Agarest: Generations of War 2
Agarest: Generations of War 2 is the third installment of the Agarest series, which are coming from the Playstation 3 console. It’s a tough RPG with many different elements from another ones of its type, and it’s really tough to learn to play. And it has dating sim elements, which are the main feature of the Agarest series.
Graphics
The graphics are ok, the characters animations are simple, like almost 16-bit animations, but when the characters speak with each other, their animations are a lot better, with good quality anime animations featuring their facial expressions while their dialogues are shown at the lower screen. Also, the CG pictures you earn through the game are really well done, showing the girls at sexy situations (but without any full or partial nude).
– Real player with 947.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim JRPG Games.
TL;DR Version
- I like the game but cannot recommend you playing as its a love it/ hate it kind of game. Proceed with research in hand before contemplating whether you should buy it (MasterLL’s channel has a playthrough of the PS3 version of his youtube channel if you want to see the game in action.)
Full thoughts
Ok so this is a weird one.
The game has a fun combat system that can take a little time to get your head around. The flashy attacks, and fluid sprite animations are a joy on the eyes. Despite the fact some attacks can take a silly amount of time to complete, you may just end up never skipping them because they are so over the top, they’re fantastic. Japanese anime like attacks at their finest.
– Real player with 175.7 hrs in game
Loren The Amazon Princess
This game quickly became one of my Top 5 Favorite Games on Steam. It’s a JRPG-style game from an non-Japanese indie game company named Winter Wolves. This company is mostly known for dating sims and visual novels, but honestly, I think this game is their best yet. (Although, to be fair, I haven’t played all their games yet.)
Important note: The DLC is a MUST HAVE. Honestly, the story would seem very incomplete without it, so if you get this game, get the DLC. This review is also based on having it.
– Real player with 111.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim JRPG Games.
Ok, so the game is not a total fail. It does several things well, but the negative review is due to several factors that I cannot overlook, which I will explain here.
It starts off promising, with customization of stats, distinct NPCs and a nicely stylized art. The story starts off a bit cheesy and cliche, but it does several things well - you are not the main hero but their sidekick, which is immediately nicely refreshing; it boldly tackles the topics of misandry and racism; choices alter the story you experience. Soon after, however these lose their novelty and you begin to realize that while you are the sidekick you still play like the hero - you are their equal in strength and you can easily make everyone like you; the topics I mention could be explored more in-depth but instead the game does not go beyond “everyone is prejudiced, for no good reason, except you, so tell them how wrong they are, without a particularly good reason; and the different paths are for the most part inconsequential.
– Real player with 66.3 hrs in game
侠客风云传(Tale of Wuxia)
What a gem of an RPG this game has been. It single-handely puts most modern-day RPGs to shame. Turn-based, multiple endings, multiple paths, choices and consequences, fantastic combat, wonderful music, many secrets, reasonably good story, memorable characters, you name it.
The whole theme of the game runs loosely on Jin Yong’s Wuxia novels. Most of the martial skills you learn are either of Jin Yong’s established skills in his novels or game dev invented or other irrelevant powerful moves known to martial arts history like the Wu Ying Jiao or Ru Lai Shen Zhang. A good refreshment over the usual Western fantasy RPGs.
– Real player with 128.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim RPG Games.
Bought the game last week, played over 100 hours.
The game is rough around the edges, I really can’t deny that. Before I bought it, I was scrolling through all the reviews, almost didnt pick it up based on some issues I read.
Were there any bugs?
Yeah, some. I wasn’t really affected by them to the extent some others had, but they did pop up every once in a while, nothing major though.
User Friendly?
Not really. Honestly, you’ll get the hang of the general systems in place, but the game doesn’t hold your hand in the slightest. There are some very good wikis though, great work to those who made them, really helped. I played the first playthrough without one, but really needed them for subsequent playthroughs. If you want certain endings or romances, you’re going to have to follow them. Also, the UI could use some work.
– Real player with 106.5 hrs in game
Agarest: Generations of War Zero
Agarest: Generation of War Zero is a prequel the Agarest: Generation of war game that came out back in the 2007. If you played the other agarest series you know what you’re going into but if you haven’t well lets just say it’s gonna be pretty interesting. Now onto the breakdows:
The Pros
(+) Tons of skills combination to choose from
This is self-explanatory I think. As you progress the story and complete side quest you will unlock more skills to improve you’re party. Always check the estorica book for combination list. Don’t just throw random skills in each character. If you do that you won’t survive the end game.
