One of the main Discord servers I'm active in decided to start a gaming equivalent to a book club and chose this first because "niche PS2 game with a moody atmosphere" is like crack cocaine to our primary demographic of trans people with pretentious opinions on games. The first couple days of the month allotted to beating it went well with glowing praise for its combat mechanics, atmosphere, etc. and it seemed like we would have had the right to be contrarians about this overlooked PS2 game secretly being good. However, as the days went by, more and more people started to get filtered in a variety of places: Chapter 3's initial test of your knowledge of the combat mechanics, the Chapter 8 boss, the grind before the final boss. The English version's inflation of enemy stats in comparison to the Japanese version was just too much for us to handle. But when it seemed like no one would be able to beat this game, one brave hero rose up: GingerV
While weaker game club channel posters cowered in fear at the challenge posed by Chaos Legion, GingerV rose to the challenge and opened up a speedrun for the game's hardest difficulty. From there, they not only learned a lot of the game's mechanics that weren't explained well but noticed how odd it was that the run spent 40 minutes on Chapter 5 when its times for the other chapters were usually about 10 minutes. They then realized that these 40 minutes were spent farming health bar upgrades and decided to do the same, giving them the tools they needed to clear the game with little effort. The PS2 action game that filtered a server with several unironic DMC2 fans had finally met its match and could be laid to rest.
While weaker game club channel posters cowered in fear at the challenge posed by Chaos Legion, GingerV rose to the challenge and opened up a speedrun for the game's hardest difficulty. From there, they not only learned a lot of the game's mechanics that weren't explained well but noticed how odd it was that the run spent 40 minutes on Chapter 5 when its times for the other chapters were usually about 10 minutes. They then realized that these 40 minutes were spent farming health bar upgrades and decided to do the same, giving them the tools they needed to clear the game with little effort. The PS2 action game that filtered a server with several unironic DMC2 fans had finally met its match and could be laid to rest.
“The sinner shall be atoned. Even though no punishment will be enough for your sin.”
What is the worth of this experience we know of as life? There is a popular response to this question that has persisted throughout human social understanding. That the purpose of life is to be judged. That this existence we are experiencing is merely transitory. That it serves as a filter to determine which of us are worthy to behold the infinite love of the universe or to instead suffer in ceaseless unfathomable torment.
Seig Wahrheit is a condemned man. A character awaiting judgment. It does not matter to Seig that the sins on which he is accused are not the ones that he actually bears any guilt for. He is guilty all the same and knows it. Yet most insidiously still, despite the nigh certainty of his ultimate fate, he must ensure he persists until his day of judgment. To expire prematurely would disservice those whom have allowed him to prolong in this existence, this torture that is being alive. Such is his belief in life’s purpose as he has been taught to perceive. It is a trial to be endured, to exist is to be in pursuit of a knowingly futile atonement. To become a lamb marching willingly to their own slaughter.
Chaos Legion is a game that distills this idea of self-flagellation into essence. The struggle of life and existence is brought up, but extracting meaning from it is not to be sought. It is an answered question after all. Rather this game seeks to revere in the struggle itself. Absolution for Sieg is not even on the cards, he is to suffer eternally. This game seeks to beat you down and beat you down and beat you down until you understand you only exist to be beaten down. Yet you must get up each time. Powerful obstacles will incrementally show up to crush you. Through both perseverance and gradual acclimation towards these inferno legions in which you are eternally bound you will eventually overcome them. Your reward in doing so? More frequent and harsher trials. The challenge which you struggled to overcome repeated until mundane. Despite statistically growing over the course of the game, it never quite gets any easier. Rather you merely build up a tolerance to the pain. Even this is not ideal. The pain is all Sieg has after all to remind himself that he is in fact, still alive.
So, what awaits you at the end of all this? What is the final verdict in this perseverance that embodies Sieg’s existence? What reprieve will he be granted in death? You poor naive fool. You will never have been made to suffer enough. A judgment postponed. You get to be alive in this living hell for a while longer.
How cruel the creators of such a world must be.
