For 9th anniversary of this blogger, I like to tell you my hot take: I love Capcom’s Chaos Legion (2003).
From this title screen, there’s not much interesting information that you can get. The buildings in this setting look made of stone and boring. The logo on the title doesn’t give us information about the game either. If you have no clue about Chaos Legion, well. Some people describe it as bootleg Devil May Cry but made by Capcom themselves so it’s not bootleg in the usual context where it’s copy of more game made by obscured game developer that either legal or not. Rather, it’s copy made by same company that made the base game that they copy. Sounds peculiar! Speaking of Devil May Cry, this game came out the same year as DMC 2 that I heard most people hate it. So, there’s double ominous signs here. If you are not afraid of these bad signs, steel yourself and proceed.
It all begins someone tells a briefing that Clovis who’s certainly not the Dragon Valor, was murdered and forbidden Apocrypha of Yzarc (which is "crazy" spelled backward, by the way) was stolen. The culprit is…
...Victor Delacroix. It’s pronounced as Delacroa by the narrator. So, I assume the bad guy is French, judging the pronunciation of his last name.
The protagonist is Sieg
Wahrheit. With name like that, I assume he’s German. Sieg is tasked by Arkham
from Devil May Cry 3 the narrator, to track down Victor.
Rotarl, the sacred capital…
When I said Chaos Legion is considered as bootleg Devil May Cry, I quite mean it because it’s hack n slash game. Though CL may resemble musou game because right of the bat there are dozens of enemies to slash on the open space. Here’s the control scheme: arrow/cursor key to move Sieg around. Pressing left shift button to center view. If you hold it, you lock the camera view and allow Sieg to side-stepping or strafe. Pressing ‘F’ button to attack on the front. The sword combo consists up to 4 slashes. Because the camera moves quite often, you may want to press left shift button once in a while so the camera orients back to face Sieg’s front view.
I have defeated from all enemies. The gate to next section is open. But before I proceed, I like to have this life recovery item first. It’s portable healing item and not heal-on-the-spot kind of healing item. It’s super important.
With a single press of ‘D’ button, I can summon a monster that shoot homing laser at enemies. During this, the time slow down and I can beat enemies with my sword more safely. Heavy_sf13_influx_big04.wav
I can also summon the monster to fight alongside directly by pressing space bar. The summon assist from previous moment, requires soul bar to cast. Meanwhile, summoning monster directly like this doesn’t cost soul. But everytime the summoned monster gets hit, the soul bar will be drained. The summoned monster can both attack enemies and also distract them from you but you should pay attention to the soul bar very closely whenever the monster gets hit. If the soul bar entirely depleted because your monster takes too many hits, he will be temporarily unavailable to assist you until you get enough soul. Soul can be obtained by defeating monsters and also with every successful sword hit. Thus, the game encourages you to be active at combat instead of let the summoned monster does all the work. The summoned monster’s name is Thanatos, by the way.
To progress the level, you have to open gate that you encounter. To do so, you have to complete combat in various way. Some gate wants you to just kill all enemies. Other wants you to kill all enemies that marked as target like that monster generator which constantly spawn lesser enemies within limited number of times. Usually, target monster will yield life phantom which replenish your health instead of soul.
Naturally, there’s boss fight at the end of the level. In this case, it’s giant monster accompanied by his exact identical peers. Regarding, this giant enemy type. He is weak to sword slash to the face. If you succeed on landing sword slash right in his face, he takes more significant damage and he is in pained animation. You can even repeatedly stunlock him with precise sword slash while jumping but you have to watch for his friends that may sneak strong slap at you. Turns out, there’s easiest way to this boss fight. Park right in front of him and use Thanatos’ homing laser. That will kill the boss instantly.
The victory doesn’t last long. Victor Delacroix gives Thanatos a dirty look and he torn apart! Scout_jeers04.wav
Sieg also not doing so well.
After bit of sword fighting, Victor overwhelms him with dark magic comes out
from his hand. Sieg is cornered but Victor deliberately misses his sword stab
to Sieg’s head. It’s because 1) Stabbing opponent’s head is too brutal. 2)
Villain cliché 101 “I will let protagonist alive so they can make heroic comeback”.