– Real player with 180.3 hrs in game
As with the Origional, Zero is a true work of art. The Generation system is vastly improved from the original, and the affection system adds its own level of stratagy. The gameplay, while at first glance appears simple, is, in a word, “Multi-Layered”. Mastering Esoterica and Combination arts is key to not only surviving some of the most difficult battles, but also recieving some of the best items in the game. With that in mind, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Agarest Wiki that contains truely invaluable information on the game itself.
– Real player with 164.9 hrs in game
Cursed Lands
An outstanding VN-RPG-quest crossover
I was expecting another bland, unnecessarily dragged out visual novel with uninspired, repetitive missions, but I was taken for a real treat here—kept replaying with different initial conditions (race, job, supporting character branching choice) over and over, enjoying every single play.
Visual Novel (VN) perspective: Story branching is rich and, as general VN WinterWolves titles go, you have an almost immediate option to go back—typically less than half a minute in gameplay, couple minutes or hours in the game world—to the last choice and change it to study other outcomes. I like this unique branching feature—it is like a quick time machine, or a very smooth and synoptic reload action that permits me to change my choice without having to repeat a known portion of play and grind once again.
– Real player with 132.6 hrs in game
I bought this game on sale, and I’m glad I did, it wasn’t worth the full price. I bought it because it was created by the same team who did Loren Amazon Princess, a game I loved. It’s unfortunate then, that this game is average at best. There are a few problems I have with this game that I feel affected my enjoyment of the game:
1. Characters/Romance
This is the big one, so i’m putting it first. The characters all had great introductions, and are really interesting. Unfortunately, the game screws this up deeply as it progresses. You don’t get to chose when to talk to the characters, their icon’s pop up when the game decides it’s time for their event to start, so you never truly get to know these characters beyond their surface introduction. The game prides itself on giving you romance options, and even advertises that you can trigger more then one romance scene. It isn’t hard, it’s like the game WANTS you to be a serial skirt chaser, and even when you do trigger these scenes, there’s no build up. Characters will spontaneously confess their feeling for you, claiming they always felt something for you. Your character will reply in kind, but you know this is false. Your POV character never felt anything of the sort, their lying.
– Real player with 41.7 hrs in game
Mary Skelter: Nightmares
mary skelter: nightmares is a first person dungeon crawler jrpg that takes place inside of the jail, an enormous living organism that appeared out of nowhere one day and swallowed an entire city, mimicking it in the proccess. players assume the role of jack, a boy in his late teens who, after being rescued from one of the cells of the jail with his childhood friend alice, joins the dawn, a mysterious organization that aims to escape the jail.
jack, however, cannot fight the marchens, the monsters that inhabit the jail; the only ones capable of doing so are girls called blood maidens, who possess mysteryous super powers (and, like jack, are based on characters from fairy tales). alice, needless to say, is a blood maiden, as is red riding hood, the girl that rescues them at the beginning of the game; the other ones are: snow white, sleeping beauty, cinderella, rapunzel, gretel, kaguya, thumbelina and hameln.
– Real player with 209.0 hrs in game
Ayt so since I’m very close to 100% in this game I guess now is the best time to leave a review. If you were looking for a number rating It’s a 9/10 for me :)
Gameplay:
This game is a First Person Dungeon Crawling RPG. Unique things in this game include the ability to “de level” your charcters to be able to switch builds also gaining bonus skill points by doing so (or if you devolve enough you can build characters with every skill they can learn)
Each character has their own job lines that locks them into a certain range of flexibility but how you use the classes are generally up to you since you can just add skills from other jobs in the line to your current class. This kind of makes each character have their own “role” that dosent feel too restrictive at the same time. There are 10 playable characters and 5 job lines so when you get all of them you may double down on a certain job line.
– Real player with 143.6 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
This game is a blast. I think I got time-travelled to another dimension for about 250 hours or so.
Being honest, I have been pre-ordered those expensive games for years now, however, only few of them is worth the price they originally offered, most of them just don’t prove themselves worthy. Neither being fun to play nor being educational for gaining some knowledge I don’t know. Yet, this game is entirely on another level, it’s like digging out a grand treasure in a royal vault. Though it happened to be a random per-order I’ve made in the past.
