I haven’t played any of the ‘regular’ Agarest Senki SRPGs, but I heard this was a standalone game so I approached it accordingly. Record of Agarest War Mariage
While some harem RPGs introduce one or two other male party members for those gamers who like an extra sausage with their eggs, the most brazen ones (Tactics Layer and Motto Nuga-cel come to mind) don’t even bother letting the main guy take part in battle at all. Sometimes they don’t even show his face. He just functions as a “tactical adviser” or supervisor or something. Either way he’s still the leader of the pack and everyone else exists to please him. Now that I’ve said all that, you should know what to expect from a game like Agarest Senki Mariage. If you still don’t, a picture speaks a thousand words:
This is about the only CG from Mariage I can show you. Everything else is either blatantly unsafe for work or dangerously close to it. Idea Factory used the mantra of “No nips, no bush, everything else goes” with results that should please h-game lovers and disturb everyone else. As a general principle I try not to play any game I would have to hide or minimize if anyone walked into the room. This is why I quit Mariage after approximately 12 hours and 31 minutes of very awkward playing.
It’s unfortunate that the fanservice was so tasteless, though, because unlike most harem RPGs, the battles in Agarest Senki Mariage actually had some bite to them. It’s been years since I played a turn-based RPGs and got wiped out in a field battle. Of all the boss battles I faced, I only managed to beat one on my first try. The rest took at least 3 tries, sometimes more. Even the optional ‘Chocobo’ bosses wiped the floor with me like cheap tissue paper. I became quite intimately acquainted with the Game over screen. This is also one of the few games where you have to pay attention to field effects and elements. If enemies in a certain area use earth magic, you had better equip yourselves with earth-resisting underwear (yes, underwear), or else.
The solution to avoiding a Total Party Kill? GRIND. Grind, grind and grind some more. To its credit this is a very grind-friendly game. The encounter rate is quite high and if that isn’t good enough for you, you can call up instant random encounters by pressing L+R. This is important because if your level is lower than the boss’s, you’re getting killed. End of story. Their speed is higher than yours, they knock off half your HP in a single hit, you can’t heal fast enough to catch up and you do piss-all damage to them until your level is high enough. Even then the battles can go either way. You can’t relax until the boss is quite dead and the victory screen appears.
Or, more likely, this screen.
The game also has a class system of sorts. You assign each character a role in battle as an Attacker, Defender, Supporter (healer) or Conductor (buffer/debuffer) and they get EXP in that class in addition to their regular level EXP. Apart from growing through levels, there’s also a sphere grid/reinforcement grid which uses special items + money to unlock stat boosts, new attacks, etc. Specific regions on the world map have specific items, so your growth is naturally limited until you reach certain stages in the story. Enemies also start giving 1 EXP very quickly if you hang around a certain area too long, so you’re constantly encouraged to keep moving.
I didn’t get far enough to experience it, but the ‘Marriage’ in Record of Agarest War Mariage means just that: hooking up with one of your heroines in order to produce the next generation’s hero. Raise girls’ affection by doing combo attacks with them in battle and chatting with them at the inn in town. Chat them up long enough and you get a ‘strengthening’ event that powers them up slightly and takes your relationship to the next level. For some strange reason the further your relationship goes, the fewer the clothes the girl wears during these events:
I shudder to imagine what, if anything she would have worn at the next stage if I hadn’t quit.
You might have realized that I haven’t spoken much about the story and the characters so far. That’s because the game itself doesn’t focus on these things. Your party and the story are both dumped on you pre-fab. The main character is Rain. He’s a hero, his father was a hero, his grandpa was a hero, everyone in his lineage is a hero and they’re all tasked by the goddess Iris with taking down the Big Bad Boss. Rain is assisted by Falcia, Kunka and Paninia, three ‘maidens’ with blessed robes and magical powers. They start out in the city of… I forget what it’s called, then make their way through dungeons and overworlds on their way closer and closer to the boss. Except since there’s going to be a second generation it’s almost certain that they’re going to fail in their quest. I just didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
tl;dr: If you don’t mind excessive fanservice and a no-introduction take-it-or-leave-it story, Record of Agarest War Mariage offers some pretty challenging gameplay for fans of turn-based RPGs. Whether this is enough to offset the crudeness of the rest of the game is entirely up to you. I leave you with these screenshots I took for lack of anything better to do.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Sounds like crap. Too many games on the market to even consider that. Anyway, I heard steam brought the “main” series and is going to bring the second game some time this year. I might try out that one… i heard its standalone and the best one.
This one is definitely crap, but I like SRPGs enough that I might try the ‘regular’ games sometime. I find multigenerational games really interesting as well.
Didn’t realize this was a “regular” RPG instead of an SRPG like the rest of its series.
I want to say if the combat/gameplay isn’t bad then I might put it on a “to-play” list, but then again I’m not a fan of grinding, also Idea Factory gives me pause. Plus it’s not like I don’t already have a bunch of other PSP games that are probably better that I need to play first like VC3.
Did anyone tell the titler that Marriage is spelled with two Rs?
Based on the katakana used, I’m guessing they were using the French word (mariage) instead of the English one. The only thing Japan loves more than sticking random English words everywhere is sticking random French and German words everywhere instead.
There is a hidden brief cut-scene if you have Rain lose in his battle alone against three monsters just before you pick skills to his child.
I quit long before that point so I wouldn’t know. The game had some charms, but ultimately it was too grindy and fanservicey even for me.
So in what point of the game you quit? Before you met the devil?
Yes, right before. I think I had just one stage to go before meeting him when I decided I’d had enough. So I never saw the second generation.
The cave stage?
Can’t remember. I think it was shortly after we found some fairy and some sick girl in a house somewhere in a forest. Something like that.
Somehow the generation system really reminds me of Rune Factory 2, where you play as guy in 1st gen but you can choose the hero’s gender in 2nd gen.
I like multi-generation games, which is why I’m interested in the Agarest Senki series. But it seems they all require grinding so I’m a little discouraged right now.
You don’t really need to grind starting second playthrough since you’re still strong and as all of learned skill tree will be carried over. I finished 1st gen around level 30.
Once the fairy joins as 3rd sub member, the battle wouldn’t be so hard as your Conductor is now able to set traps. There’s even “re-raise” trap that costs 100 mp and it automatically revives a party member to full hp if s/he’s killed.
That doesn’t solve the “too much fanservice” issue, though.
Too much fanservice issues, eh? To avoid fanservice, I’d just avoid talking to the girls at inn or don’t waste too much GP during battles. That’d solve the issues.
Which destroys the whole point of playing the game, at which point you’re better off just playing something else. It’s okay, I’ve already accepted that certain games are just not for me. Like the Senran Kagura series, or the upcoming Omega Labyrinth.
I was thinking to make walkthrough of this game since I know what carries over or not in each playthrough. I even know how to get the true ending where…no, I don’t want to spoil it. And it’s regardless of which girl the player picks in each generation. It would be a great help for new players.
But never mind, I wish I had ability to write…
The secret is to just open up a blog page and write the title of your post. Then add an image. Then just write the first line. Before you know it you’ll have written the second line and third and fourth and your article has ballooned to a 2000-word monster. It happens to me all the time.
Send me a link when you’re ready.
The max number of words is limited 2000 in one post?
Nope, you can write 100,000 words if you want. But after the first 1000 or so, readers have a hard time following along. It’s okay if it’s a walkthrough, but for reviews and impressions it’s better to try and stay under 2000. I don’t always follow this advice myself, but it’s a good guideline I think.