Chaos Legion
After spending my free time, watching reviews from the top dogs about anything they could possibly find annoying to them, I've decided to want to review a game for my own entertainment. And what better place for a rookie to start than Capcom. It seems custom for most critics to pick bones with these particular gents, by what I have seen and know, they show great amount of enthusiasm for anime genre. And why shouldn't they? There headquartered in Osaka, Japan, so I doubt they got much variety. Their star aces? Resident Evil (you could bet it was anime once) and Devil May Cry. 'Role playing?' you may ask. Not always the case, many where fighting simulators, side scrolling adventures and the slash and hack kind. You could bet it's all anime or anime based, some highs and certainly some lows. But I can't say that for sure, so let's fish out one of their under the radar games and examine it... with a chainsaw preferably.
So I picked some old game from Capcom called Chaos Legion and try to understand their methods with these kinds of games. A Japanese anime ((Surprise!)) slash 'n hack game with you fighting legions of demons to stop them unleashing chaos, destruction and death with your own legions of demons of chaos, destruction and death... wait a minute. I'm not really too sure HOW old it is... but it was going for 5 bucks at my local video store (Video Network), so you know it's going to be freaking ancient for even a place like that to give it away.
Amazingly it works on my ps2, so I'll bite. The story goes as this; It starts out a few minutes before you play a flash back as a combat tutorial with someone who's suppose to be a friend blaming your character, Sieg Warheit, for the death of his beloved. This could be a problem because said friend happens to be part of a secret Order and has access to very powerful juju, and intends to unleash a powerful and homicidal spirit to get revenge on the world... not that the world was the problem in the first place, but hey! And yes, to reference Yahtzee, teenagers taking on the devil and/or Hitler, only it's both this time. Half to quarter way through, you meet Arcia Rinslett, who I swear must be the most subtle of anime characters of all times. Her clothes actually look like something you could get in a normal shop... and wasn't ironed with a lawnmower, and a sensible hairstyle. Pity I can't say the same for Sieg, who looks like someone super glued a giant frangipani on his forehead. Turns out your friend Victor has killed her brother and decided to tag along to return the favour to your former friend. Amazingly, Arcia's only in the clips but never actually helps you in fighting. Regardless though, she kicks ass in the clip and turns out to be really fleshed out and developed.
What I don't really understand about most anime is that some idiot goes round thinking a sword is just good as a gun in a fight. If it was a melee fight like in the Matrix: Reloaded, then sure. But if you're caught in a warzone, you're going to end up a pin cushion! Oh well, live and learn... if you live.
I'm not one to spoil endings, so I'll go elsewhere; Combat is pretty straight forward. press a button to swing your sword, don't press it to stand around and pick your nose while be beaten around like a pinata. There's this lock-on option that may just get the closest enemy, if your aim with lousy targeting systems is pretty well furbished. So as you can see, Combat would have made 'Chaos Legion' a real ass of a game, being so standard. Then again don't suppose a swordsman could really do much else. What's new is Seig can summon a force of powerful beings known as the chaos legion, which will do most of the work for you, as long as you tug on their accordingly. And what's there to do is attack at random, attack when ordered/ defend/ stand around or use a special ability. To give credit, these creatures certainly liven up fights, and each are different with unique skills and may give you access to other new places.
Though I have massive spite with the 'Bomb' variety; It takes a lot of soul ((mana points for you JRPG people, only it's your monster health bar)) to use for very small effect at the start. Lighting your farts would be more effective, really. Did I forget to mention that if you run out of soul, which you get from attacking and defeating monsters, you can't use that legion? Luckily you can have two at a time, but if they aren't as much as a winning combination for that level, you'll have to start again to choose a better pair. One thing to get your blood pressure high, that'll do the trick If you get enough soul from defeating monsters you can fix that little dilemma.
Game play; castle crusaders; those words come to mind, when you think about it. Basically you're stuck in one section of a level (or stage), mainly ruins and deserted cities which surprisingly has remote gates which still work. And in each section you are blocked off by said gates until you either kill all monsters within that section, or kill a certain target, usually the stronger one or the one spewing out more enemies. There are about three to four sections in a stage and then a big boss fight followed by a clip and an additional crest to summon another type of legion.
At first impressions, you'd doubt they'd put in jack all effort on levels, but as time goes on, you see the gradual rise in the level developers amphetamine intake. They put in a lot of effort each stage they go in. And difficulty in each boss level rises, though they seem to be based off the boss of the previous level. Something had to be sacrificed I suppose. There is an extra idea that you might want to find nine pieces of an 'ultimate crest' which gives you this really powerful Legion God. Just so you know, you and your Legions life bar, but mainly yours, can go low relatively quick. But no worries! There are two ways you can bring it back up, by killing the stronger enemies like tough one and bosses, if you can, And every once in a blue moon, monsters drop upgrades, and health and soul pickups.
Another interesting thing is monsters have attributes. Some are stronger in some attacks, others are relatively weak to other kinds of attack, and a rare few are only damageable by a certain attack. And if you're fighting alone the triangle button will use a certain legion you have working to come up and assist you in its own personal way. This gets the thing in your noggin working, doesn't it?
At the very end of a stage, you get your collected experience depending on how many you've killed, how many chain attacks, time bonuses, and how well you did in general, similar to how your graded on many sonic games, only difference is, you chance of doing well. Anyway, your legions receive the amount of experience you got, which you use to get more of the dozy little buggers at once, get them stronger, longer lasting, give you an upgrade and even enchant your sword to do powerful different abilities. This is turning out to be a generally well thought out game, if the story hadn't included nearly everything in the anime handbook, though it's partially unique.
So, it's the sixth or so paragraph and I'm stuck with the decision of deciding it a good game or trash worthy. Well, let see.
On one side:
Original storyline, for its kind at least...
skinned out and developed levels
Unique and very noble attempt to make it a different drawn out game all together.
And plenty points for Arcia... she was an unbelievably subtle character who still stood out without been seen as a damsel in distress, or the barely armoured college twit who's packing, and at least has a pair of realistically sized... yeah.
On the Other:
Follow linear plotline
Fights become cluttered with or without minions
Stupid Bomb monster!
Though Chaos legion has its thorns, its certainly a fresh attempt by CapCom. Id be relatively being happy with this game. But why didnt it make a good buzz or so? I dont know. Its pretty old, so maybe it did, or was victim to prejudice as another similar remake of Devil May Cry. Cause Sieg looks a hell lot like Dante/Nero, and Victor seems ripped from somewhere, maybe Pegasus from Yu-gi-oh. Either way, it was a decent game that I wouldn't mind renting.... for a day.
No star rating.