Jul 07, 2011 Record of Agarest War Zero is unforgiving in its difficulty (which isn't a bad thing) but because at least one character's slaughtered in almost every confrontation.
Truthfully and in all honesty from my experience:A new Battle System that is completely complex. It’s hard to get the grasp of it as the in-game explanation isn’t very clear and they expect you understand and grasp it at the very beginning (while you get early game skills near the end of the 1st generation). Then the complexity of that was there in the beginning sort of disappears half-way and by end game it’s pretty much spamming the best combo skills (For burst Attacks: Accel Rave, Deadly Dance and hunter killer For Stun: Execution, Mirage Force and Sonic Blast And for Down: Meltdown. Arc-en-ciel and Mugging). Of those Attacks the only ones you need since they are so game breaking are Arc-en-ciel, accel rave and Mirage Force. Throw in Mugging, Hunter Killer and Sonic Blast to alternate between the three Attack forms and viola easy SP and an easy game even on hard as you will most likely kill bosses within two to three turns.Now you’re saying but you might need SP for Original Skills (EX Skills in Zero and Agarest War). Well SP is hard to obtain in the beginning of the game (ok so it makes it challenging as that is how it seems since SP is needed to use EX skills Willpowers from the Zero and Record of Agarest War).
But by end game you have so much SP that it is practically useless (Arc-en-Ciel, Execution, Mugging and Arc Ray really ramp up SP gains easily giving you about 16 – 20 SP a turn. Now that may not sound like much but in Agarest 2 most EX skills cap off on 4 SP.) SP is also used so that members don’t have an increased wait when doing a combination Attack. But that doesn’t matter as you can attack with all members of the Party whether or not you have sufficient SP.So SP isn’t need for Original Skills They require something new which is called an Ultimate Point, which to get by either breaking completely the enemies break value or by adding up individual break attempts. Although in my opinion they aren’t worth it as the skills mentioned above do way more damage than most Original Skills.Well now you are saying what about AP?
Well AP can be pulled together by having every member attack. They will pull the AP together and with the equipment equipped, enhanced and reinforced you should have somewhere between 90 – 100 AP for the Male Characters, while the females should have minimum 95 – 105 AP (if you decide to do the Massage and Shaitsu Mini-Games that can be increased to 100 – 110 AP for the girls). So by end game you have no real worry about AP or SP.A story line that, if you have some clear reasoning and deductive skills, you can completely guess the plot twist that was supposed to be shocking in the third generation. Also in my opinion the true end, to me, felt rushed as after the nice opening story and mysterious plot devices they threw in, in the end it was just Record of Agarest War’s plot re-imagined with 3 generations instead of 5.An open world game play that was really just a teaser as there was nothing to explore in the open world, it was all still a point to point game with random battles and no real need for an open world. Hell even the exploration points were just revamped from Agarest Zero’s point to point system.The Guild has been change to the Hunter’s Guild which you need to complete certain commissions to get the true end. Many people thought Agarest Zero and Record of Agarest War’s rare drop rates were low, not to mention the rare monsters in Zero. Agarest 2 takes the cake in rare drops and finding rare monsters.
Especially in the way the battle is set up and you don’t know (unless you use guides) whether the monster is a reinforcement or a chase combatant.The character creation, in my opinion I’m 50-50 on it. I like the fact that they made certain weapons to define certain archetypes (ex: Staffs for mages, Scythes for Battles, Greatsword for warriors finally no Warriors with rods) but I disliked the fact that some weapons were taken out (Breakers – Why?) and some even the developers had trouble thinking of uses (Guns – ok so how is my battle mage Grey going to use a Gun when it has the lowest AP and most guns have terrible Magic Stats?
It defeats the purpose of him being a battle mage).Now I know that this all sounds negative but in its own way it actually works (except the open world that ♥♥♥♥ sucked). It is kind of interesting but at the same time it feels as if Agarest 2 was a bit rushed.Just an End Note: This is completely from my Experiences on the uncensored NA PS3 Game and are subject to dispute as they are opinions.Also sorry for the wall of text.