Record of Agarest War: because it's not just boobs. (INCOMPLETE)

[074]

I've been working on this for a while, and I feel I've gotten to the point where I can at least start a post.

Anyway: Record of Agarest War is a Strategy RPG released in 2007 by Idea Factory/RED/Compile Heart, and then localized to the US in 2010 by Aksys (Ghostlight handled the European localization, but that had some notable issues.)  Naturally, as everyone familiar would know, this game is a mix of SRPG and dating sim.  The dating sim elements will not be covered here, for obvious reasons.

Basic Structure:

Battles in Agarest play out in a turn-based pattern where each round is broken up into two phases: the Move Phase and Action Phase.  During the Move phase, positioning is chosen according to turn order, spending 1 AP per space moved.  Action phase is where the remaining AP a character has can be used or stored as is desired on abilities and item use.  Each character has an amount of AP they gain at the beginning of each round, based on a personal score and equipment bonuses.  In most cases, fights go until all enemies are dead, though a rare few early on have nonstandard victory conditions.

Attacks may be arranged in any order as long as the resources (usually AP) are available, and no individual equipped skill may be used twice in the same chain (there is nothing preventing one from creating a new chain with leftover AP, however).

Characters in-game have an Extended Zone: a set of squares relative to them that will link allies to them--if an ally is linked, they get varied benefits depending on the Willpowers of the character whose zone it is.  Regardless of this, however, it means that they are linked, and attacks from either or both may be used in a given chain.  Most of this is DL-useless, though.

Counterattacks exist, but are only available to a PC through an armor skill.  However, counters are only released on a per-combo basis.  A combo ending in a physical attack may trigger a counter if the attacker is within range.  If the combo ends with a magic attack, it is uncounterable.  Yeah, I know, this is silly, but that's how it works in the game.  Interpret it as you wish.

The stats:

HP: Health.  We know what this does.
SP: This is basically your limit bar, though some Willpowers depend on your SP being at or above a specific value.  Goes up at least to 999, possibly higher.  Starts at 0 every battle, increases by 5 per action taken and per action received.  Self-casting buffs or healing ups this by 10, for example.
AP: This stat is twofold: It determines the AP a combatant receives at the start of their move phase, as well as the maximum AP value they can hold (twice the base stat)

Strength: Affects power and accuracy
Vitality: Affects DEF and HP gained per level
Agility: Affects speed (linear speed is Agility+Start-of-Round AP) and physical evasion
Intelligence: Affects MAG and RES.
Luck: Affects accuracy and evasion.

ATK (STR*6+Equipment Bonuses): Affects damage for physical techniques
DEF (VIT*3+Equipment Bonuses): Physical defense
MAG (INT*6+Equipment Bonuses): Magic offense
RES (INT*4+Equipment Bonuses): Magic defense
HIT ((STR+LUK)/2+Equipment Bonuses): Physical accuracy.
AVD ((AGI+LUK)/2+Equipment Bonuses): Physical evasion.

Hit rate for physical attacks under normal conditions is (HIT-AVD)%.  Magical hitrate is 100% (0% mEVA functionally) barring special conditions.

Willpowers:

Willpowers are passive abilities that each character has, and come in three activation styles: Passive, SP-based (At or higher, does not consume SP), and HP-based (below 25%).  Each character's set is innate to that character, though there are no Willpowers that are singly unique to a character. (Not even Ambition or Unleash True Power, which are not available to PCs).  Bonuses from differing Willpowers stack.  A definitive list of all PC-available Willpowers is below.

[Edit]: It turns out that the "Extended Zone" boosters do in fact affect the character.  This makes a lot of stuff less useless, naturally.

