
User reviews: Mostly Positive (1,068 reviews)
Release Date: Feb 4, 2014


Buy Agarest: Generations of War

The Basic Pack
The Offense/Defense Pack
The Additional-Points Pack
The first four Add-On Dungeons
The Recovery Skill Pack
The Flower Pack
The General-Purpose

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Buy Agarest: Collector's Edition


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Buy Agarest Zero

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Recommended By Curators

"Really good Japanese turn-based strategy game in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics. Highly recommended for the fans of the genre."


9.5/10 – At7addak

“Strategy RPG fans will find themselves spoiled with Agarest.”
8/10 – zomgplay

“...A classic exponent of the SPRG genre”
7.5/10 – games969

About This Game


Now, the forces of darkness are awakening once again…


Agarest: Generations of War - Exclusive game features!


Extended Area


Blacksmith's Guild



The "Soul Breed" system



Free DLC included


System Requirements

    • OS: Windows XP
    • Processor: 2.13GHz Intel Core2 Duo or equivalent
    • Memory: 1 GB RAM
    • DirectX: Version 9.0c
    • Hard Drive: 5 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
    • OS: Windows XP or later
    • Processor: 3GHz Intel i3 or equivalent
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • DirectX: Version 9.0c
    • Hard Drive: 5 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Helpful customer reviews
241 of 319 people (76%) found this review helpful
158.5 hrs on record
Posted: July 10
Agarest is a shining example of JTRPG - Japanese Torture RPG




Total playtime (so far): 50 hours.









Update on 75 hours mark.







Update on 110 hours mark.

With Gen 3 over, time for some personal thought:








Alright, onwards to Gen 4.


Review summary (on 158 hours mark).


What I Like:


- Vast number of well-designed characters.









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17 of 20 people (85%) found this review helpful
183.5 hrs on record
Posted: October 31
Hi everyone, here is the review for Agarest: GOW


Features of this game:

1. Deep tactical chess board type battles
2. Party movement based on a world map
3. Story told in visual novel form
4. Wooing of girls occurs in choices and cutscenes

Things that I liked about this game:

1. Battles require strategy and planning
2. The art is attractive
3. Ability to customize party member's gear and stats
4. Character personalities are interesting
5. Solid storyline spanning lots of hours
6. Multiple endings
7. Dating sim is a nice distraction
9. Polished with very few bugs
10. Total Japanese voice acting

Things that I thought could be better:

2. Lots of grinding. If you don't like grinding then this game is not for you
4. Unexpected spike in end game difficulty
5. As an older game, the resolution isnt as crisp

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34 of 52 people (65%) found this review helpful
11.9 hrs on record
Posted: October 15
I'm enjoying my playthrough of Agarest: Generations of War.

Now, you might wonder why I'm not recommending it but enjoying it at the same time. I think the short answer is simply that I don't think many other people would enjoy it. It's a fine line to walk, Agarest has its highs, but it also has a *very* deep low.

Let's get that negative out of the way first:


The combat is visceral and flashy. The "Combo" system is well designed and extremely satisfying. It's *really* close to being an absolutely awesome combat-oriented game...but it's not, and this is due to one critical flaw:

Every map is the same.

Yes, every battle map is exactly the same. It's a flat 20x40 (or whatever) area. There's no elevation, there's no obstacles, and besides backdrop changes (used sparingly, I might add) every battle is exactly the same. I've got some experience in tactical tile based games coming into this and I was expecting something along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, Vandal Hearts, or even Vanguard Bandits. The first battle started and I saw how the combat played out and I was extremely impressed! Excellent animations and attacks that felt *extremely* powerful and were visually satisfying. I was pumped to see a "real" map to try out after what I assumed was the training map of a flat grid. But the next battle was the same, and the one after that, ad infinitum.

And this makes combat very boring.

Luckily, there's an "auto-battle" system in place. You simply let the game fight for you! So I don't even need to grind out the terribly repetitive combat.

And that's where I've found enjoyment in this title. I spend time setting up my team, leveling them, equipping them, setting up everything and then when I enter combat I pick up my book and read while the game fights for me. I glance up every once in awhile and watch the pretty explosions go off.

The storyline is decent, and it has a real "epic" feel with the different generations you play in. Reminded me of something like Saga Frontier 2. The character interactions in between battles I also found to be enjoyable. Also, controller support is perfect.