(Chaos Legion is a game entirely dedicated to its mechanical nuance and is tightly crafted to be as such. Despite my framing its story and narrative elements is incredibly minimal. In its international localization it has been finely retuned in response to criticism of the Japanese version being boringly easy. The result of which is this game made for the sensibilities of sadomasochists. It demands mastery of obtuse systems that you will likely need to consult external references to truly understand. but feel ‘satisfying’ once mastered. If you are more inclined to experiencing it for its cool vibes you can forgo this suffering and should seek out the original Japanese version instead. Myself though? I think it is only through this pain it afflicted upon me that allowed me to connect to it at all)
What is the worth of this experience we know of as life? There is a popular response to this question that has persisted throughout human social understanding. That the purpose of life is to be judged. That this existence we are experiencing is merely transitory. That it serves as a filter to determine which of us are worthy to behold the infinite love of the universe or to instead suffer in ceaseless unfathomable torment.
Seig Wahrheit is a condemned man. A character awaiting judgment. It does not matter to Seig that the sins on which he is accused are not the ones that he actually bears any guilt for. He is guilty all the same and knows it. Yet most insidiously still, despite the nigh certainty of his ultimate fate, he must ensure he persists until his day of judgment. To expire prematurely would disservice those whom have allowed him to prolong in this existence, this torture that is being alive. Such is his belief in life’s purpose as he has been taught to perceive. It is a trial to be endured, to exist is to be in pursuit of a knowingly futile atonement. To become a lamb marching willingly to their own slaughter.
Chaos Legion is a game that distills this idea of self-flagellation into essence. The struggle of life and existence is brought up, but extracting meaning from it is not to be sought. It is an answered question after all. Rather this game seeks to revere in the struggle itself. Absolution for Sieg is not even on the cards, he is to suffer eternally. This game seeks to beat you down and beat you down and beat you down until you understand you only exist to be beaten down. Yet you must get up each time. Powerful obstacles will incrementally show up to crush you. Through both perseverance and gradual acclimation towards these inferno legions in which you are eternally bound you will eventually overcome them. Your reward in doing so? More frequent and harsher trials. The challenge which you struggled to overcome repeated until mundane. Despite statistically growing over the course of the game, it never quite gets any easier. Rather you merely build up a tolerance to the pain. Even this is not ideal. The pain is all Sieg has after all to remind himself that he is in fact, still alive.
So, what awaits you at the end of all this? What is the final verdict in this perseverance that embodies Sieg’s existence? What reprieve will he be granted in death? You poor naive fool. You will never have been made to suffer enough. A judgment postponed. You get to be alive in this living hell for a while longer.
How cruel the creators of such a world must be.
(Chaos Legion is a game entirely dedicated to its mechanical nuance and is tightly crafted to be as such. Despite my framing its story and narrative elements is incredibly minimal. In its international localization it has been finely retuned in response to criticism of the Japanese version being boringly easy. The result of which is this game made for the sensibilities of sadomasochists. It demands mastery of obtuse systems that you will likely need to consult external references to truly understand. but feel ‘satisfying’ once mastered. If you are more inclined to experiencing it for its cool vibes you can forgo this suffering and should seek out the original Japanese version instead. Myself though? I think it is only through this pain it afflicted upon me that allowed me to connect to it at all)
Great mix of Hack 'n' Slash and strategy that was sadly missjugded by people, probably because they expected this to be a Devil May Cry clone or something and got angry because they couldn't button-mash their way to the end.
This game starts out weird, gameplay is rough, story is kinda confusing, super useless tutorials ("change crests with the crest change button" oh gee thanks!!), and the game has some moments of frustration involving some regenerators but at the same time i couldn't help but keep playing due to the super bizarre premise while also being the type of game that will reward you for sticking with it. Yes this game has a steep learning curve but once you get used to it, you start upgrading your character and learn what legion is best for the stage it's all smooth sailing from there. One thing consistent about this game is the phenomenal soundtrack composed by the great Hideyuki Fukasawa, from moody to quite epic tracks, it really sets the mood for this medieval-apocalyptic-gone-to-hell setting. All in all, if you have the patience then go for it and most importantly don't go expecting a DMC-like game.
Love a grim grey world filled with Hot Boys
completely forgot about this game until coming across it here. great game!
fuck this slow ass twat
if i had played this in my childhood i would consider it the coolest thing in the world but its clunky controls in 2022 are a massive turn off for me. you spend like 20-30 minutes in a stage just to die during the bossfight because THIS FUCKER CAN'T EVEN RUN and then you need to start over from the beginning every single time. fuck this, I have more shit to do with my shitty life
story and aesthetics are cool tho
if i had played this in my childhood i would consider it the coolest thing in the world but its clunky controls in 2022 are a massive turn off for me. you spend like 20-30 minutes in a stage just to die during the bossfight because THIS FUCKER CAN'T EVEN RUN and then you need to start over from the beginning every single time. fuck this, I have more shit to do with my shitty life
story and aesthetics are cool tho
I know in my heart that this game does NOT hold up to my memory of it, but when this first came out and I played it as a teen, I absolutely l o v e d this corny DMC rip off.