Accuracy: 100+ SP--Physical attacks are ITE.  This gets around Parry.
Amplify: 200+ SP--Magic power of allies in Extended Zone increases.
Anger: 200+ SP--Attack power increases
Anticipation: Passive--Character does not trigger counterattacks with anything.
Anti-Magic Shield: 150+ SP--Magic defense of allies in Extended Zone increases.
Aura of Leadership: 50+ SP--Accuracy and Evade of allies in Extended Zone increases by a flat 30%
Blessing:Passive--Increases EXP/EP gain from kills by 50%.  Useless in a Duel.  Except maybe against Grow Apples.
Block Magic: 150+ SP--Magic defense increases
Concentrate: 50+ SP--Accuracy/Evade +30
Desperate Strength: < 25% HP--Physical Damage and Defense up
Discovery: Passive--Allies in Extended Zone have an increased chance of gaining items.  Useless in a duel.
Energy: Passive--Allies in Extended Zone gain extra AP on the user's turn.  Yes, it is that awesome.
Exertion: Passive--Allies in Extended Zone gain +25% EXP from kills.
Feat of Agility: Passive--Allies in Extended Zone have an increased chance to steal.  Useless in a duel.
Fortune: Passive--Allies in Extended Zone gain +25% EP from kills.  Useless in a duel.
Float: Passive--Grants perfect evasion to earth magic, negates pushback and lets the character treat all attacks as frontal.
Full Vigilance: Passive--Allies in Extended Zone negate pushback and treat all attacks as frontal.
Genius: 150+ SP--Reduces all AP costs for skills by 20-25%.  This is likewise awesome.  When active.
Guard: 150+ SP--Increases physical defense.
Heavenly Sense: Passive--increases item drop/steal rate.
Hunter: 100+ SP--increases chances of critical hits and monster capture rate.  TOTALLY OWNS POKEMON.  (Criticals appear to do about 50% more damage but aren't really often or significant enough to affect damage.)
Kill Switch: 100+ SP--increases accuracy and critical rate
Last Power: <25% HP--Significant increase to physical damage and defense
Magic Barrier: <25% HP--Perfect evasion against magic.
Magic Madness: <25% HP--Increases magic damage and defense.
Mind's Eye: 150+ SP--Increases accuracy and critical rate for allies within Extended Zone.
Parry: <25% HP--Perfect evasion against physical attacks
Poaching: Passive--Increases monster capture rate for allies within Extended Zone.  Godlike vs. Pokemon.
Potential: Passive--Increases the number of bonus points per level by 3.  Already factored into the stats for those who have it.
Qigong: 100+ SP--reduces damage against self by (Level*3) per hit taken.
Resolve: Passive--gain +5 SP at the beginning of each turn you take
Satori: 100+ SP--Increases Accuracy and Evasion by +50.
Spirit: Passive--Allies within Extended Zone gain +5 SP at the beginning of your turn.
Thrust: 200+ SP--Increases attack power of allies within Extended Zone.
Total Resistance: Passive--Status and ID immunity.
Unity: 150+ SP--Increases physical defense of allies within Extended Zone.
Unleash All: <25% HP--Significant increase to Attack, Magic Attack, Defense, and Magic Defense.
Unleash Magic: <25% HP--Significant increase to Magic Attack and Magic Defense.


Equipment: Weapons in Agarest can, like in most IF games, be broken down into eight distinct categories as follows:

Swords: Probably one of the more commonly-used weapons, these can vary a lot.
Greatswords: The heavy weapon of the game.  Heavy smash, but bad accuracy and AP.
Knives: High-AP low-damage weapons.
Knuckles: See above, only with a tendency to be on people with respectable ATK most of the time,
Breakers: Free-ranged weapons.  Come in magic and physical varieties.
Guns: Weapons with a linear AoE.  High power, but generally bad hit and very little Magic benefits and bad AP.
Rods: Mage weapons.  Also covers hammers, which tend to be heavy-offense/no-magic/low-accuracy.  Fairly good AP.
Scythes: The other variety of mage weapons.  Can hit diagonally as well as in front, and generally has better ATK for a mage weapon, but worse AP.

Armor and Accessories are universally-equippable.  Many are storebought or feasibly crafted.  (and Accessories in this game have a tendency to be more along the lines of helmets or the like in other games; you're pretty much expected to use them for the AP bonus if nothing else.)

Skills: Barring EX Skills, all characters have four (upgrades to six on promotion) slots in which to equip skills.  These aren't a case of "equip what you want", though.  Each slot has one of twelve types, which influences what skills may be placed in each at a given time.  These skills may be switched in between battles as desired, but are fixed within battle, and technically are counted as equipment.  Once researched at the Adventurer's Guild, they're storebought for the rest of the game, so almost all skills, save for Revive, are available to PCs.  The skill categories below:

General: Balanced physical type.  Generally balances damage per hit, number of hits, and break value.
Power: Heavy physical type.  Good power, high break value, very few hits.
Combo: Speed physical type.  Tons of hits, not much damage per hit, crap for break.
Special: "Miscellaneous" physical type.  Includes stuff that has a better chance of criticals, as well as the typical mage physical.  Damage on these isn't the best.

Fire: Fire-element.  High break gauge damage.
Water: Covers both Ice and Water.  Attacks have poor break gauge damage, but may inflict poison.  Also covers status healing.
Lightning: Lightning-element.  May inflict Paralysis.  Also covers accuracy/evade buffing.
Wind: Wind-element attacks.  Poor break but may inflict sleep.  Has a tendency to be wide-area.
Earth:  Earth-element attacks.  Very wide-area and generally effective, but can't hit flying targets.  Also covers area healing.
Light: Light-element attacks, but also covers healing.
Darkness: Darkness-element attacks.  May inflict Blind.  Also covers parasitic healing and gravity.
Extra: Non-elemental attack magic, as well as a few odd utility effects.  High number of hits.