It’s been like 11 years the last time I played this game, but I get rank A quite easily. For getting A rank, the game reward me with Soul Recovery (L) item. As the name suggests, it’s portable soul restoration item. It’s like life recovery but replenish soul bar instead.
I lost Thanatos, but I get legion to replace him called “Guilt”. It’s good consolation prize.
3 years has passed and suddenly Dyfan the twilight city becomes ruins and no dead body can be found. Allegedly it’s Victor’s doing, Sieg is sent to investigate the ruined city.
Unlike Thanatos, Guilt legion come in 3 units instead of 1 although not as powerful as Thanatos. There’s reason why Thanatos is written as Ultimate Legion. Please don’t mind the missing texture on the level! I’m satisfied enough to be able to fix the crash on the game after finishing the prologue chapter and I resolved it within few minutes, thanks to PC Gaming wiki. There’s a way to fix the missing texture but I feel lazy. Also, I doubt I have skill to fix it.
After cleaning the streets from those lesser monsters that may resemble insect from Starship Troopers, I found a piece of Thanatos Legion. Tutorial said that if I manage to gather 9 of them, I can summon the Ultimate Legion again. Obviously, this is trap. As I pick it up, monsters appear nearby with lightning effect. But they’re no match for me. And the Guilt Legions helped, I guess.
Like in Dragon Valor, enemies may drop passive upgrades for player. They may be attack power, defense power, or maximum health upgrade. Enemies can also drop portable recovery items but they more often drop experience gem (S) which give 10,000 experience points when used in intermission. This may sound unusual but the experience only for the legions that you equipped but not for Sieg himself. Although leveling up legion can make Sieg more capable in battle but we will talk about the detail later.
Here's proper boss fight because he’s bigger and all that. Naturally, lock-on feature is helpful for boss fight like this so you can strafe and dodge boss’ attack. To lock on to the enemy, you have to shoot the lock-on lightning with the press of ‘E’ button. The lightning will mark the enemy to be your lock-on focus. Since I haven’t played Devil May Cry 1 or 2, I can’t tell for sure if the proper lock-on feature had already existed at that time so Capcom come up with this unusual lock-on shot or they want to do something different for CL.
The boss either slam down his sword or charging forward so staying in front of him is not good idea. He can also jump around and he hopes that you get stomp on way his fall. Attacking him in the back after he charges into nearby wall may sound good idea to sneak some hit. But don’t do that, because he immediately spins around while swinging his massive sword to catch you off guard. To hit him in efficient way, simply do sword slash jump while the boss is in the center and sidestep accordingly. Why you have to do the sword slash while jumping? Because the upper body is his weakness. You can see he has exposed heart near his chest area. Attacking the legs with Sieg himself or sword legions is no good because you don’t deplete his health bar if you do that. Though doing that will replenish your soul a bit. Once in a while, he summons these suicide bomb drones. They will try to surround you before exploding but you can outrun them quite easily.
Defeating the first (proper) boss, gives you arrow legion: Malice. Shooting squad sounds very good but that’s not entirely true. I mean it’s useful, but with caveat that I will explain later. Malice provides enchantment: lock-on shot that can pull enemies toward Sieg which predates what Nero can do in Devil May Cry 4 for decades.
Experience points you gather from a level will be stored by legions you equipped that later you can use them to level up. There are 5 aspects that you can level up from a legion.
Force aspect determines how many units that you can summon. The more the better. But keep in mind that more legion unit also increase the chance to risk your soul bar being drained as they getting hit.
Assist aspect determines how strong the legion assist when you’re in solo mode. You can’t go wrong with more powerful legion assist.
