Agarest: Generations of War

Agarest: Generations of War is a fantasy tactical role-playing game that blends turn-based combat with dating sim mechanics, where players shape a multi-generational saga through choices affecting relationships and lineage amidst a backdrop of war and adventure. This Windows release includes extensive DLC content, enhancing the deep, lengthy narrative experience.

Agarest: Generations of War: Review

Introduction: A Monumental Ambition, a Flawed Legacy

In the vast landscape of tactical role-playing games, few titles are as ambitiously sprawling or as notoriously polarizing as Agarest: Generations of War. Originally released in Japan in 2007 as Record of Agarest War and later localized for Western audiences, this title represents a singular, audacious gamble: to fuse the deep, grid-based tactics of a strategy RPG with the relationship-building and generational inheritance mechanics of a dating sim, all wrapped in an epic fantasy saga spanning five distinct eras. Its legacy is not one of universal acclaim, but of a cult curiosity—a game whose sheer scale and unique core concept are often overshadowed by accusations of repetitive grind, frustrating systems, and uneven execution. This review will argue that Agarest is a profound case of ambition exceeding its technical and design constraints, a game that contains the seeds of brilliance but is ultimately strangled by its own convoluted systems and a pacing that tests the very limits of player endurance. It is both a fascinating historical artifact from a specific era of Japanese RPG development and a cautionary tale about the perils of unchecked scope in game design.

Development History & Context: The Niche Masters’ Experiment

Agarest: Generations of War was born from a collaboration between three studios deeply entrenched in Japan’s niche RPG scene: Idea Factory, Red Entertainment, and Compile Heart. In the mid-to-late 2000s, these studios were known for catering to a dedicated, if small, fanbase with titles that often emphasized heavy mechanics, deep customization, and a pronounced anime aesthetic. The project was directed by Kenta Sugano (Idea Factory), with scenario elements—particularly the dating sim events and “Free Intention” system—handled by Shuntaro Ashida from Red Entertainment. The composer was Kenji Kaneko, Idea Factory’s in-house talent, whose soundtrack would become one of the game’s more consistently praised elements.

The game’s initial concept sought to leverage the processing power of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to deliver a new kind of epic. The team was inspired by a desire to convey the passage of eras and the weight of legacy through a multi-generational structure, a narrative device famously used in Phantasy Star III but rarely expanded upon. This vision was hampered from the outset by the technological constraints of the era. While the 2D character portraits and visual novel-style dialogue sequences were richly detailed and expressive, the in-battle 3D models and environments were notably rudimentary, featuring flat, featureless landscapes and sprites with a limited animation set. This visual disconnect between the lavish static art and the simplistic tactical maps would become a recurring point of criticism.

The Western localization journey was fragmented and revealed the cultural sensitivities of the time. In Europe, publisher Ghostlight localized the PS3 version as Agarest: Generations of War and deliberately toned down some of the more risqué “fanservice” artwork to secure a PEGI 12 rating. North American publisher Aksys Games, in contrast, released the Xbox 360 and PSN versions in 2010 under the title Record of Agarest War, retaining the original Japanese voice acting (with English subtitles) and the uncensored content, even marketing a “Really Naughty Limited Edition” with themed pillowcases and mouse pads. The PC port, released on Steam in 2013 by Ghostlight, bundled an immense amount of previously released DLC—32 packs in total, including basic equipment, experience boosts, and multiple optional dungeons—in an attempt to provide a “complete” package from the start. However, this version inherited significant technical issues, including chronic frame rate stuttering and frequent crashes, which devastated the already grueling experience for many players on the platform.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: A Saga of Bloodlines and Burden

The story of Agarest is its most compelling, if unevenly told, pillar. It is set in a high fantasy world born from the cataclysmic “Agarest War,” a divine conflict between gods of light and darkness that shattered the realm. The victorious gods of light reconstituted the world using the decaying bodies of their foes, creating a new, fragile peace. The narrative unfolds across five generations on the continent of Lucrellia, each generation a self-contained chapter with a new male protagonist—all descendants of the first hero, Leonhardt.

The plot is a classic tale of a creeping, ancient evil. A mysterious heroine, Dyshana, revives the mortally wounded Leonhardt and binds him, and his soul-bound descendants, to a sacred mission: to maintain the seal on the chaos god and thwart the machinations of a traitorous human military unit, the Sovereign of Night’s agents, and other dark forces. The central, innovative mechanic is the “Soul Breed” system. At the conclusion of each generation’s story arc, the protagonist must choose a wife from three primary female party members. This choice, dictated by a web of invisible “affection” points influenced by the player’s dialogue and event choices, determines the next generation’s hero. The child inherits a statistical and aesthetic blend of his parents: base stats are heavily influenced by the mother’s class and attributes, while the grandmother’s accumulated “Proofs of Valor” grant an extra skill slot. Appearance—hair color, eye color—is also a genetic blend.

