Chaos Legion

"Some Of The Most Unbalanced And Mind Numbingly Dull Gameplay Ever"

I never understood why people loved the Dynasty Warriors series, since it only ever seemed to be mindlessly hammering the square button. However, I played it and found that there actually was more to it and overall, there are somewhat enjoyable and you feel rewarded after completing a stage. Chaos Legion is similar in that you're hammering the square button, however that's where the similarity ends, since as you'll find below, Chaos Legion features some of the most unbalanced and mind numbing gameplay ever.

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Storyline (4/10)
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The game gives some vague plot between Sieg and Delacroix, which sets up why the two are supposed to hate each other and why they're out to kill each other. Unfortunately, it never gets much past there and you just don't feel the hatred between the two. To make things worse they add a third character into the middle of this whose reason for being there is Delacroix killed her brother, but even when the game refers to her as emotional, as a human I can only see here standing there expressionless saying; “what?”. At the most it gives reason to go from level to level, but nothing more and certainly doesn't give you any desire to carry on with the game.

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Gameplay (3/10)
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As with Devil May Cry, the main element to the game is going up against hordes of monsters and slaying everything in your path. In order to do this you have your trusty sword and the ability to summon “legions”, which essentially are a group of allies that will attack the enemies, each with their own type of attack. For example, you have Guilt, which summons a group swordsmen, or Malice, which use crossbows, allowing you to attack at long range. The game is designed so that some enemies are damaged easier by certain legions, and by levelling up the legions, it not only makes them stronger but gives you new abilities.

The game offers a blend of action and RPG, but unfortunately, it's just not done very well, and more than that, the game is extremely flawed. To start with, the essence of the game is being the “one man army”, but this immediately falls flat on it's face when you realise just how insanely little damage you actually do to the enemies. Sieg's basic four hit combo takes about three seconds to complete and the weakest enemy takes about three of these to kill, basically meaning it takes about ten seconds to kill the weakest enemy. After about ten minutes of the game, you find yourself just ignoring all the cannon fodder and simply attacking the enemies designated as “targets”, which you need to kill to progress through the level. The problem becomes more apparent when you're trying to kill these as you spend about two minutes on the spot mashing the square button and occasionally pressing triangle to make your legions do something. With there being loads of enemies about at once as well, it just makes things worse, because not only do you do little damage to them, it only takes about three hits for you to die, depending on what enemy hits you obviously… some only need to glance you with a sneeze and you die instantly.

The game is just hugely unbalanced. While the legions make an interesting addition to the game, they simply don't make enough difference. The only one I used on a regular basis was Malice, as it could easily kill off a lot of the enemies others couldn't, however, in order to make them shoot, you have to mash the triangle button, so you're left with the same problem, just using a different button. You can also only equip two legions at once, meaning that you have to predict, or look it up in a guide, which legions you're going to NEED just to get through the level. This in my opinion is ridiculous, as they could have simply increases it to a maximum of three, which would have eliminated this problem. Also, whenever you have legions summoned, you lose the ability to run, which means you slow to a snail's pace going through the levels.

There is a choice of difficulty, but it highlights this problem all the more. On easy, the game is a walk in the park to the extent that it's sheer boredom because there's no challenge whatsoever. On ‘normal' you experience the problems I highlighted above. This simple imbalance ruins the game, and is something that should have easily been picked up in the playtesting phase. Just retuning the numbers for damage dealt and taken for the difficulties and making them more even would have fixed a lot of problems with the game. However, even this wouldn't have eliminated the boredom factor as nothing ever happens to distract you from the fact you're endlessly hammering the square button.

The game has some decent ideas, but the way they're implemented just leaves you feeling bored and ultimately like you're wasting your time playing the game. The way the game is split up into levels is pointless and just gives an excuse to put in a boring cutscene to try and move along the plot, which as I mentioned isn't very well written. You fight the same couple of enemies over and over, which just heightens the level of boredom you experience. Overall, there's just very little to keep you interested in the game. The boss battles are probably the only thing, but going through the levels to get there just isn't worth it.

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Graphics (6/10)
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The game's environments are pretty dull, at least for the first five levels, with some pretty ugly textures. However, you can have quite a lot of pretty well detailed enemies on screen at once without any slowdown, which is impressive. The only real problem there is that it's loads of the exact same enemy that you've been fighting over and over. A bit more variety would have helped here. The cutscenes look alright, but the character designs leave quite a bit to be desired and look a lot like they were ripped off from other games, eg. Delacroix looks pretty much like a Sephiroth clone with a fringe.

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Sounds (6/10)
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The in game music sounds a lot like Dynasty Warriors music, to the extent that it sounds like one game inspired the soundtrack of the other. The music isn't bad, but it's nothing to inspiring, but overall, it doesn't detract too much from the game, except the intro music, which is terrible. The sound effects are pretty bland, and it doesn't help that you end up hearing the same couple of effects hundreds of times. The voice acting, what there is of it, is alright, but even the voice actors sound bored of the tedious plot.

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Lifespan (3/10)
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The game is either stupidly easy or horrendously difficult depending on which mode you choose. The problem is that the damage done and dealt is the only difference between the two, and thus there really is no reason to play it through on another difficulty. Even replaying it is pointless as you're given no reason to do so and the game just doesn't appeal enough to play it through a second time just for the sake of playing it. The game can be completed rather quickly as well, since while there are a fair few levels, they take roughly twenty minutes each.

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Summary (3/10)
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The game is just dull and repetitive, and there really aren't any adjectives that describe this game better. The game has very little to keep your attention and what it does have, it just doesn't do very well. The legions are a good idea and should have easily made a game as tedious as this at least playable, but unfortunately, even those aren't done well at all. All this game requires is the ability to mash the square button, even more so than Dynasty Warriors, as there is no variation in the gameplay whatsoever. It's odd as to why you'd want to finish the game, since the storyline is mediocre and the gameplay is terrible. For a game that's on sale in places for £3, even that's too much for this game.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/26/07