Patreon button  Steam curated reviews  Discord button  Facebook button  Twitter button 
3DS | PC | PS4 | PS5 | SWITCH | VITA | XB1 | XSX | All

Chaos Legion (PlayStation 2) artwork

Chaos Legion (PlayStation 2) review


"Meet Sieg Warheit, a young knight of the Dark Glyphs, and one of coolest looking characters in videogame history. He’s got a beautifully tattered cape, a large sword with a mysterious, blue aura, and a brilliant helmet of blazing orange hair. Closer examination would also reveal that there’s a definite look of torment on his face, and I’ll tell you what tortures Sieg: he wants to know what a badass looking guy like himself is doing in such a ridiculous game like Chaos Legion, and I’d like to kno..."

Meet Sieg Warheit, a young knight of the Dark Glyphs, and one of coolest looking characters in videogame history. He’s got a beautifully tattered cape, a large sword with a mysterious, blue aura, and a brilliant helmet of blazing orange hair. Closer examination would also reveal that there’s a definite look of torment on his face, and I’ll tell you what tortures Sieg: he wants to know what a badass looking guy like himself is doing in such a ridiculous game like Chaos Legion, and I’d like to know too.

For Sieg may indeed be Chaos Legion’s only truly redeeming quality. Your adventures with him will have you traversing exhausting distances through thoroughly bleak environments, which are all too appropriately populated by legions upon legions of equally bland-looking monsters. There’s a purpose behind this seemingly interminable monotony, but Chaos Legion never feels purposeful – hewing through this unexciting foe is necessary to advance your pursuit of Victor Delacroix, a man driven mad because you – that is, Sieg – supposedly killed his lover, Siela. Falter and Delacroix will unite the spiritual planes with the real world in order to bring Siela back to life, even if it means causing certain chaos in the process.

Dispelling any possible appeal this premise may have is Chaos Legion’s actual storytelling, which is scant and incompetent. Cutscenes interject gameplay with relative infrequence, where clumsily written lines are exchanged in some futile attempt at plot development or characterization. Underscoring this overall horridness are the cringe-worthy attempts to squeeze genuine emotion out of these bland characters. Even Sieg – cool looking though he may be – lacks any real, definable persona. But at least he has a goal. He has to stop Delacroix.

And he won’t be alone. A few missions into Chaos Legion you’ll meet the frail, pistol-wielding Arcia, whose presence is actually quite meaningless. She provides little in the way of help or substance, aside from a short stint where you’ll control her, which is sadly no less boring than controlling Sieg. Figuring more prominently however, are Sieg’s legions – summon monsters that provide statistical bonuses, extra combat techniques, and actual assistance during battle. Whether you summon them for a sustained period of time or call them for a quick attack, these legions are indispensable for plowing through the veritable army of creatures ahead of you. It’s just too bad then, that actually summoning them is highly non-interactive, while the quick attack is an extraordinarily simplistic tactic that quickly loses its flair. Rather than keeping things varied and fresh, the legions simply contribute to the continuous stream of blandness.

In those instances that your legions won’t be doing the dirty work, Sieg will rely on a simple set of sword slashes and a clumsy lock-on system that manages to defeat its own purpose. Instead of automatically locking on, or having some special system of cycling through targets, Chaos Legion requires you to shoot out an electrical bolt in the direction of the desired target, and for many reasons, this causes quite a few problems that could have easily been avoided. Largely, the entire point of employing a lock-on system is to make it so this kind of task is actually manageable. Frequently you’ll find yourself missing or locking on to the wrong target, and you’ll likely suffer a debilitating wound in the process.

But you’ll need all of this in the end, or least most of it, because besides being one of the worst games for PlayStation 2, Chaos Legion is also one of the most difficult. For those of you who like difficult games, it bears mentioning that a significant amount of this difficulty stems from the fact that Chaos Legion’s mechanics don’t entirely work.