I played this obsessively in the 8th grade with a friend, even though we both hated it. I think...maybe...we didn't have any other games to play? That doesn't make sense...why the hell did we spend so much time with this lame-ass hack and slash?
Imagina Devil May Cry pero en vez de tener gameplay te meten un stylus por la uretra
Generic hack and slash. Had good graphics I guess?
This game is so dogshit, I was laughing at most of the cutscenes and story writing. Not to mention the horrible voice acting. Level design was repetitive and annoying.
Has potential since the combat and legion system is unique, other than that, hot steamy pile of dogshit.
And resembles DMC alot...
Has potential since the combat and legion system is unique, other than that, hot steamy pile of dogshit.
And resembles DMC alot...
I liked this game as a lil jit I think it’s not that good tho
contrary to its presentation and initial gameplay, chaos legion is nothing like devil may cry
the exaggerated, emo, anime stylings are all there, as is the production of the music (which is fucking awesome) but what starts off as a mindless hack n slash quickly becomes a painfully unforgiving strategy game that's more about bringing the right tools to a fight rather than technical combat or flashy combos
equipping the wrong legions for a boss can be the difference between a 2 minute washout and a 10 minute chipfest, and unfortunately the tutorials do a pretty terrible job of telling you that - they're poorly translated, brief, and barely even helpful in the first place. the actual manual doesn't fare much better, so i strongly recommend checking a player-made beginners guide on gamefaqs unless you get off on trial and error - cause you're gonna be doing a lot of it
highly recommended despite the steep learning curve!
the exaggerated, emo, anime stylings are all there, as is the production of the music (which is fucking awesome) but what starts off as a mindless hack n slash quickly becomes a painfully unforgiving strategy game that's more about bringing the right tools to a fight rather than technical combat or flashy combos
equipping the wrong legions for a boss can be the difference between a 2 minute washout and a 10 minute chipfest, and unfortunately the tutorials do a pretty terrible job of telling you that - they're poorly translated, brief, and barely even helpful in the first place. the actual manual doesn't fare much better, so i strongly recommend checking a player-made beginners guide on gamefaqs unless you get off on trial and error - cause you're gonna be doing a lot of it
highly recommended despite the steep learning curve!
Going into this game I thought it would be something like dynasty warriors but with monsters which is a really cool concept. Sadly there are a lot of factors that prevent this game from living up to its cool concept. For starters, some enemies in the early stages take way too many hits before they go down which leads to extremely tedious scenarios where I continually comboed an enemy for what felt like minutes. This problem is remedied later when you upgrade but it took me about halfway into the game when it became more manageable.
Another problem came in the form of the game's main concept of using "Legions"(big monsters) to help you fight enemies. Each stage lets you select two Legions to equip the problem is you don't know which Legion will be most useful so you end up forcing your way through a level that you know would have been a lot easier if you stuck with a certain build. This is what I ended up doing for the rest of the game, sticking with two legions and not touching the others, which proved to be pretty effective.
One of the last problems is the game balancing which seems to be all over the place. One level will be relatively easy while the next will have you being bombarded by enemies that juggle you into a corner until you are dead. Some of the bosses I also find incredibly annoying and tedious but this is also improved on a little towards the end.
I don't think this is a horrible game by any means but I was hoping for a little more. It does get better as you upgrade your legions and become a force of nature against tons of enemies but it takes a little bit until you get to that point. I feel the biggest complaint I have is its spongey enemies. Besides that this game is relatively inoffensive. I will commend this game for actually having a fun final boss. A lot of games around this time usually have stinker endings but this one was pretty fun.
Another problem came in the form of the game's main concept of using "Legions"(big monsters) to help you fight enemies. Each stage lets you select two Legions to equip the problem is you don't know which Legion will be most useful so you end up forcing your way through a level that you know would have been a lot easier if you stuck with a certain build. This is what I ended up doing for the rest of the game, sticking with two legions and not touching the others, which proved to be pretty effective.