Enchant aspect determines the upgrade you got from legion you equipped. Each legion has their own special upgrade for Sieg. Guilt provides Sieg with basic yet very useful upgrade. Mainly, Guilt will boost Sieg’s attack power when equipped. At level 1 enchantment, Sieg extends his sword combo to 6 hits from 4 hits. At level 2 enchantment, Sieg gains uppercut slash that makes enemies open to juggle. At level 3 enchantment, Sieg gains powerful slash by holding attack button and let it go. The powerful slash is named “Ground Zero” for some reason. Ground zero not only act as charged attack but also his finisher combo strike. Ground zero can set enemies aflame and the fire spread through enemies dealing extra damage. Very useful move for dealing damage to group of enemies. So, I suggest you always equip Guilt so he has enough experience points for his useful enchantment.
Attack and defense aspects are simply makes the summoned legion stronger and more durable. I mainly interested in increasing attack power. But defense power is important to lessen the risk of soul being drained and legions become broken.
Experience obtained for each equipped legion. Equipping newly obtained legion may be risky because they’re still “level 1”. Saving experience points to level up more important aspect is sensible. But sometime I keep thinking to save them for more important aspect for other legions, which is dumb of me, because each legion has their own experience point gained.
Bowgun legion only has 2 units compared to sword legion. That’s kind of let down. So, we move on to central block part of Dyfan the twilight city from streets part. This level introduces us with this turret/sentry monster. They’re made of metal and bowgun legion is efficient against them. Conversely, sword legion is inefficient against them. On the other hand, melee enemies that we encounter so far are organic. Bowgun legion is inefficient against them and conversely sword legion is efficient against them.
In conclusion, there are 2 types of enemies: organic and metallic. Sword legion is effective against organic but not against metallic. While bowgun legion is effective against metallic but not against organic. What about Sieg’s sword attack? I assume it’s only good against organic monsters. How can you tell enemy’s type? As far as I know, the indicator for that is the sound when you hit them. If the sound is squishy, the enemy you hit is organic type. If the sound is metallic, the enemy you hit is metallic type.
The shockwave that I emit is attack order which is done by pressing ‘D’ button while in summoner mode. You should do attack order fairly frequently to ensure your legions do the job. There’s more to it than making the legions do their usual attack at your command. Sword legions do barrage of sword stabs after some normal slashes. If you hold down the button, the bowgun legion will enter sniper mode where you can tell them to aim at the sniping reticule. Sounds awesome but each shot will drain soul bar.
Not far from the place on previous screenshot is this beginner’s trap. So far, the battle is close to fun musou stuff. You can slash enemies around and barely manage your legion. You can’t go wrong with that. Until you reach this damned point. As you can see the monster generator which is the target is in the middle of cross fire of these turrets. If I killed the turrets first, they respawn! So, I resort to snipe the target from this spot but it doesn’t go down in short time. In fact, it feels eternity has passed but the target still alive. Going wild right away to target is certainly bad idea.
Ok. I figure out how to solve this battle. It’s better for me if I go to the opposite spot where I was. It’s slightly safer in my opinion. Then I figure that the turrets have limited number of respawn. So, I destroy 1 or 2 same turrets over and over again until they stop respawn then I proceed to destroy the rest of the turrets. Finally, I can destroy the target much safer.
After through easier battle, I come across second boss fight. My health is not doing good. So, I use the life recovery item that I found from pause menu. It’s pretty easy to use. Even though the life recovery item is small ones, it’s enough to heal my health to the fullest. You can also see upgrade items that you collect so far. These items usually I found from dead enemies but the drop rate is very random. The tutorial says that 100th enemy you defeat in the level will guarantee drop item but I reckon it’s only exp gem item which is the least useful item in my opinion.
Now, we’re back in business. Initially, this monster boss like to shoot groundwave so you have to close in without hesitation and hit him specifically in the head because that’s his weak point. Even though he’s accompanied by some lesser monsters, I can still beat him easily in solo mode mainly because his groundwave also hurt his minions. Once his health down to 50%, he’s angry and gain new moves: bull charge and spinning tail swipe. I feel at home already. By home, I mean Monster Hunter. This boss pretty much resembles my nemesis Tigrex, in term of moveset and aggressiveness.
After defeating the not-Tigrex, Sieg rescues Arcia Rinslet, one of silver of maiden. A group of female gunslingers. Her sisters in arms have been killed by monster so she joins Sieg to track Victor after burying her fallen brethren in shallow grave nearby. Her information tells that Victor Delacroix is in Ruins of Murdoa and that’s where we’re going.
