by Josh Komon

Created on: August 01, 2011

Record of Agarest War Zero is many things.  It is a prequel, a role playing game, a strategy game, a Japanese import with no English voice dubs, and a long bizarre story spanning many generations.  The game with the long and strange name is mostly going to appeal to a niche group of gamers, those who love RPGs and anime.  However, there are enough elements contained within to appeal to many gamers with the patience to learn all the inner workings.

GAME PLAY

Record of Agarest War Zero breaks down into several smaller pieces.  Once into the meat of the game, players control the direction of the party in the world map.  This is not a free roaming system, and in many avenues, there are only two choices: move forward, or move backward.  With the party icon hovering over any point of interest, players often have the choice to engage in whatever is happening at that locale.  Many times, this is simply a battle.  However, there are also cut scenes, town interactions, and something known as vacation days, where the characters learn to love and hate one another.

The battles are a hybrid of traditional turn based RPG, and tactics style strategy battles.  The battles alternate between the movement phase, and the action phase.  The former is where players jockey for position.  Moving can link players up for combos, take advantage of stat bonus squares, increase or decrease the enemies of enemies, and more.  Moving costs action points, so the option to not move can also be a good one.  During the action phase, characters use up their action points to make attacks, use items, or cast spells.  Working with multiple skills, or combining actions with other characters can lead to special attacks, which tend to do more damage, and can also cause area of effect damage.

All in all, the game play is a little slow, and a bit complicated, but there are so many variables to be played with, that the experience is still worth it.

GRAPHICS

The bulk of the game looks two generations old.  Even the highly stylistic images of the characters are barely more than still shots.  However, there is something endearing about the pixie look of every character.

SOUND

The music and sound effects are average.  The voice acting, while annoying at time, is mostly amazing... for those who understand Japanese.  The rest must read the subtitles, but will also probably still enjoy the voice inflection being performed by the voice actors.

OVERALL

This game is by no means a must have, but for someone looking to kill 40 hours or more on a video game, this one is certainly worth a try.

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