, and it does a fantastic job of incorporating both games.

To begin with, this is a very Japanese game, so much so that all the voice acting is Japanese only. The dialogue, although a bit a stock, is also very Japanese; this is not an assault on the Japanese culture, far from it, but practically all the characters fall into what I consider clichéd Japanese roles.

The shy, little girl with psychic powers, who always worries about everyone but herself; the nonchalant ladies man, who is mostly lazy, but always steps it up when it comes time to save his friends; the clueless leader, who just can’t understand that all the ladies are hitting on him; the childlike dark god trapped in a school girl’s body; yes, it’s all very Japanese…and that’s why it’s so great a game.

The basic premise is that the gods tried to create a perfect world, but since gods are always depicted as being childish and imbecilic as their human counterparts, they squabble, fight, and bicker, and then eventually blow themselves up. Humans, larva, gurgs, rem-lorient, neocoloms — no this isn’t gibberish — now live on Agarest, but there’s always some growing darkness, and so, as the fighting against the monsters has begun to engage the innocent, it’s time to forge some ultimate weapon to defeat the darkness, but how to forge it?

You begin as Sieghart, the captain of a bunch of soldiers. Friedelinda, one of the lieutenants, has a crush on you. Eugene, another Lt., who I believe is also her cousin, delights in tormenting her regarding her lack of feminine wiles.

The three of you protect a town while monsters attack, and then an evil larva, which is like a bodiless being of darkness from another dimension attacks what appears to be a child. Sieghart, the brave, intervenes, and he gets killed in one hit….

The child, obviously more than such, engages her powers to revive you, and with your new life, you defeat the evil larva, but now the girl seems to have lost her memory and powers. Army leaders show up just in the knick of time and give you new orders; find a blacksmith in order to forge the key required to unseal a larva who used to work for one of the gods, Mercury. Supposedly, unsealing this larva named Hass Calinou will provide the forces of good with the item they need to drive back the evil forces once and for all.

Well, that’s the premise of the first portion of the game in a nutshell. There are, however, two portions of the game on its normal play through. You see, it is your duty to pick a lovely lady, make her fall in love with you, and produce the hero of the second portion. How you go about picking a lady depends on the choices you make throughout your journey, but all the choices, from one generation to the next, affect the total outcome, the ending you get to see.

This all probably reminds some people of some of the Fire Emblem games, and you wouldn’t be far off. Agarest War Zero is a fine strategy game, very fun, and with a plethora of goals to obtain.

You can craft weapons, items, and armor at your local smith's shop.

You can capture and combine monsters to create new ones, or trade them in for items.

You can collect character profiles, or revisit "movies" and events.

The Good

First, I was practically shocked that a game, which was released as late as 2011, was this great. I mean, yeah, Skyrim is awesome, too, but still, I’m shocked that Agarest War Zero is so freakin’ amazing. From the artwork, to the battle style...

...to linking attacks and special techniques...

...to the music, to the actual game play; this is truly a masterpiece. Furthermore, once you complete the game’s normal mode, you get access to extra mode. Extra mode gives you access to some of the features, characters, and events from the first game (the prequel’s sequel) Record of Agarest War, and so you practically have two games in one!

I’m not even exaggerating; you practically play all the way through the first game, but in a condensed manner.

Another thing I really enjoy is collecting all the pictures. As you progress and complete quests and events, you obtain pictures of characters, and you can also entice the ladies to change their outfits by increasing their love for you; yes, a great portion of the game revolves around having the heroines adore you. This was also prevalent in the prequel, or so I’ve read, but what’s fun about the different outfits, which, unfortunately, they don’t wear into battle, is that they come with a little piece of dialogue, like this one.

I like this one, too; all the ladies from the second portion enjoy a day at the beach.

It’s silly fun….

The bad -

Well…it’s unfair to characterize the following pet peeves as bad, but whatever. I was disappointed in the “movies” because they aren’t really movies. They’re like scrolling artwork with music and text to read, or they’re like animated cards or scrolling stills. Here, compare these two links:

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn intro

Record of Agarest War Zero intro

You see? In 2011 on the Xbox 360, I expect more out of my animation, but does it detract from the game? No…not really; it just doesn’t add to the awesome factor. Another small issue I have is the lack of musical versatility.

Don’t get me wrong, the in-game music is great, but there’s only one fight song for common battles. Then, there are only two or three other fight themes throughout the game. Going back to Fire Emblem RD, there must be like 100 themes, and you even get to collect them all, and listen to them whenever you like. I found this to be a very strange oversight for Agarest War Zero…or maybe they were trying to distance themselves from Fire Emblem? Who can say?

As I said, this is a great game. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve only played all the way through one time, but I put like 300 hours into the first play through, and all without a walkthrough; I don’t like to cheapen my experience that way. Walkthroughs are for collecting every, single, little, tiny detail, and I’ll deal with that on my second run, but for now, I’ll say this: Record of Agarest War Zero is a fantastic masterpiece of video gaming, I give it an A+, you should play it, and I will be playing it again.

Thanks for reading. Like, share, donate if you want to.

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About the Creator

Aaron Dennis

Creator of the Lokians SciFi series, The Adventures of Larson and Garrett, The Dragon of Time series, and more.

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