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f13.net General Forums => But is it Fun? => Topic started by: rk47 on October 08, 2013, 11:11:29 PM



Title: Agarest: Generations of War - Ghostlight - PC Port
Post by: rk47 on October 08, 2013, 11:11:29 PM
Despite having the trapping of a hentai game, Agarest: Generations of War isn't one.

Join Leonhardt, the white knight as he ponders the meaning of war and ran into an atrocity about to be committed: a child elf is about to killed.
Naturally, you are given no option to ignore this... or join the fun (what a cute little girl... on the end of my blade). The writing is low grade shonen (youth male) and doesn't try to go complex. You know what you must do. But the game start to grow on me when they offered full party roster and control.

Formations that allows you to command slower member to attack at the fast leader's signal? Yes. Six members in formation performing alpha strike at once? Awesome. Shift the facing left, right, front, back - the squares change. Each member has a different formation setup. Some like em' close, some like em' spread out. Enemies do this to you in boss fight, prepare to lose a member. But hey, when they fall, everyone gets 25 SP, hit 50 on that, bust out your Special Skills for massive damage. Complete turn around! Non-combat activity includes 'pick the right choice to make the girl happy' , crafting (skills, gears, consumables), salvaging, perform overkill (-100% HP the mobs) to gain rare drops and capture weakened monsters.

The last one is a hidden gem: captured mobs can actually replace your party members in battle. Or be combined to create a bigger, badder monster. It's amazing to hear other players breed that level 25 pokemon when they're barely level 20 themselves. It's also great when you realize your friend gained access to a new party member at a different point - because he picked a different route. Sure, the destination is the same, but the journey is quirky, filled with that sense of curiosity that kept me going. 'What if I've done this, done that instead of - '

I like it. I finished 20% of the game and still want to get back into it. Not because of my waifu in the game, no. It's because I want to see how different my in-game son plays compared to his father with his new band of adventurers.

Agarest isn't for everyone. I've not played JRPGs for nearly a decade, but in my opinion at that price point, Agarest's great.

+ Unique battle system
+ Unique power up options
+ Varied party customizations

- Anime cliche
- Anime voice
- Anime art

Verdict: Buy it if you like JRPG.


Title: Re: Agarest: Generations of War - Ghostlight - PC Port
Post by: Kail on October 16, 2013, 04:07:50 PM
Got it, and it seems pretty cool so far, though I'm only about a half dozen fights in.

One question, though, does anyone know how items work?  I apparently got some DLC pack or something, the game dumped a few pages worth of items in my face once I finished the tutorial and I'm not sure what they all do or when to use them.  There seem to be a lot of stat boosters and some fairly powerful gear, should I be using this right away or save it for a later generation or does it matter at all?


Title: Re: Agarest: Generations of War - Ghostlight - PC Port
Post by: rk47 on October 16, 2013, 07:07:50 PM
It's OP  :awesome_for_real:
Shd've disabled it.


Title: Re: Agarest: Generations of War - Ghostlight - PC Port
Post by: Rendakor on October 17, 2013, 09:26:44 PM
My big complaint with this when I played it for the 360 (I think? maybe PS3) was that the full-team alpha-strike was incredibly overpowered; dividing your team and having each character attack a separate monster was very weak compared to putting everyone in the perfect formation and doing a combo attack. This made the battles feel almost identical, since terrain isn't a big deal and attack ranges are pretty long. Once I figured that out I sorta lost interest and never made it through a single generation.


Title: Re: Agarest: Generations of War - Ghostlight - PC Port
Post by: rk47 on October 20, 2013, 07:39:02 PM
My big complaint with this when I played it for the 360 (I think? maybe PS3) was that the full-team alpha-strike was incredibly overpowered; dividing your team and having each character attack a separate monster was very weak compared to putting everyone in the perfect formation and doing a combo attack. This made the battles feel almost identical, since terrain isn't a big deal and attack ranges are pretty long. Once I figured that out I sorta lost interest and never made it through a single generation.

Generation 1 is tutorial mode, as long you do things in formation, nothing is really that challenging.
When I got to Generation 2, the whole game starts to buff up the monster's break gauge and resistances that it's nearly useless to attempt a non-simultaneous attack.
I feel it's part of the reason why battles go much quicker when formation is maintained and it'll slow down to a crawl when you don't use formation. Heals won't reach the needy, combinations can't be done. And god help you when the enemies are in formation of their own.

Full Team Alpha strikes also increases the chance of Overkill (making enemy hit -100% HP gives additional rare item), that is a good thing is it not?
Loot randomization also makes it interesting. Getting a thunder element weapon for my mage changes her spell load out, I started experimenting with combination elemental skills while my friend didn't bother with any of that and spammed power attacks with melee to break and unload magic on broken targets.

Also, capturing and trying out different monsters in the party was fun. It's a mini-pokemon gameplay that is strangely addictive.
Add in achievement systems that gives in-game rewards in forms of new skills, I'm really driven to do it, unlike other games. 


Title: Re: Agarest: Generations of War - Ghostlight - PC Port
Post by: Rendakor on October 23, 2013, 01:14:13 PM
Being in formation 100% of the time is boring; that's my complaint, not that it was OP. The battles all felt the same since it was just "get in formation, begin one shotting monsters".