Weakness to an element results in double damage.  Resistance to an element, conversely, halves it.  Absorption is obvious.

Combination attacks also exist, usable with specific (order unimportant) chains of specific attacks.  There are over 80 of these, and not all of them can be done anyway, so listing them and their specific effects will be done on a character-by-character basis.  Many of these do more damage if the target is in Break mode--which tends to be unlikely unless coming off of an EX skill.

More to be continued next post.

[074]

Status: Agarest has six forms of status effect, alongside Instant Death (we all know what this does).  Each lasts 3 turns, typically

Poison: 10% mHP on the start of one's turn.  This can kill.
Blind: Accuracy is reduced by 50%.  Against anyone with actual evasion, this will reduce it to jack shit.
Sleep: Is sleep.  You can't do anything, and you can't evade.  Even Parry doesn't work.  To my experience, not different in practice from Paralysis.
Paralysis: See above, really.  It's a different status for the sake of immunities, though.
Bind: Don't Move
Stun: Clarified by Agarest Zero.  This is basically Don't Act.

Equipment List: There is...a lot of viable equipment available for PCs here.  To make things go faster, it'll be listed here, as well as in default setups for PCs.  However, for the sake of getting all of the alternative equipment options out there, here's all of the gear available.  All can be either storebought or reasonably crafted.

Optimal Equipment:
Swords:
***Leo's Sword (ATK+2680, MAG+1675, HIT+120, STR+56, VIT+56, AP+11)
*Anglachel (ATK+1089, MAG+542, HIT+130, STR+24, INT+24, AP+6)
*Dainsleif (ATK+1212, MAG+438, HIT+160(!!!), VIT+36, AP+7)
Hinokagutsuti (ATK+904, DEF+72, MAG+904, HIT+120, STR+36, AP+7, Fire-element)
Kaiser Sword (ATK+977, DEF+52, MAG+487, HIT+130, AVD+25, STR/VIT/AGI/INT/LUK+10, AP+6)
Material Sword (ATK+288, MAG+1155, RST+126, HIT+90, INT+24, LUK+18, AP+8)

Greatswords:
**Dragvindel (ATK+1559, DEF+88, MAG+238, HIT+90, STR+24, VIT+24, AP+3)
Sea Fire  (ATK+1138, MAG+284, HIT+95, STR+32, INT+21, AP+3, Fire-element)
Snow Wolf's Fang (ATK+1189, MAG+294, HIT+105, AGI+24, INT+24, AP+4, Water-element)

Knives:
Ten-Blade (ATK+979, DEF+52, MAG+651, HIT+135, STR+32, AP+12)
*Krishna (ATK+909, MAG+851, HIT+140, AVD+28, STR+24, LUK+18, AP+12, Holy-element)
Aerial Knife (ATK+736, MAG+1078, RST+98, HIT+155, AVD+36, AGI+24, INT+15, LUK+12, AP+12, Wind-element)
Blood Red (ATK+633, MAG+928, RST+76, HIT+150, STR+24, VIT+12, AGI+15, LUK+9, AP+11, Fire-element)

Spears:
**Sansentou (ATK+1290, MAG+391, HIT+105, AVD+18, STR+18, VIT+18, AGI+18, AP+6)
Dragoon Lance (ATK+1105, DEF+102, MAG+335, HIT+115, STR+34, VIT+18, AP+5)
Holy Lance (ATK+473, MAG+1042, RST+86, HIT+110, INT+32, LUK+12, AP+7, Holy-element)

Rods:
**Earth Shaker (ATK+1272, MAG+462, HIT+125, STR+30, VIT+24, AP+8, Earth-element)
Skull Staff (ATK+349, MAG+1155, HIT+95, VIT+30, INT+18, AP+6, Dark-element)
Cursed Eye (ATK+995, DEF+66, MAG+426, HIT+95, INT+24, LUK+24, AP+5, Dark-element)
Orichalcum Rod (ATK+752, MAG+501, HIT+105, AP+5)

Knuckles:
Dark Finger (ATK+693, MAG+940, RST+72, HIT+165, AVD+25, STR+20, INT+34, AP+11, Dark-element)
Saint Hand (ATK+693, MAG+940, RST+72, HIT+165, AVD+25, INT+34, LUK+24, AP+11, Holy-element)
Dragon Claw (ATK+697, DEF+98, MAG+347, HIT+130, STR+22, VIT+18, AP+9, Fire-element)
O-Knuckles (ATK+727, MAG+484, HIT+145, AP+9)

Breakers:
Mizuchi (ATK+492, MAG+1090, RST+132, HIT+140, AVD+32, INT+32, LUK+18, AP+7, Water-element)
Cruel Horn (ATK+1141, MAG+488, HIT+115, STR+28, AP+5, Earth-element)
Silent Cross (ATK+520, MAG+995, RST+98, HIT+130, AGI+16, INT+28, AP+6)
Orichalcum Breaker (ATK+669, MAG+586, HIT+125, AP+5)