– Real player with 297.9 hrs in game
The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel III
Disclaimer: This review will not contain story spoilers.
Additional Note: It is imperative to mention that Cold Steel III features returning characters from previous trails games, the two last arcs; being the Sky and Crossbell arcs. It is very recommended to play and experience the other games before playing this game, even if you’ve finished the other Cold Steel games, you might be dumbfounded about some references. I would suggest either playing the previous titles or watching summaries on Youtube! It is a joy to having played the other games and seeing the characters featured in them return in this one.
– Real player with 271.5 hrs in game
Agarest: Generations of War
Since this is currently my longest played games on Steam and maybe you won’t find a person with a longer hours count in the review section, I think I am kind of obligated to give this game a bit of review. The recommend vs not recommended system on Steam is fundamentally flawed. I would only point out what kind of games this is, and you decide for yourself whether you like it or not.
1. This is the type of “Wikia for the win” game. Don’t let my hours count fool you. I spent at least 50+ hours on researching for all the tricks, crafting and story route on Wikia. And this is very typical of your old-school RPG or JRPG in general. You need to do homework, you need to do research. The hours you spent outside the game is MUCH MUCH more important than your gaming hours. If you are the kind of person who just go and immerse yourself in the game world and you don’t care much about research game mechanics, this is bad for you.
– Real player with 688.7 hrs in game
After 213 hours and reaching the “normal” ending, it’s time for a review. To start with, it wasn’t a perfect experience. The game is rough around the edges and you should only buy it if you enjoy grinding a lot. There’s plenty of it. Endless hours of mandatory leveling and gathering materials. But Agarest has enough redeeming traits to make up for this.
Short version
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fully voiced
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lots of fan service
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huge selection of characters
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nice character animations and good music
– Real player with 371.3 hrs in game
Just Deserts
Just Desserts is a weird game to me. It’s genuinly a fun game, but I think the charm of it fades after a playthrough. I’d say this game is more of a Dating Sim if you were to think in general terms. Each day you have a certain amount of energy to use on moving maps, and doing activitys. You have thirty days to romance someone, and the game is time based as in a certain activity will speed the day ahead by a certain amount. Midnight becomes an unending hour as long as you have energy to burn, but none of the girls are available at night, so it’s mostly when I do Patrol Work in the game.
– Real player with 82.1 hrs in game
This game is made by my fellow countrymen but I have to judge this game fair and square.
Story = 6/10
You, the lieutenant, have 30 days in the deserts, fighting the mysterious aliens
with the help of 5 cute girls.
Day by day and the story goes on, it won’t really tell much about the story itself.
If you just complete 1 random girl route, you won’t understand the whole story.
So I suggest to clear all of the Girl’s Routes, some of them are essential to true story.
But…Even though I have cleared all routes, in the end I was just, “Oh ? That’s it ? Its just like that ?” Story itself isn’t the selling point in this game.
– Real player with 22.4 hrs in game
Magical Diary: Wolf Hall
First and foremost I’ll state that I’m giving a thumbs up mostly because, if you’re a fan of the genre, then this game offers pretty much all that you may want from it: writting is solid, art looks great, and there’s all kinds of romance and drama for anything you might fancy.
That being said, I personally feel slightly disappointed.
For starters, events that are hinted at in certain routes as being relevant for others end up being a non-issue once you get there
! - the best example being how Kyo is pretty much absent through Minnie’s route save for a couple of dirty looks-, or how certain events that feel like they’ll have some impact end up being irrelevant
! -when you convince Minnie to talk to the professors about Kyo during Barbara’s route, it is never brought up again, we don’t get to know if he gets some sort of punishment-. There’s also the fact that certain choices seem to have pretty much zero impact on the development of your relationships and serve only to give you two or three different lines, which is okay with small dialogue options on minor events, but it’s not okay during a big emotional scene.
– Real player with 60.5 hrs in game
Magical Diary Horse hall was an amazing game about attending a magic school, and also an adorable dating simulator. I’ve been waiting years for the sequel, so my expectations were sky high. I backed the Kickstarter with incredible excitement. I’m happy to say Wolf Hall lived up to all my expectations.
The game takes everything in the Magical Diary formula and expands upon it - it’s essentially a retelling of the first game’s school year from a completely different protagonist’s point of view. The game also very much continues the first game’s queer-positivity, female-positivity, and sex-positivity.
– Real player with 50.6 hrs in game