Chaos Legion
Nov. 19th, 2011 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroChaos Legion is a 3D beat-em-up in a style similar to Dynasty Warriors or Drakengard. The plot is mostly pretty pictures--something about a dude named Seig commanding the legions of hell against a former friend who got infected with evil--with all the depth and complexity of a 10-minute modern dance routine stretched over a 10-hour game. But it’s full of very pretty gothic horror-style pictures.
(Well, except for mouths. Whoever did the character designs really couldn’t do mouths well at all. Everyone looks kinda monkey-ish when they talk.)
The problem with Chaos Legion is that it's a Capcom game. If it were a Square game, then any time you couldn't get through something, that would be a sign that you just needed to grind some more, maybe do a sidequest or three, and you'd be okay. If it were a Koei game, the Easy Mode would be easy enough that you'd never have to stop and wonder about what you were doing wrong. But Camcom is only going to baby you through the first stage, and "Easy" will only get you through another stage or two if you haven't mastered the system by then.
The philosophy is that you get the full playtime out of the game by doing each stage over and over until you’re really good at it. The only advance this has made over NES games is that it takes ten times as long, and there’s a save slot, so you don’t have to replay stages 1, 2 and 3 every time you get stuck on stage 4. Grinding will not save you—even if you spend weeks getting your Legions up to high levels, it won’t get you through the game if you suck at it. (The XP you gather only goes to leveling up your Legions—Seig only gains power through item pickups, which don’t get saved if you fail a stage, and which are missable.)
On that topic, while you can in theory beat any stage with any set of Legions (you can only have two equipped) in practice many of the stages are set up expecting that you bring specific Legions. Nothing tells you this. You need to guess, or redo the stage once you figure out what you’re doing wrong. (Didn’t bring the Claw Legion to Stage 7? Guess you’re missing some power-ups!)
You also can’t go back to a stage you’ve beaten until most of the way through the game, so if you get stuck, expect to see the stage you got stuck on a lot, even if you could grind more efficiently on an earlier stage.
If this taken together wasn’t enough to declare the game repetitive, there isn’t really much variety in enemies, and in fact a bunch of the bosses recur, not even particularly changed. That smacks of padding and lazy game design.
The game is really less a beat-em-up, especially by the end, and more a “direct your minions to beat-em-up for you.” (Particularly the bomb minions, which explode to hurt enemies, then regenerate to do it again. They’re pretty sweet.) The combo system is simplistic and Seig’s non-Legion special attacks are unimpressive.
Stage 9 switches things up by giving you another character to use—a gunner with unlimited ammo (except for her special spin attack), who basically auto-aims as long as you point her in the right direction, and who has a “gatling” attack you can access by holding down the attack button. It’s like a different game using the same system; it’s pretty awesome. Beating the game opens up a new mode that lets you play the whole game as her.
I’m reminded a bit of SNES Capcom games like Demon’s Crest; short if not for the endless replay and insanely hard. And actually, along the same lines, like the Gargoyle’s Quest series, I’m more interested in the framing world than in this specific story: The Church Seig works for apparently let loose a “spirit” (either a god or demon, it’s kinda unclear) for some purpose, then Seig was instructed to bind it, which lead to the game’s plot. That framing device sounds like a fascinating story all on its own, not that we’ll ever get more details.
Overall: There is more fun to be had pressing the attack button over and over; there are much more involved and better done stories about lost love and needing to kill gods. If I’d paid more than $5 for this, I’d have been upset. And if I didn’t own an Action Replay, I’d never have finished it. Capcom!
(Well, except for mouths. Whoever did the character designs really couldn’t do mouths well at all. Everyone looks kinda monkey-ish when they talk.)
The problem with Chaos Legion is that it's a Capcom game. If it were a Square game, then any time you couldn't get through something, that would be a sign that you just needed to grind some more, maybe do a sidequest or three, and you'd be okay. If it were a Koei game, the Easy Mode would be easy enough that you'd never have to stop and wonder about what you were doing wrong. But Camcom is only going to baby you through the first stage, and "Easy" will only get you through another stage or two if you haven't mastered the system by then.
The philosophy is that you get the full playtime out of the game by doing each stage over and over until you’re really good at it. The only advance this has made over NES games is that it takes ten times as long, and there’s a save slot, so you don’t have to replay stages 1, 2 and 3 every time you get stuck on stage 4. Grinding will not save you—even if you spend weeks getting your Legions up to high levels, it won’t get you through the game if you suck at it. (The XP you gather only goes to leveling up your Legions—Seig only gains power through item pickups, which don’t get saved if you fail a stage, and which are missable.)
On that topic, while you can in theory beat any stage with any set of Legions (you can only have two equipped) in practice many of the stages are set up expecting that you bring specific Legions. Nothing tells you this. You need to guess, or redo the stage once you figure out what you’re doing wrong. (Didn’t bring the Claw Legion to Stage 7? Guess you’re missing some power-ups!)
You also can’t go back to a stage you’ve beaten until most of the way through the game, so if you get stuck, expect to see the stage you got stuck on a lot, even if you could grind more efficiently on an earlier stage.
If this taken together wasn’t enough to declare the game repetitive, there isn’t really much variety in enemies, and in fact a bunch of the bosses recur, not even particularly changed. That smacks of padding and lazy game design.
The game is really less a beat-em-up, especially by the end, and more a “direct your minions to beat-em-up for you.” (Particularly the bomb minions, which explode to hurt enemies, then regenerate to do it again. They’re pretty sweet.) The combo system is simplistic and Seig’s non-Legion special attacks are unimpressive.
Stage 9 switches things up by giving you another character to use—a gunner with unlimited ammo (except for her special spin attack), who basically auto-aims as long as you point her in the right direction, and who has a “gatling” attack you can access by holding down the attack button. It’s like a different game using the same system; it’s pretty awesome. Beating the game opens up a new mode that lets you play the whole game as her.
I’m reminded a bit of SNES Capcom games like Demon’s Crest; short if not for the endless replay and insanely hard. And actually, along the same lines, like the Gargoyle’s Quest series, I’m more interested in the framing world than in this specific story: The Church Seig works for apparently let loose a “spirit” (either a god or demon, it’s kinda unclear) for some purpose, then Seig was instructed to bind it, which lead to the game’s plot. That framing device sounds like a fascinating story all on its own, not that we’ll ever get more details.
Overall: There is more fun to be had pressing the attack button over and over; there are much more involved and better done stories about lost love and needing to kill gods. If I’d paid more than $5 for this, I’d have been upset. And if I didn’t own an Action Replay, I’d never have finished it. Capcom!