The information about Victor’s whereabouts is useful but the real prize is bomb legion: Blasphemy. Bomb sounds very useful against group of enemies but back then I don’t like using it because it takes lots of soul cost. Although equipping the soul legion gives you extra maximum soul. Blasphemy provides enchantment: ability to do smash downward jump which I always like to do in any musou game to deal damage to group of enemies while dodging them.
From player status menu on intermission, you can see what Sieg can do with current legion equipped. Sieg can only equip 2 legions. I think it’s better if I stick to Guilt and Malice for now. Not only you can see Sieg’s status but also his command list. This is where you know how to lock-on, strafe, etc. There’s also dodge, done by strafe move + jump. During dodge (either roll or back hop), Sieg has some invincibility. Usually, I go with jump to dodge enemy’s attack and it works fine. I don’t know why Sieg get extra soul stats even though I don’t equip Blasphemy. Maybe Malice also increases soul stats but not as much as Blasphemy?
We arrive at Ruins of Murdoa. The level introduces us with flying monster generator and invincible moving naval mines. Sounds less fun because it is. I believe this level only consists of this single room only and target monster spawn multiple times in different spot. Kind of lazy. Speaking of lazy…
...the boss level is the previous boss monster but this time there are 6 of them! It’s not that I fight the 6 boss monsters simultaneously. It’s 3 phased boss fight of fighting 1, then 2, and lastly 3 of the boss monsters. Some of them drop life recovery item and they have lesser health than the original ones. But my point stand still, it’s lazy boss fight design and also unnecessarily arduous. If this is Monster Hunter game, I need dung bomb to make some of them go away temporarily. Unsurprisingly, I finish the level with rank B and the game awards me with exp gem (M) which is not bad.
Also, I get shield legion Arrogance. I remember this legion suck as summoned troop because they do nothing unless I give them the attack order which makes the emit blast. The power of the blast depends on how much damage they absorb before the order. Quite unnecessarily convoluted way for how summoned troop works. On the other hand, the legion assist is pretty useful which is buff that can reduce damage taken (by half, maybe) for some period. Arrogance provides enchantment: ability to counter attack when Sieg is attacked.
We move on to core part of Murdoa ruins. Unlike previous level, this level has more rooms. They’re quite long but they don’t form into complex maze. This level introduces you to this shielded portly chap. Although slow, he can deal big damage and seems resistant to hit stun. Much more resistant than other monsters. If his health drops to 50%, his shield explodes but that makes him not less dangerous. Either he charges at you with stomach first or do spinning double lariat. Zangief from Street Fighter will be proud of him.
Some tougher enemies (usually target monster), will yield phantom life that can restore health. Thankfully, these bird monsters also yield life when defeated and it only takes 1 single sword slash to defeat them. You may want to spare their life until you need heal pretty bad.
The boss of this level is much better in gameplay design. The boss is that tree in front me, accompanied by turrets that change position and formation. Before they fire their laser, they show their line of fire first on the ground before actually firing the laser. To defeat this boss is quite simple. Kill the turrets first and then proceed to attack the monster tree itself. You have to hit the cover enough time first then the tree will expose its vulnerable flesh. But don’t get greedy on hitting the boss tree because the cover will drop down and create ground shockwave. Later it spawns ivy to whip around in random area but the ivy is telegraphed withing short time but it’s not too fast that you have to guess where the ivy coming out. Then you repeat the process.
We’re too late. Victor already obtained one of 3 glyphs in Murdoa ruins. Sieg is weakened by Victor’s black magic, once again. Arcia shoots at Victor’s chest but the wound is regenerated and he pulls out the bullets trivially. Arcia shocked by the fact that Victor can’t be harmed with 2 shots. If I was here, I just keep unloading the gun and see if Victor can handle more bullets at once. Then Victor just leaves to find another Glyphs.