This creates a powerful, if flawed, sense of legacy. A player’s strategic and romantic decisions in Generation 1 have tangible, sometimes crippling, consequences in Generation 5. Thematically, the game explores fate, sacrifice, and the cyclical nature of war. Each protagonist shoulders a burden not of their own making, a literal legacy of conflict. The best character moments often come from older characters—like the elf Ellis or the battlemage Fyuria—reappearing in later generations, their characters aged and weathered by decades of war, providing a rare sense of temporal passage. However, the narrative execution is inconsistent. While the core plot has moments of genuinegravitas—such as a character lamenting the pointlessness of a war fought for a peace that will be forgotten—it is frequently bogged down by lengthy, poorly paced political exposition about kingdoms and factions the player has little investment in. Later-generation protagonists are often criticized for being thinly sketched archetypes (the “noble warrior,” the “tactician”), their personalities defined almost entirely by their inherited role. The romantic subplots, the engine of the generational mechanic, are reduced to a handful of scripted choices with sometimes opaque consequences, making optimal pathing for desired outcomes feel more like solving a FAQ puzzle than engaging in organic courtship. As RPGamer’s review acidly noted, the system reduces what could have been a profound exploration of lineage to “a few questions that pop up,” followed by static wedding CG images.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Grind of Inheritance

The tactical combat system is a hybrid beast, attempting to merge strategic positioning with a unique combo-focused paradigm. Battles occur on grid-based “Enchanted Fields.” A turn is divided into two distinct phases: the Move Phase and the Action Phase. During the Move Phase, characters are allocated Action Points (AP) to traverse the battlefield (1 AP per tile, limited by their Movement stat). Once movement is set, the Action Phase begins, where attacks and skills are resolved based on remaining AP and Agility (AGI) stat turn order.

The cornerstone innovation is the “Extended Area” linking system. Each character has a unique, often L-shaped or T-shaped, pattern of linked squares emanating from them. If allies position themselves so their Extended Areas overlap, they form a “chain.” This chain allows for Extended Skills—powerful combination attacks where characters sequentially unleash basic skills in sequence. The more characters linked, and the more specific the weapon-type sequences (e.g., sword -> spear -> axe), the more powerful the resulting combo. Building these chains is deeply satisfying in theory and is the primary means of dealing significant damage, as single attacks are largely ineffective.

However, the execution is plagued by systemic frustrations:
1. AI and Positioning: The game’s AI controls where characters teleport to when joining a chain. If positioning is slightly off, characters can be flung to irrelevant map edges, breaking the chain and wasting AP, with little player control. This turns clever positioning into a gamble.
2. Opaque Damage Calculation: There is no pre-attack damage preview. Players must rely on memory of enemy stats, which can only be checked during the Move Phase (before attacks are chosen), forcing them to recall resistances and HP totals under pressure.
3. Repetitive Encounters: Enemy formations are recycled endlessly. The same handful of dungeon maps are reused across generations with minor palette swaps. Coupled with the game’s required pace (often 2-4 forced battles before a story point), this creates immense repetition.
4. Brutal, Grind-Dependent Difficulty: Even on Easy, the game’s balance is punitive. Enemies, especially bosses with HP regeneration, deal catastrophic damage. Victory rarely comes from tactical genius but from overleveling through immense grinding. The solution to a tough fight is often not a new strategy, but simply killing the enemy faster with bigger combos, which requires more grinding for better equipment and skills. Healing is largely ineffective against multi-target bursts; revival items and immediate counter-assaults become the crutch.
5. Inventory & Blacksmithing Hell: Expanding shop inventories requires specific monster drops, which are only guaranteed by overkilling enemies. This necessitates grinding the same foes repeatedly to secure “perfect” drops for alchemy. The blacksmithing system—where items can be enhanced, converted, or combined via alchemy (with a chance for a “Smithing Accident” creating a different item)—is a nested resource management nightmare. Every item might be a component for a future upgrade, forcing players to hoard hundreds of objects and sift through them constantly. Switching equipment is a chore, as each piece has attached skills that must be manually re-equipped to avoid crippling a character.
6. Exploration & Dungeons: Dungeon navigation is handled via “Exploration Points,” abstracted steps on a map. Paths are cryptic, often requiring repeated jumps to clear obstacles, and moving too much triggers random battles, making exploration a tedious, stop-and-start affair.

The “Soul Breed” system’s impact on combat is profound but often invisible. A poorly chosen mother can yield a weak heir with poor stat growth and a limited skill set, making later generations a sheer slog. Achieving the True End requires near-perfect lineage management—high-affinity marriages, recruiting all optional characters, maintaining a neutral “Link Gauge” (a morality meter), and completing the game in under 500 total turns across key bosses. This demands a guide-level understanding of the hidden requirements, turning the narrative into a puzzle to be solved rather than a story to be experienced.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Tale of Two Styles

The world of Agarest is presented through a stark aesthetic divide. The 2D presentation is the game’s strongest visual suit. Character portraits by Katsuyuki Hirano are detailed, expressive, and heavily stylized in a classic anime mold. The visual novel-style dialogue scenes, where these portraits shift with emotion, are effective at conveying character moments. The game’s “fanservice” is prominent here—female characters are frequently depicted in revealing outfits and provocative situations, with “veiled nudity” and sexual innuendo in specific CGs, though no explicit nudity. This aspect is a core, if dated, part of the game’s identity and marketing.