Guns:
Blacksmir (ATK+1184, MAG+236, HIT+100, VIT+28, AP+3, Dark-element)
Quickrain (ATK+934, MAG+339, HIT+130, AVD+21,INT+5, LUK+5, AP+5)

Scythes:
**Crescent Moon (ATK+484, MAG+1456, RST+138, HIT+125, INT+32, LUK+24, AP+9, Holy-Element)
Louisette (ATK+621, MAG+1184, HIT+105, VIT+20, INT+28)
Reaper's Sickle (ATK+609, MAG+1018, HIT+110, STR+22, INT+28, AP+5, Dark-element)
Finbrain (ATK+813, MAG+813, HIT+120, AVD+32, AGI+28, LUK+20, AP+6, Water-element)
Orichalcum Scythe (ATK+735, MAG+735, HIT+105, AP+5)

Armor:
True Emblem (DEF+534, RST+534, HIT+52, AVD+32, LUK+24, AP+4)
Misty Guard (DEF+365, RST+495, AVD+68, INT+16, AP+4, immunes Gravity effects)
Resist Frame (DEF+112, RST+639, INT+12, AP+3, "Resists Magic Effects" [requires testing])
Force Frame (DEF+451, MAG+68, RST+299, STR+8, INT+8, AP+3, "Boosts Magic Effects" [requires testing])
Three Stars (ATK+76, DEF+349, RST+466, HIT+32, AVD+32, LUK+16, AP+4, "Critical Rate Up" [Requires testing])
Homura (ATK+54, DEF+452, RST+241, STR+10, INT+5, AP+2, Absorbs Fire, Resists Lightning)
Ice Fang (DEF+241, MAG+54, RST+452, VIT+5, INT+10, AP+4, Absorbs Water, Resists Wind)
Thunder Emperor (ATK+32, DEF+399, MAG+32, RST+293, HIT+24, AVD+28, AGI+5, INT+5, AP+3, Absorbs Thunder, Resists Earth)
God of Wind (DEF+277, MAG+42, RST+417, HIT+38, AVD+48, AGI+10, INT+5, AP+4, Absorbs Wind, Resists Fire)
Earth Dragon (ATK+42, DEF+312, RST+381, VIT+10, INT+5, AP+2, Absorbs Earth, Resists Water)
Tri-Guard (ATK+68, DEF+480, RST+158, HIT+24, AVD+32, STR+10, LUK+12, AP+3, enables counterattacks[Rate/power untested])
White Frame (DEF+82, MAG+18, RST+473, INT+9, AP+2, Resist Holy, Weak to Dark, increases HP by 50%)

Accessories:
Angel Wing (MAG+52, RST+64, AVD+18, AGI+7, INT+18, AP+5, immunes Bind)
Ring of Inability (ATK+48, DEF+54, VIT+25, AP+6, treats all attacks as frontal)
Beast Sense (ATK+96, HIT+24, AVD+18, STR+13, AGI+13, AP+5, AVD+50)
Clairvoyance (HIT+36, AP+4, HIT+50)
Aura Ring (DEF+48, VIT+20, AP+3, 10% HP regen)
Hermes Ring (AVD+18, STR+20, AP+5, Restore AP++)
Triple Feather (AVD+15, AGI+20, AP+5, Move +3)

* Item is available by endgame from a rare drop by an uncommon enemy.  I view it as legal but its questionability is noted for those who are restrictive about such.
** Item is available by endgame, but the relevant crafting manuals take a notable amount of grinding for their respective titles (2400 kills and 500 battles).  Included for completeness since this is attainable within the maingame without locking oneself out of the True End.
*** Leo's Sword is a unique weapon with a potentially limited number of users, and is obtained after defeating the final boss of normal mode but before entering the True End path.  The only PC guaranteed to be able to equip it is Leonhardt, but it is noted that that is a weak claim at best.  Included in the stat topic for completeness' sake, but legality is a weak claim for Leonhardt and outright banned for the other generations' mains.

[To be edited in later: THE CHARACTERS.  And their skills]

[Niu]

BTW, what you'll do with Leo's Sword?

[074]

I'm only going through to end of Generation 5--maingame end--here (for varying reasons.  Among others, the leveling algorithm I programmed for the maingame falls apart once Boundary Plane levels get taken into consideration, and I haven't figured out a new one that'd work there.  Also I haven't gotten to that end yet, so I'm not sure what levels I'd be taking everyone at).  And IIRC, Treasure Sword of Oath is a unique weapon with up to five possible users.  Its legality is questionable at best.