So, what are these 3 Glyphs? The myth said that if they’re collected, they will open the gateway of Chaos and lead the world to the Red Moon. The exact red moon behind Sieg. Yeah. Long story short, the glyphs reunification will lead the world into doomsday. Victor’s motive for making such apocalypse is he lost his girlfriend Seila. According to flashback in numerous occasions, Sieg the one who murder Seila. Once the world is doomed, Victor will be reunited with Seila or so he hopes for.
The reward for defeating the tree monster is claw legion Flawed. I’m shaken. I switch Flawed with Malice because Flawed gives me double jump and boost the jump by 1.5 higher! Naturally, Flawed is useful to reach higher place. Besides Flawed also excellent against metallic monster. Only by melee attack though as opposite to what Malice can do.
While resting at the lakeside, monsters ambush Sieg and Arcia. I skip the arduous battle to this sub-boss fight. So, there’s transparent monster called Danu and there are 3 of them as sub-boss for this level. Danu is immune to Sieg’s sword and Their attack will instantly break legion squad. So how can I defeat it? The solution is pretty simple. Use the legion assist while in solo mode to defeat it. My personal favorite is using Flawed’s legion assist called laughing stock where Sieg throws a torch or knife at the ground while jumping back slightly. If any enemy touch the object, a Flawed Legion will come up from the ground and drilling up the victim. It’s quite satisfying to look and also takes less soul cost than Guilt’s legion assist called Midnight Ripper where Sieg slash forward at the enemy and Guilt legions will follow up with multiple dash slashes.
Here's the thing regarding the legion assist. Each legion has assist move that works in different way with various soul cost. During solo mode, you can see in soul bar a number on right side. The number indicated how many legion assist that you can cast with current soul. Your soul pool is shared between legions as you can see while in squad mode. The game kindly calculates the number of assist that you can have and you don’t have to calculate it yourself with current soul you have and the soul cost of the legion assist. To change between the legion, simply press ‘page down’ button
I like to think that Victor Delacroix is discount Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, what’s with him being antagonist with long white hair, long sword, and desire to end the world. Then he becomes even more Sephiroth in this flashback where he stands menacingly with flame as background. This flashback is from Arcia’s nightmare where she witnessed Victor kill her brother and her family. If Victor is Sephiroth, then Sieg is Cloud for sure.
Let’s not dwell in Arcia’s dark past too long and cheer up as I acquire power legion: Hatred! Much like Guilt, Hatred also effective against organic monster. The difference is Hatred not using sword. He uses the might of pro wrestling move! As much as I want to have pro wrestler squad, but I won’t equip power crest just yet. Hatred provides enchantment: ability to shoulder tackle forward! Activated by pressing forward and attack while strafing. You know in Devil May Cry, that input command will result in dashing stab which is more appropriate for someone wield sword. The shoulder tackle named Breakdown may looks strange but it makes enemies knocked up that may solve the problem of enemies resistant to flinched when getting hit.
I skip to the end of Kuzca cave level where the seconds glyph resides. And guess what? Victor Delacroix already taken the glyph, AGAIN! Sieg can’t do nothing because he’s coughing blood after defeating boss spider that’s very arduous to fight. I have to hit him specifically in legs while his children swarm on me. On top of that, he has ability to fire homing laser that’s garbage hot to dodge. I waste all of 6 life recovery items for that boss fight.
Now that Sieg still recovering his health, I get to play as Arcie! I like the game warns me that using Arcia makes the control become different. I don’t think it’s not big deal. I mean the key to success as Arcia is mash the button. Not that different with Sieg.
Naturally, Arcia’s gameplay involves gun and lots of bullets of course. I like bullet casings fly around as Arcia blast all those monsters. However, the bullet casings make the game drops frame rate to 10. Playing as Arcia is sort of better experience than Sieg because her aim is quite intuitive. She can hit that monster generator with ease. But when monsters surround Arcia, things get less good. Though Arcia can use energy bullet to hit enemies around her, by pressing ‘D’ button. But the energy bullet has limited number of ammo.
She can switch between gun and kick mode simply by pressing space bar. Her kick is not as strong as Sieg’s sword but she has expended moveset from get go. She can perform: rising kick, double jump, and dashing kick.