It's just that the combat is so awefully repetitive. If you're like me and can enjoy a game even if the combat is really grindy and repetitive then Agarest might be for you to "play" while you vacuum your living room floor. Otherwise look for a different tile-based combat title, it's definitely not like what you were hoping for in that department.
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13 of 15 people (87%) found this review helpful
232.0 hrs on record
Posted: October 28



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8 of 9 people (89%) found this review helpful
157.5 hrs on record
Posted: November 18



Was this review helpful? Yes No
13 of 20 people (65%) found this review helpful
38.6 hrs on record
Posted: November 24
A tyrannical nation is invading a smaller, less militarized country in order to eliminate its citizens. You are a hero trying to save that country, by reaching out to potential allies and fighting the good fight on the frontline. By battling monsters and enemy soldiers, the hero grows stronger with each skirmish, gaining more and more confidence along the way. But the war is still ongoing and the longer it drags on, more innocents will be exposed to the pain and suffering that accompanies it.

So why am I currently sitting in a hot spring trying to woo over my female companions? Isn’t there a bloody war going on? Shouldn’t we be helping people? Geez, we must have a lot of spare time on our hands. No wonder the war has lasted this long.

Developed by Compile Heart out of Japan, Agarest: Generations of War is a strategy-RPG that follows five generations of male protagonists as they seek to bring peace to the world. Each hero is confronted with a new quest that in some way causes chaos, and he goes on a journey to gather companions and solve the problem at hand. Very traditional fantasy tropes and clichés are present throughout the story, yet it is not so much of a detriment as it is an expectation. If you were looking for an innovative and original story, please continue your search for another game that will satisfy your definitions.

Yet what Agarest lacks in terms of story it makes up for in how it is structured. Put simply, as you play through the game you have to romance and win over the hearts of at least one of your female companions in each generation. Whomever you choose in each generation affects both how the next protagonist will look like and what kind of character archetype they operate under. Romance a rogue in the first generation and the protagonist in the second generation will wear a red suit of armor and wield daggers in battle. And since Agarest contains multiple fantasy races, including multiple kinds of elves, your children will inherit characteristics of those races should you choose one of them for marriage.

It is a great, albeit limited feature that helps Agarest stand out from other RPG’s currently on the market. But one of the main difficulties that I encountered when reviewing the game stems from the dating sim elements that are incorporated into the story. Agarest contains content, especially during the romance scenes, that could be classified as erotic. Now in practice, the most erotic content that can be found within the game is a shot of cleavage or female characters wearing skimpy outfits that have no practical use. It’s most definitely not a game that could be rated PG, yet it’s not even close to being called a porn game.

So what’s the problem with that? If the content is not pornographic, why do you need to worry? Because by not tilting to one extreme or the other, Agarest ends up feeling like it’s trying to have the best of both worlds. It wants to be edgy, but also wants to be tame in order to obtain a larger audience. This means that the more adult scenes ended up feeling extremely childish, and makes them laughable in their attempts to be mature.

Beyond the romantic elements within the game, Agarest is from top to bottom your classic strategy RPG. You move around the world map via nodes that connect towns and fields together, and you enter battles either through random encounters in dungeons or entering battle nodes that are found on the map. Battles themselves are based around chaining together attacks between allies in order to create special combo attacks that deal more damage or to simply use as many attacks as possible to eliminate an enemy quickly. It’s functional combat that encourages experimentation and repetition in order to hone your skills. More often than not, however, I found myself rushing through battles in order to experience more of what the story has to offer.

Unfortunately, the story happens to move at an extremely slow pace. Whenever I encountered a story node in the first act for example, I received anywhere from one to five minutes of talking before being forced to spend 15 minutes in battles in order to reach the next cut scene. If the story didn’t move like a sloth, I would be far more inclined to enjoy the battles which make up the core of the game.

Another detriment to the battle system is the incredibly lackluster terrain in which you fight on. Every map is on a flat grid with no height or terrain advantages to speak of, meaning everyone fights on the same flat plain no matter what. And while the background may change from say a forest to a mountain every so often, it doesn’t help the fact that it remains remarkably boring. The characters and their sprites themselves are far more detailed, and they remain a constant positive at every point in the game.

Agarest: Generations of War has an interesting central concept that never manages to create anything special with the tools it has available. While the dating sim portions of the game do succeed, even if they are overly awkward, the slow pace of the storyline combined with a lack of clear innovation does more harm than good. But, if you want to play an RPG that will last you an extremely long time, and are unconcerned with its pace, then you could do far worse than this.

6/10, Slightly Recommended

Be sure to check out Nerd House Gaming for more reviews!
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6 of 7 people (86%) found this review helpful
142.3 hrs on record
Posted: September 28
This game has received criticism and praise from members of the Steam community and elsewhere, so I thought I'd put my two bits in.

