The second game in the series, a prequel that contains its sequel. I still hate it, but it’s less stabbing myself with a needle and more poking myself. It still hurts a bit, but I’m not bleeding as much.

Unlike the original, I can’t remember any advertisement for Zero. I think I played it out of a weird sense of achievement whoring? Like the first game worked, might as well do the second? Oh, and I loved save importing which this one has. That was probably the actual reason I stuck with a series I already didn’t like.

Story-5

Agarest Zero is a prequel story to Agarest 1, telling the story of Leo’s sword and of the villains rise and fall of power that leads to the events of Agarest 1. The first generation of Agarest Zero is not this prequel. It’s kind of barely anything at all.

So the two games start the same. Hero finds girl getting attacked by forces of darkness, steps in and is killed. Girl brings them back to life, chaining them to the events of the story. Unlike 1, Zero does give the hero the option of not dying, but he’s the soldier so he gladly gives his life to the cause when it comes up. Also unlike 1, the girl who revives is a lot more active in the plot. Mimel gains amnesia for reviving Sieghart and that ruins the plans of the forces of light who were going to use her to awaken Calinou, the Larva of Blacksmithing to create weapons to defeat the forces of darkness. A physical key was also needed, so off your party goes to get the ingredients while hoping Mimel regains her power and memories. So basically, gather items to craft a thing for Calinou, which is the entire plot of Generation 4 of Agarest 1. They even have one of the heroines deal with a betrayal in her village(again, one of gen 4’s few plot points), which is also the only non find item story event to happen until the end of Gen 1 and the only plot important heroine event. There is some setup for when the story gets going, but really Gen 1 could almost be summarized(or removed) and I feel like you wouldn’t miss anything.

Then gen 2 hits, and it’s finally an actual story. It gets dark and finally feels like a war story of heroes and gods, for the first time in the series for me. It sets up Summerill, the villain of Agarest 1. Reveals where he got his army, where Leo’s sword comes from, and why neutral is the true route in Agarest 1. Thanks to using more cutscenes using the units instead of the talking portraits you get some actual action and can see some of the brutality of the enemy. Compared to Agarest 1, Zero actually feels like a war story with villains worth hating. Maybe it’s because of the smaller and more focused cast, but the main group feels more alive as well. Like there is a less feeling of everyone speaking for the sake of getting their face on the screen then in 1.

One new edition is vacation time. At points in the story you can go to a town and see events with the characters on a point system. These are way to short to do anything meaningful with, and are really just to adjust affection levels and unlock a few side things. It’s a bit closer to what I wish the series had more of, less dungeon and more romance. That’s not what Agarest really is, but it is what sold me on the series in the first place.

So is Zero worth playing without playing 1? Sure. Zero actually has a NG+(or save transfer from 1) mode called Digest mode where the game is on the highest difficulty, but you get Agarest 1’s main plot beats and bosses that unlock as you progress through Zero. So outside of the heroine events and good/dark endings, Zero contains all the important things from 1, letting Zero’s plot get its pay off without people needing to invest in the hundred hour RPG that is Agarest 1. Honestly I doubt I’ll ever touch Agarest 1 again now that I have a save ready to go right into Digest mode. Not that I replay things often in the first place, but still… I don’t want to play 1 ever again and Zero makes that easy.

Just to be specific, the only things Zero is missing from 1 is the heroine events from gen 5, the light/dark endings, the non first girl marriage events from each generation, and the ending is kind of removed/changed. There’s actually more story in the heroes of previous generations and their wives talking to gen 5’s cast at each continent as you go back to fight the Gods. It kind of evens out content wise.

Gameplay-4

Honestly, it’s the small changes that make Zero better then 1. Having an actual character creation process, a tutorial, and a proper bestiary go a long way to make the game feel more inviting. Animated character art makes the scenes feel less bland, and having a more focused cast makes the plot more connected.

