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When I first heard of Chaos Legion, I was pretty hyped. Supposedly combining the nonstop action of Devil May Cry with strategy and RPG elements, the game had me sold instantly. Unfortunately, the game turned out a disappointment in most respects.
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The game’s two main characters are Delacroix, a noble Lord, and Sieg, a knight with the ability to summon Legions. At one time they were both friends, but the tragic death of their friend Siela drove them apart. Corrupted by darkness, Delacroix begins a quest to capture the mysterious ancient glyphs, but for what purpose? Sieg is sent to investigate, and the former friends begin a battle that could decide the fate of mankind.
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The story had its high and low points. The game was pretty short (you can beat it in less than 10 hours), so there wasn’t a lot of development with the story or characters. It seems to jump around a lot and reveals very little about what’s actually going on. Unfortunately, it starts out pretty slow, so playing through the beginning to get to the real meat of the game can be pretty painful. Once you start to progress, though, the story picks up and actually becomes pretty interesting. The characters, on the other hand, aren’t very interesting. Sieg seems absolutely emotionless, and Delacroix is cliché to the point of being a bad guy with silver hair and black clothes. Towards the end, when his wicked scheme was revealed, Delacroix’s character became significantly more interesting. He expressed a lot of emotion, and I found myself feeling sorry for him. On the other hand, Sieg is never more interesting than a block of wood. In the end, Chaos Legion has a fairly interesting story to offer, but it’s mauled by dull characters and poor pacing.
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Anyone who’s played Devil May Cry will find gameplay in Chaos Legion pretty familiar. Equipped with his trusty sword, Sieg will hack and slash his way through armies of monsters in action packed combat. What sets Chaos Legion apart, though, is Sieg’s ability to call upon Legions (basically, he can summon monsters). There’s a variety of Legions that Sieg can summon, and you can equip up to two at a time. Not only can these Legion be called upon to help you in combat, but they’ll also teach Sieg useful skills.
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When you find yourself outnumbered by dozens of monsters, you can summon a Legion to come in and fight alongside you, or you can use the Legion to do a quick attack and then leave. Each Legion has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, one Legion may have a much better attack range, or might be better against organic foes. There’s a decent amount of strategy involved in choosing which to use, but you can’t equip new Legions once a level starts, which takes away much of the strategy. Your Legion's life is measured by your spirit bar, which is refilled by killing enemies. If your spirit bar runs out, your Legion dies and you can’t summon again until you’ve regained some spirit.
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Aside from gaining spirit, killing enemies also gives your Legions experience points. Each Legion has several stats that you can distribute these points to, such as attack and defense, as well as their own unique attack abilities and some skills they’ll teach to Sieg. Much like Devil May Cry, slain enemies often drop items that will restore your HP, increase your max HP, or increase your max spirit. That’s pretty much the extent of Chaos Legion’s RPG elements. You kill enemies to power up your Legions, and on occasions, you’ll be able to increase Sieg’s stats. It’s not horribly deep, and the RPG elements that were promised proved a disappointment. Really, it’s not much deeper than simply powering up your weapons and learning skills in the Devil May Cry series. Still, however disappointing, summoning Legions is a nice twist and fans of hack and slash action should find it satisfying.
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As Sieg fights the forces of evil, he’ll run into Arcia, whose family was slain by Delacroix. You’ll have the opportunity to play as Arcia through a stage, and she plays very differently. Whereas Sieg’s sword allows him to take out enemies close up and hit multiple foes at once, Arcia wields guns and is best suited for picking enemies off one at a time from a distance. Once you’ve played through the whole game you’ll unlock the ability to use Arcia as a fully playable character. Their fighting styles are pretty different, so it’s a nice addition to the game.
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The levels in Chaos Legion are often short and very linear. You’ll move from screen to screen and each screen has a different objective you’ll need to complete to progress to the next screen. Although Chaos Legion constantly bombards you with entire armies of enemies, you rarely need to fight more than one or two. Often, the objective to get through a screen will simply be ‘kill target enemy’, so the other 20 enemies on the screen are there only for annoyance.
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The enemy variety isn’t anything special either. You’ll see nearly every enemy the game has to offer within a few levels, and the bosses begin to repeat pretty quickly too. Speaking of bosses, the boss battles seem cool at first as you face off against massive, intimidating looking beasts, but they all have a pretty simple strategy to them. Once you’ve figured that strategy out, the boss fights are not only easy, but dull!
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Chaos Legion has some impressive design with a very gothic feel. Aside from all the re-used enemies, the character designs, such as Siela, Sieg and Delacroix, are well done. The environments are true to the gothic feel, but they’re pretty repetitive and not exceptionally detailed. Despite the large number of enemies on screen, the frame rate remains constant. Not once while playing the game did I encounter slowdown of any sorts, which I’m glad to report. Like many action games, the camera in Chaos Legion can be problematic. Trying to keep track of all the enemies and everything else that’s going on can be pretty tough.
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The music fits the game pretty well, but it isn’t exactly memorable. There’s a good deal of voice acting too, and it’s of fair quality. Aside from that, Chaos Legion offers the generic, but good quality, explosion and sword clashing sounds that you’ll hear in other action games.
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Once you’ve played through Chaos Legion, there isn’t really much reason to go back, and since the game is so short, you’re not likely going to spend much time with it. Once you’ve played through, though, you can replay as Arcia for a taste of something different. There are also various levels of difficulty you can try your hand at. And since you can always continue from the beginning of the last screen you entered, playing the hard mode will be challenging without being overly frustrating. But, overall, Chaos Legion’s gameplay is dull and repetitive with little to offer.
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As a pure action game, Chaos Legion is a decent, but flawed game. The biggest tragedy, though is that the promised strategy and RPG elements were so insignificant. Because you can beat it in a few days, Chaos Legion is a fairly solid rental, but I can’t suggest a purchase unless you like mindless hack and slash action.
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