Characters - Very Good
Despite a massive cast of around 35 party characters and at least 40 more supporting characters, they managed to make each character distinct, someting I, as an amateur writer, found quite impressive. Murmina ftw. 5/5

Generations - Mostly Good
One of the most interesting parts of this game was the different sections of the world that you explored over time, and each place with a different descendant. Ultimately the game if divided into five different stories, each 24-30 hours long. The generations also vary greatly in quality, from really good (Gen 3) to really bad (Gen 2). For the most part it managed to keep things interesting over the ~140 hours this game takes to complete. 4/5.

Story - Somewhat Good
The game's story is mostly character-driven, with the plot itself being a somewhat cliche "Forces of Light Vs. Forces of Darkness" routine. I personally found the story enjoyable in tis own way, albeit somewhat monotonous at times. If you came here thinking Agarest is like Final Fantasy Tactics you're in for an unpleasant surprise. 3/5

Combat - Somewhat Good
For a game that has so much combat, the system seems somewhat half-baked. Most battles are on a static, flat arena with your party on one end and the enemies on the other. The game has an innovative way of attacking, requiring that you create formations so you can layer on immense combos and artes. I found the whole arte component quite well done, leaving me with no shortage of fancy combinations I could use. However, there became little point when I started to uncover artes like Abyssal Fear, which can literally wipe the entire enemy party with little effort. I would strongly reccomend looking at a guide for the combat system, since the tutorial is pretty bad and it took me forever to learn how to not lose at least one party member per fight. 3/5

Turn System - Mixed
Not much to say here. By fighting battles and the like on the world map, a turn counter increases its count. While there are some events and the like that can only be viewed before a certain turn count is reached, it has little effect overall. 3/5

Fan Service - Mostly Bad
If you've ever googled any of the Agarest games, what you'll get is a flurry of pictures of scantily clad women, not pics of the battles or story. This game just has that much service. While most of it can be avoided, there is always a suggestive scene at the end of each generation (except maybe the last). The fan service even reaches the point where it begins to subtract from the overall plot, and can be just plain tasteless. 2/5

Crafting - Bad
This is one of the game's biggest criticisms. The crafting system is very counterintuitive, requiring the player to remember what each item converts into and remember which enemy drops which items. Most of the time I need a guide just to figure out how to make the simplest weapons. If they improved their logistics and made some items easier to farm then I would have a much more enjoyable time upgrading my gear. 1.5/5

Dungeons - REALLY BAD
A part of the game I really wish they'd left out. The dungeons are lackluster and sparsely populated with aesthetics; the rooms are used and re-used from a small set of templates, sometimes with minor modifications to make them look different. You can run through any dungeon virtually unopposed, since the time until an encounter is reset in a new room, making dungeons a bland 10-15 minute hike if you put in any effort to avoid random encounters, some of which can take a full minute or longer. Some dungeons, like Gen 3's Frozen Woods, are way too confusing without a map and require a guide or a good deal of luck to navigate them with any success. 0.01/5


Overall - Mostly Good
All in all, this is a decent game considering its length. If it happens to be on a 50% off sale or better, there's really no good reason why you shouldn't try this game.

My advice, though: Have a walkthrough handy. It makes the entire experience more enjoyable.

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12 of 19 people (63%) found this review helpful
27.0 hrs on record
Posted: July 7
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13 of 21 people (62%) found this review helpful
21.4 hrs on record
Posted: October 1
Let me be clear: I thought long about actually purchasing it and the reason for that were the negative reviews. The reason why I still bought it in the end were the positive reviews, where almost everyone with a (seemingly) sense for this kind of games said it is still worth it.

After picking it up and playing some: I have to disagree! I am used to grinding a lot, I am used to face the same enemies in a row for some battles. But I am definitely not used to what this game wanted to do to me. The battles got repetitive after the second one! Yes, the second battle after the tutorial was already: "Oh, exactly the same enemies ... well, I guess I will do the same thing as last time then ..."

This is a really bad omen. But I continued, having glanced at the combination-system in battles, the item-upgrading and stuff and the character development.

I also had some weapons from some DLC's or so (The game doesn't tell you anything...) which were 10x as powerful as your other stuff. Which means I kept onehitting everything (I play on hard) with the characters that can equip such a weapon and couldn't deal any damage with all the other characters. I now know those weapons can be disabled, but seriously? This is such bad design, it is stunning!

There are issues on so many levels with the game that I really can't recommend it to even the biggest JRPG-fan. The combat-system has some potential, but the way you should be slowly approaching this potential is done so horribly wrong, I am not even interested in encountering this part of the game anymore. And that doesn't happen a lot with me. The story itself seems okay to me, however the way you interact with it is strange. Sometimes your girls ask you which one you like more. No problems in determining how each one of them reacts. But there are other decisions where you (as you don't really know enough) just decide something and then ".... ah, she likes me more. No idea why, but it said affection up WOW".