One of the last problems is the game balancing which seems to be all over the place. One level will be relatively easy while the next will have you being bombarded by enemies that juggle you into a corner until you are dead. Some of the bosses I also find incredibly annoying and tedious but this is also improved on a little towards the end.
I don't think this is a horrible game by any means but I was hoping for a little more. It does get better as you upgrade your legions and become a force of nature against tons of enemies but it takes a little bit until you get to that point. I feel the biggest complaint I have is its spongey enemies. Besides that this game is relatively inoffensive. I will commend this game for actually having a fun final boss. A lot of games around this time usually have stinker endings but this one was pretty fun.
The embodiment of “that one video game your older sibling would always play.”
(P.S. the enemies are over tuned af, I advise playing on easy)
(P.S. the enemies are over tuned af, I advise playing on easy)
Only two major issues I have in mind for this game is wishing that the legions were more balanced. For example, Malice ends up feeling like a must have throughout the entire game, while Hatred felt useless and boring to play with throughout the entire game. Second is that the game for some reason decides not to tell you the button inputs for certain moves, which is just stupid and doesn't add anything valuable to the game's difficulty. Other than that this is an underrated gem that I'm glad to have been recommended.
Gorgeous gothic, emo atheistic combined with an awesome goth, heavy metal soundtrack. The combat system is also just really fun and engaging, despite my one glaring issue with it. Having to experiment with different legions in order to find a combination that will demolish the level is such an addicting gameplay loop. Only made more addicting by how much the game punishes you for making bad decisions in how you approach a level.
Gorgeous gothic, emo atheistic combined with an awesome goth, heavy metal soundtrack. The combat system is also just really fun and engaging, despite my one glaring issue with it. Having to experiment with different legions in order to find a combination that will demolish the level is such an addicting gameplay loop. Only made more addicting by how much the game punishes you for making bad decisions in how you approach a level.
completely forgot about this game until coming across it here. great game!
dmc ripoff
not bad tho
not bad tho
Capcom clearly realised that DmC was gold and as such made a fair few titles that were either DmC cashins (hi Nightmare Before Christmas) or, like Chaos Legion, were games that tried to toy and play with the formula.
Chaos Legion had two things it attempted to bring to the table. One was instead of having lots of big flashy combos, you'd fight with summons instead. One of the Ps2 Castlevania games did this too and... kinda did it better. Chaos Legion's biggest problem is the speed of everything. Battles are often drawn out affairs where strategy and placement often take higher priority over spamming singular moves. This especially hurts during bigger boss moments and the rather linear arenas and locales don't help this much. It is still possible to mostly fight through without the use of summons but the limited moveset given really just enforces the idea of summoning and summoning often.
The other thing it brought was emo-grunge and lots of it. Guyliner, lots of pretty anime boys screaming into the void and questionable love-hate foe-yay rivalry/shipping akin to Sora/Riku Kingdom Hearts... But with much worse voice acting. Its annoying at times but its also hilarious in other moments.
That said, Capcom sure as hell made the game look damn good if anything. I do think that this game still has its moments too, battles, while slow, can often have some real chaotic moments hidden in them. But you do really have to look for them. This is very much one Capcom experiment that didn't quite work out.
Chaos Legion had two things it attempted to bring to the table. One was instead of having lots of big flashy combos, you'd fight with summons instead. One of the Ps2 Castlevania games did this too and... kinda did it better. Chaos Legion's biggest problem is the speed of everything. Battles are often drawn out affairs where strategy and placement often take higher priority over spamming singular moves. This especially hurts during bigger boss moments and the rather linear arenas and locales don't help this much. It is still possible to mostly fight through without the use of summons but the limited moveset given really just enforces the idea of summoning and summoning often.
The other thing it brought was emo-grunge and lots of it. Guyliner, lots of pretty anime boys screaming into the void and questionable love-hate foe-yay rivalry/shipping akin to Sora/Riku Kingdom Hearts... But with much worse voice acting. Its annoying at times but its also hilarious in other moments.
That said, Capcom sure as hell made the game look damn good if anything. I do think that this game still has its moments too, battles, while slow, can often have some real chaotic moments hidden in them. But you do really have to look for them. This is very much one Capcom experiment that didn't quite work out.
A game I never finished back in the day, but for a stream I decided I was going to rectify it!