You’ll acquire a bevy of new combat maneuvers as you pour experience points garnered from the tiresome massacres into Sieg’s legions. A monstrously powerful six-hit combo and a crucial double jump withstanding, all of them are far too difficult to pull off to the point where they have no practical use. One of them, a mid-attack dodge that launches Sieg into an aerial kart wheel, is actually likely to cause more harm than good. Adding more annoyance is the fact that as a general rule, nearly all techniques that deal any kind of meaningful damage will inevitably leave you in a precarious position, whereas relatively safe moves barely tickle impending assailants.

Dance around too long with these safe attacks, and you’ll inevitably sustain a critical blow that’ll deplete a sizeable chunk of Sieg’s health bar and knock him off his feet. As you’ll soon discover, Sieg is rather fragile, and getting knocked down again right after recovering isn’t nearly as uncommon as it should be. Perhaps the former makes some sense, as Sieg is merely human, and as such, I’d expect him to suffer only the most severe injuries when being charged by giant metallic lizards. In practice Sieg’s also not nearly as agile and responsive as he initially seems.

After cleaving your way through nine repetitive, nerve-racking, challenging missions, you’ll be presented with what seems to be the final solution to all your woes: an item that allows you to revisit previous levels in order to gain more experience for your legions. Boosting your legions to their maximum capacity should potentially eliminate the rest of the game’s challenge, but actually, that’s when the real challenge begins – in order to do this, you’ll need to spend hours playing through the same levels that weren’t even enjoyable to begin with. Manage this without becoming profusely irate, and you’re likely prepared for any harrowing tasks you can expect to face later in life. And they likely won’t be so trying.

If none of that’s enough to discourage you from playing Chaos Legion, there’s little eye candy to savor here, as nearly everything commences in abject monochrome. In the midst of the graphical dreariness however, Sieg’s unmistakable character saunters brilliantly as he brandishes his blade with a passion almost as fiery as his own hair. Sadly his adversaries can’t revel in the same magnificent design, as it’s obvious that the developers called for simplistic monster designs to accommodate the massive amount of enemies on screen at any given time. The prospect of aural splendor doesn’t seem completely out of question as a few of Chaos Legion’s songs start playing, but they’re quickly and effectively drowned out by the repetitive sounds of combat.

With a character as cool looking as Sieg, I can’t help but wonder why his potential was ruined on a game as hopeless as Capcom’s Chaos Legion. (Yes, these are the same people who brought us the brilliant Devil May Cry.) There’s no reward for braving the mind-splitting monotony of Chaos Legion’s fourteen levels, aside from whatever spiritual satisfaction you may get from such a difficult accomplishment. And it is indeed a very brave gamer who makes it through to the end.



radicaldreamer's avatar
Community review by radicaldreamer (March 30, 2005)

A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.

More Reviews by radicaldreamer [+]
Quake Arena Arcade (Xbox 360) artwork
Quake Arena Arcade (Xbox 360)

It may seem strange to criticize the game for its single-player considering Quake III built its entire legacy on multiplayer, but it was this version’s one and only chance to prevent itself from being redundant. Instead, redundant is exactly what Quake Arena Arcade is.
Broken Sword: Director's Cut (PC) artwork
Broken Sword: Director's Cut (PC)

Despite all of its pretensions of intrigue and mystery, the most fun to be had in Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut is found by going around, bothering every character by showing them every piece of junk in your inventory, and eliciting their amusingly rude responses to your queries. There was clearly someone involved i...
Savage 2: A Tortured Soul (PC) artwork
Savage 2: A Tortured Soul (PC)

Savage 2: A Tortured Soul is a game that defies, complicates, and undermines the process of game categorization altogether. It belongs to a hybrid genre that can tentatively be called Competitive Real-Time Strategy Role-Playing Action, a genre with only three games, one of which is its ultimately superior predecessor.

Feedback

If you enjoyed this Chaos Legion review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.

User Help | Contact | Ethics | Sponsor Guide | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998 - 2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Chaos Legion is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Chaos Legion, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.