Introduction

Of Gods and Men. Let's Play Record of Agarest War 2!

The who and what now?

A fair question. The Record of Agarest War series (called Agarest: Generations of War in the PAL releases and Agarest Senki in Japan), is a series of (so far) three SRPGs made by Red Entertainment, Compile Heart, and, probably most infamously, Idea Factory. The series began with 2009 / 2010's Record of Agarest War, continued with 2010 / 2011's Record of Agarest War Zero, and here we are at 2011 / 2012's Record of Agarest War 2. Just for the record, I'm going to be referring to the games by their North American names through the entirety of this production.

Essentially, all three games are divided up into family generations. So, each game obviously begins with the first generation, and at the end of it, the protagonist chooses a wife to bear his child (who has always been male), who begins the second generation when he's invariably in his early-to-mid 20s, and the process repeats depending on how many generations there are in the game (the original has five, Zero has two, and this game has three). If you've made the correct series of choices in each game, the final generation then advances to the post-game, but if you've made the wrong choices, the game ends in the final generation. In each game, the generation lead is greatly affected by the wife chosen from the previous generation, influencing his appearance, what skills he learns, and what weapons he can equip.

More importantly, this is very much an SRPG series, but our current subject is a mix of a strategy and action RPG (I'd say about a 60 / 40 ratio). What characters you bring into battle, how you arrange them in a formation, what you equip them with, what skills they have, what team-up attacks they can do, etc. are all very much a critical part of gameplay.

Okay... So why are we starting with 2?

Another fair question. Despite having 2 in the title, this game has very, very little plot relation to the other two games. While Zero is definitely a prequel to the first game, this game's relation is a hazy mystery. There are smatterings of hints that this might be a sequel to the first game, but there's nothing definitive. It's an entirely standalone plot, with an entire two characters we'll meet early on who were in the other games. Very late in the game, we'll meet others, but nobody ever makes direct mention of events from the previous games.

Point is, you don't need to know anything about the other two games to understand this game's story. I'll point out when references to previous games are made, and you can decide for yourself at the end of the day.

I've heard of this series... Doesn't this have a lot of creepy anime stuff?

Oh, as someone who has 100%'d this game, and Zero, you are quite right. There is a lot of really stupid / creepy anime stuff, and more sympathetic to your concerns, I could not be. I'll crack down on the *really* stupid stuff with an iron fist and not cover it at all (but I will be doing something special with the scenes I won't cover). Though, as long as you stick to the plot-related stuff, I'd say the series' reputation is a bit overblown.

Do note that what events are too skeevy to cover in the LP and which ones are not is entirely my decision, but I assure you will not be seeing the worst stuff. I mean, consider my situation. You think I want to write out those scenes?

Well, I'm willing to give this a shot. How are you going to be covering this?

Probably a pretty typical RPG kind of way. I'll cover the major plot events, what equipment I get and what I do with it, what enemies we fight in each dungeon, core mechanics, and what you do to proceed in the game. As a note, there's some guy called MasterLL who wrote a big guide to getting the True Ending of this game, and I'll be using that as a reference point when making decisions. So, it's not an entirely "me" playthrough, but the "me" playthrough ended up getting me the Bad Ending my first time playing.

As for this game's legion of boss battles, I've decided to go with a group commentary approach. I probably won't do commentary sessions for the many minor bosses who exist to stand in our way, but major boss battles, definitely. I have a couple co-commentators from my Ayesha thread who are willing to do commentary sessions with me, but I certainly have no problem if you want to request in-thread or via PMs to be in on a video.

Spoiler Policy

I don't presume anyone on this forum but me has actually played this game, so I don't think I'll have to clamp down on spoilers too much. The usual stuff, if you know stuff about events or bosses or enemies I haven't gotten to yet, don't talk about it unless in spoiler tags.

A world of war, darkness, evil, sadness, and love awaits in Let's Play Record of Agarest War 2!

First Generation

Second Generation

Third Generation

The World of Lies

The Prosperity of Deception

Götterdämmerung

Bonus Videos

Sylphid posted:

Do I have JUST the video to ruin your day. Yes you. Anoia is a true heroine for sitting through the first generation's absolute worst scenes with me, because god knows I wouldn't do something like this if someone else wasn't suffering along with me. Should go without saying this is

Also, for the last scene, we both agreed the last part of it was so bad I was going to cut out the resulting CG, so the audio keeps running after the video stops. I'm saving you all a lot of heartache, trust me, but Anoia can testify as to what she saw. So can I, for that matter. I'm sure our reactions will tell you all you need to know has to how that scene ended.

Ozdhaka posted:

Vs. Summerill

Because I bring death.

Vs. ???

Lots and lots of death (and animation skips, because seriously, these fights take too long if I leave them there).