You start out with one of the most powerful summons in the game, before it gets shattered into 7 pieces and hidden throughout several levels, but you get given replacement summons soon after.
Different creatures have different damage-type outputs where some are better at fleshy targets and others at the heavily armoured ones.
It was a lot of fun, only marred my end by the emulator and PC struggling (had a old PC back then) and the grinding needed to level up your summons. Especially the ultimate summon!
Apparently this is based on a book and I totally want to read it sometime.
Stream + gameplay
You start out with one of the most powerful summons in the game, before it gets shattered into 7 pieces and hidden throughout several levels, but you get given replacement summons soon after.
Different creatures have different damage-type outputs where some are better at fleshy targets and others at the heavily armoured ones.
It was a lot of fun, only marred my end by the emulator and PC struggling (had a old PC back then) and the grinding needed to level up your summons. Especially the ultimate summon!
Apparently this is based on a book and I totally want to read it sometime.
Stream + gameplay
I love this game so far, admittedly I haven't finished it (I don't know why it says "completed" on my review ignore that), but I've gotten as far as the last stage and I probably will soon, so I think I've played enough to say it's honestly way better than a lot of people give it credit for. The legion summoning system adds a lot of extra depth and a real sense of strategy to the game's combat, and while the legions could definitely be more well-balanced (I don't know what I expected from a legion called Flawed but I wish it was stronger), it's still a great time overall, even if it has some moments of kind of infuriating level design. Admittedly, the story is quite shit, but it's one of those games where the story is really just there as an excuse to contextualize what you're doing in the game, so it's not bad enough to detract from the experience at all in my opinion.
Also, everyone who calls this a "Devil May Cry ripoff" is insane, it came out a whole 2 years before the first actually good game in that series (DMC 3 my beloved) so I get kind of annoyed seeing people pretend it's just a worse version of something that came before; even putting the fact I vastly prefer it to DMC 1 and 2 aside, the gameplay here is different enough that the only real similarity is that they're hack and slash games on the PS2. Chaos Legion is much more about effectively utilizing the various legions you can summon and fighting alongside them to strategically defeat your enemies, and choosing the right legion for the right situation, as opposed to Devil May Cry being more about moving quickly to avoid your enemies' attacks and seeing what stylish combos you can come up with to defeat them.
Overall I honestly kind of love this game, and while it can be kind of janky and strange, it's still definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of this genre, or even if you just want to play a game where you fight as a summoner who needs to figure out when to use the various summons he has access to, and which ones to use specifically depending on the situation.
Also, everyone who calls this a "Devil May Cry ripoff" is insane, it came out a whole 2 years before the first actually good game in that series (DMC 3 my beloved) so I get kind of annoyed seeing people pretend it's just a worse version of something that came before; even putting the fact I vastly prefer it to DMC 1 and 2 aside, the gameplay here is different enough that the only real similarity is that they're hack and slash games on the PS2. Chaos Legion is much more about effectively utilizing the various legions you can summon and fighting alongside them to strategically defeat your enemies, and choosing the right legion for the right situation, as opposed to Devil May Cry being more about moving quickly to avoid your enemies' attacks and seeing what stylish combos you can come up with to defeat them.
Overall I honestly kind of love this game, and while it can be kind of janky and strange, it's still definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of this genre, or even if you just want to play a game where you fight as a summoner who needs to figure out when to use the various summons he has access to, and which ones to use specifically depending on the situation.
It's insane that this came out AFTER Devil May Cry.
Imagine DMC and Drakengard had a kid, but it was dogshit.
Every fight with a monster spawner ended up with me having to jump slash it for like a minute. Thinking I was going insane I looked at multiple lets plays and apparently that's just what the game is.
https://youtu.be/aQIGi1cfA-U?si=hT5f13bUhlzJg2PO&t=3585
Cannot recommend at all
Imagine DMC and Drakengard had a kid, but it was dogshit.
Every fight with a monster spawner ended up with me having to jump slash it for like a minute. Thinking I was going insane I looked at multiple lets plays and apparently that's just what the game is.
https://youtu.be/aQIGi1cfA-U?si=hT5f13bUhlzJg2PO&t=3585
Cannot recommend at all
It's a really gothic heavy strategy game where you play as a summoner and summon monsters to battle. I couldn't get into it at all. I don't think the combat was any fun and nothing else in the game kept me interested to keep playing.
y yo pense que God Hand generaba el Sindrome del Tunel Carpiano