The next thing is the weird look. I don't know who had the idea to have the characters in a 2d pixel-style and the surroundings in a 3D modern look. With very poor details, by the way. It would help (and probably be a lot easier to make even) to have this consequent. By the way, this grass / wood- type area you fought in in the tutorial in a forest (where it makes sense) will reappear anywhere. Unless you are in a cave, then the area is in a cave and rocky. However, the are always looks the same. Oh, you were on a road, let me make that a forest clearing for you so we can use this area again. Really, this played a huge part in the repetitive feeling I got after some fights.

I am going to play some more tens of hours of Ogre battles now because that is how you do tactical and challenging combat with options! Or Fire Emblem, because I feel that even this brings me to care for the characters a lot more than agarest did. Which, in the end, is one of the worst things that can happen in such a game.

Overall, I can't really explain why I feel this bad about Agarest. Maybe because I was doubting first, then decided to go for it and am pretty disappointed now. Maybe the points I listed are really all big flaws or the game just doesn't suit me. I just feel that there are better JRPGs concerning combat, better ones concernign the overall story and plot and especially better ones in making me care about my characters. Which, as I said before, is normally where the incentive in those games lies.
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8 of 12 people (67%) found this review helpful
14.4 hrs on record
Posted: November 27
Agarest: Generations of War's ideas become staler with each generation.

Pros: Sound, Controls
Cons: Graphics, Story, Gameplay, DLC

Agarest: Generations of War sounds good: the music and battle effects match well and every scene is competently voiced. The controls work well for a keyboard/mouse combo or a controller.

However, the graphics look awful and pixelated, par for games a decade older. Most "cutscenes" are the same images of the characters with different expressions photoshopped in. The story could have been excellent by combining the best parts of each generation into one, but instead are splattered across all of them. The gameplay is complicated without being logical and ultimately extremely repetitive .

DLC Packs were once offered separately but were then bundled together, forcing anyone who had originally bought any to pay twice (no discount), a great way to screw over customers. I will never buy from this developer/publisher again.

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12 of 20 people (60%) found this review helpful
5.6 hrs on record
Posted: July 6


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4 of 5 people (80%) found this review helpful
58.5 hrs on record
Posted: November 8
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4 of 5 people (80%) found this review helpful
251.2 hrs on record
Posted: November 10
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4 of 5 people (80%) found this review helpful
184.5 hrs on record
Posted: December 14

- Long with each generation having it's own story line.
- Art is very nice.


- Fully voiced japanese audio (with english subtitles)

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5 of 7 people (71%) found this review helpful
47.8 hrs on record
Posted: July 6
It's done.

I'm free.

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6 of 9 people (67%) found this review helpful
38.5 hrs on record
Posted: October 23

I am a hardcore Final Fantasy Tactics fan. As such, I have searched over and over for a game of the same genre and style that can live up to it's hype. Due to this bias, games like it are harder than normal for me to review. Agarest: G of W is not a game on par, but it is undoubtedly an exceptionally well done and well thought out turn based tactics game. I admit, I did feel the story is both a strong and weak point, but the first campaign alone was beautiful. Worth a grab if you can get it for 20 or under.
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8 of 13 people (62%) found this review helpful
11.8 hrs on record
Posted: October 21
As a huge fan of Strategy J-RPG's in general, I can only recommend this game to anyone, even people who have never played something similar before.

The intro is easy to understand and spot on, the fighting system is something refreshing (in account to the "combo-attacks").

The story is acceptable, nothing too fancy.

What I really like about this game is that they designed parts of the game like visual novels. You have discussions with your team membres from time to time where you can answer accordingly. Also, your wive(s) in the game can be chosen like that. But you will have to see that for yourself.

i giv dis gaem a 8 outta 5.
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5 of 8 people (63%) found this review helpful
46.6 hrs on record
Posted: October 16
Best game I've ever played in my life.

Totally worth the money.
Enjoy all the epic fights, hidden scenes, special events and romance in this amazing game...

It gets harder on each generation and there are multiple choices you have to make, choices that will change the ending into either a good, bad or normal ending.
(NOTE: You can also get some nice looking pictures into your gallery... some are very interesting indeed, including half naked pictures of girls and hot bath tub pics. But those might be considered as nsfw.)
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5 of 8 people (63%) found this review helpful
19.0 hrs on record
Posted: November 9

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6 of 10 people (60%) found this review helpful
114.1 hrs on record
Posted: November 18
Waifu Simulator 2000x Weaboo Version 1.0 with some RPG gameplay elements.
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