A few other interesting decisions are making dungeons node based instead of actual dungeons, which makes grinding nodes faster and has a way lower chance of you getting to a boss fight with next to no health or items but making dungeons take longer. Making breaking an item take longer. Not letting you smith or create skills until you progress a bit into the game, but you can buy the books to make those things right away. A big one is that the free dlc and import stuff is way weaker then the stuff the original game gave you, so the two games starts feel very different. Zero actually has battles take a bit, but enemies do no damage until around the halfway point cause the armor is so good, while in 1 enemies do fine but you kill them in one hit with the 2 or 3 characters with good weapons.

Resources also feel less in Zero, mainly gold and TP needed to keep up with crafting weapons so you actually need to pick and choose for a while on what you make. Also, the cgs in Zero take a while to start showing up at all. It takes around 4-5 hours of playing to finally get your first cg, compared to the 2-3 in the first hour in the original game. It’s shorter overall but the game can feel more wall like with waiting for things to happen or getting resources.

Also, I did the monster weapons in this game as kind of a sendoff after everything else was done, man that was annoying. It’s the same nonsense from crafting weapons where you need to go grab these two to make this thing then another monster to make this final one to get a single weapon. Around 20 monster weapons can only be gotten via fusing other monsters to trade the finished product, and around half of those monsters need other fused monsters to be able to make. There’s 50+ weapons just for monsters, that can only be gotten from trading monsters in. The only thing that’s better then the crafting system is the lack of a fail to fuse mechanic, which is still the stupidest idea the series has.

Lewd-4

The cgs are actually a big change to, as the artist figured out how to make horny cgs with this art style. A big change is the way cgs are handled. Just like in Agarest 1, each heroine gets a single cg event and their bridal cg and not much else. Unlike the first game, Zero has each of their event cgs have three versions. Basically the more the heroine likes you, the less clothes or more barely clothed bodies will be in the cg. I think the first heroine cgs from both games gives the best impression, since they are basically the same event. Both are massages being given by another heroine, but one’s fails to be lewd at all despite the one getting massaged being topless. The angle and look of the skin just doesn’t give a lewd vibe at all. It doesn’t help that the elf in 1 is actively angry in that cg, while the girl in Zero is feeling good and has given up resisting the pleasure of the massage of the other girl. Also Zero just shows more skin at better angles and isn’t as half assed when it comes to this stuff. There is less of it, but the quality just feels higher so I think it works.

It also includes basically the entire cg set from the first game. I think it has every single one. Even the ones added to later releases like Noah’s top falling off.

Verdict

While I think Zero is the better game, it’s still bad. Shorter doesn’t fix all the issues and honestly the end game just dragged on and on. Crafting felt far more painful to. This might have actually been my own fault in how I played this in basically quota’s, but the game was a chore.

After the main game ended nothing else was really fun or interesting. I had all the cgs and I wasn’t going to reread Agarest 1 again. I also hate all the jokey dialogue in the Boundary Plane endgame area. The series tries to hard to be serious outside the sexy stuff for slapstick to work well outside of the ecchi. Ecchi’s better though. Actual story is better, though I wish more happened in gen 1 that wasn’t an item search.

PC save for Agarest -Generations of War Zero-

U.S. PS3 save for Agarest Zero

Saves to each vacation point and to the generation split, and one to end game. These go in order to earliest to end game. The first save is the actual 100%, full picture book aka bestiary, item list, and cgs. Plus the replay galleries.

Gameplay: 4/10 Eroticness: 4/10 Story: 5/10

Completion:

Titles are the real killer, as you have to go around and refind enemies to get kill counts and drop counts. Crafting is a huge pain to, as basically every mid game recipe requires the early elemental weapons you can’t buy. It’s really hard to explain exactly how annoying crafting is in this game. It’s a huge part in why I don’t care for these systems.

Anyway, use a save from 1 and play in the hardest difficulty. Follow a true end guide to get everything, then farm titles. You actually need all weapons and items to get all the cgs, except monster weapons and active skills which I grabbed anyway. Also got everyone to level 50 for all movesets possible.