Conversely, the 3D battle environment is where the budget and technical limitations are painfully apparent. Battlefields are flat, texture-less planes with minimal地形 features. Character sprites, while initially charming, have a small pool of attack animations that repeat ad nauseum. The “Enchanted Field” effects (stat boosts, hazards) are visually subtle and easily missed. The overworld map is a simple, low-resolution node graph. This disconnect between the lavish 2D art and the rudimentary 3D gameplay空间 creates a jarring experience, as if two different games are glued together.

The sound design is a high point. Composer Kenji Kaneko delivers a energetic, melodious soundtrack that spans orchestral fanfares, rock-infused battle themes, and quieter, emotional tracks. The main “Agarest War Suite” is particularly effective. However, the game’s extreme length (80-150+ hours) means these tracks are cycled to the point of fatigue, especially the default battle theme which repeats across all five generations with minor variations. The voice acting is Japanese-only and of mixed quality. Some performances (e.g., Takashi Kondō as Leonhardt) are solid, but others are criticized as monotone or delivered by lesser-known talents, failing to elevate the often stilted dialogue.

Reception & Legacy: A Cult Artifact of Niche Design

Upon its initial console release, Record of Agarest War received mixed-to-positive reviews from Western critics, with Metacritic aggregates of 67/100 (PS3) and 71/100 (Xbox 360). Reviews often praised its ambitious scope, the cleverness of the combo-based combat, and the sheer audacity of its generational system, while criticizing its relentless grind, repetitive encounters, and fanservice that clashed with the serious story. IGN’s Daemon Hatfield gave it a 7.5, noting it provides “a very long adventure” for genre fans. GameSpot awarded a 7, highlighting the combo system but faulting the “outdated graphics” and awkward fanservice.

The PC port’s reception was significantly worse, earning a Metacritic score of 45/100. The added technical problems—stuttering, crashes—compounded the existing gameplay frustrations. RPGamer’s scathing 2/10 review called it a joyless slog that “sucks joy from the consumer,” criticizing its wasted potential, mind-numbing repetition, and abysmal item management. The stark contrast between the console and PC scores underscores how technical polish (or lack thereof) can utterly break a game with already fragile foundations.

Commercially, the game performed modestly. It sold approximately 23,000 units in Japan for PS3 and around 180,000 units in North America for Xbox 360, indicating a solid but not breakout performance in its niche. Its true life has been on digital platforms—Steam, GOG.com—and through subsequent ports. The 2023 Nintendo Switch port, celebrated for its portability which mitigates the grind, and its inclusion of all DLC and visual upgrades, has been particularly well-received as the “definitive” version for new players.

Its legacy is twofold. First, within the Idea Factory/Compile Heart ecosystem, it established a template. The generational “Soul Breed” concept evolved into more streamlined systems in Record of Agarest War Zero and Agarest: Generations of War 2 (which added co-op). The spin-off Record of Agarest War: Mariage doubled down on the romance mechanics. The core conceit of legacy-building through stats and relationships remains the series’ signature. Second, in the broader tactical RPG landscape, it stands as a bold, if failed, experiment. It demonstrated a desire to marry strategic combat with deep, consequential role-playing choices in a way few games have attempted since Phantasy Star III. Its failures—the grind, the opaque systems, the pacing—are instructive lessons in how not to design for player engagement over a 100-hour campaign.

Conclusion: A Fascinating Failure

Agarest: Generations of War is not a good game by conventional metrics. Its combat is repetitive, its systems are needlessly convoluted and grindy, its narrative pacing is glacial, and its PC port is technically shoddy. It demands a patience and tolerance for friction that most players will find unreasonable. Yet, it is a game impossible to dismiss entirely. Its core idea—a tactical RPG where your romantic choices echo through five generations, shaping the very stats and appearance of your heirs—is a stroke of genius that no other major series has dared to replicate with such literalness.

For the dedicated few, the game offers a peculiar, almost masochistic satisfaction: the deep satisfaction of building a perfect combo chain, the obsessive planning of an optimal lineage, the成就感 of finally overcoming a boss through sheer, grinded power. Its cult status on Steam (“Mostly Positive” from over 1,600 reviews) speaks to this—players who have endured its worst excesses and found a strange, rewarding rhythm within them.

Ultimately, Agarest: Generations of War is a monument to ambitious, unpolished design. It is a game that reaches for the stars of epic, generational storytelling and sprawling tactical depth but is weighed down by the lead boots of dated mechanics, relentless repetition, and questionable balancing decisions. Its place in video game history is not as a classic, but as a potent what-if: a testament to a brilliant central concept that, in its original execution, was almost lost to the very grind it sought to make meaningful. It is a game for historians of the genre and for masochists with a calculator, but it is rarely, if ever, a game for the casual player. Its legacy is that of a cautionary legend—a reminder that even the most ambitious RPG vision can be undone by the daily grind of its own systems.