Unlike Sieg, Arcie can’t absorb fallen enemy’s spirit to heal. Instead, some enemies will drop recovery herb. Protagonists of Resident Evil approve this.
The boss of this level is the monster tree again. Arcia is in high ground with small width while the boss is far from where Arcia is, thus the ground shockwave won’t reach her. However, the boss has new reinforcements: the sword monster and suicide bomb while there are turret monsters on the sides. I think this boss fight is not terrible.
Sieg catches up with Arcia and they have touching moment. Good for them, I guess.
I don’t get new legion because I have all of them. Well, except Thanatos that I need to re-acquire him by picking up all the legion pieces. Anyway, finishing Arcia’s level gives me reward: Map Selector which allow me to replay all of the previous level except for the prologue level. That means, at this point I must replay stages to farm items and experience otherwise next level will beat me very badly. I spare you the grinding/farming part so let’s end the review here.
But wait a moment! It doesn’t feel right that the special blog anniversary review mostly filled with complaint about the game. That’s because I try not to be bias toward the game and I’m being as honest as possible. Despite all that complaint or whatnot, I still love this game. It’s my favorite game but with caveat. Ok. I must try to redeem myself by showing charming part of the game. How about this one?
Hatred’s legion assist called Bad Karma. It’s counter attack move. I remember Hatred will do jumping powerbomb if his counter attack connect with lesser enemies. Quite naturally, the counter attack move is more appropriate for big enemy or boss. So, I try using it against the boss of first level and the result is astounding! I thought it will be heavy punch or something that can be applied to any boss monster but no. Hatred catches the sword and then slam the boss very hard. Not only the counter move deals big damage but also makes the boss defenseless for a while. I never thought the counter move has elaborate animation! Could it be the counter move has different contextual animation or effect for each boss? If that’s the case then it’s similar to Nero’s contextual buster move for different boss in Devil May Cry 4. I don’t think I can use the counter move for projectile or ground shockwave, though. Ok. We’re done here.
I have theory: Capcom’s Chaos Legion (2003), Godhand, and Drakengard are the black sheep of PS 2 games because they’re difficult or arduous to play. It goes without saying that I love the first ones. Let’s talk about why Chaos Legion is considered black sheep of PS 2 game. The main problem is enemies have lack of feedback effect when getting hit. They seem resistant from getting flinched when I hit them or at least the flinched effect is not consistent. Except for that big guy that you need to hit his head. As long as you hit his head, he will get stunlocked consistently. I think the enemies have too much health. For example, the lowest monster can survive the 4-hit sword combo! However, experience gained is calculated not only when defeating enemies but also calculated for each hit. Meaning, the more health that enemies have, the more experience you get.
The enemies can be dangerous even the lowest monster that resembles bug from Starship Trooper, because they can suddenly jump at me. If only there’s some sort of anti-air move. Oh, wait! There’s sword uppercut move or Malice’s legion assist that start with uppercut slash. That could work. There’s giant dog bear monster that able to do sonic spin attack but you can time your slash to interrupt him. That doesn’t sound bad. But on later level, this type monster able to jump at you like the lowest monster. Still not big deal however on much later level the same type monster able to breath fire. Once Sieg burned by the fire breath, he is stuck in burned animation that leads to long and agonizing pain lock. Then there’s skeleton swordsman that has ability to shoulder charge and make Sieg and even the legions flying! Next is turret monster that relentlessly shooting laser even though it’s aim is fixed. Then there’s mortar monster that can decimate your legion only with single shot. I hate spiderling that hard to hit and can trap Sieg into getting swarmed animation which is very annoying. Then you also got enemies within formation that arduous to fight. Remember that monster generator that surrounded by turret monster on level 2? That’s the most obnoxious sample of the it. Another awful example is: monster generators clumped together and barricaded with the naval mine monsters. I said that they’re invincible. Turns out using the Flawed‘s legion assist: Laughing Stock, can decimate them and they yield health spirit when defeated. On contrary to Dynasty Warriors 2 that have dumb enemy soldiers so the combat is more enjoyable. But make no mistake, there are enemy heroes, archers, and siege engine once in a while so the gameplay is not entirely mindless. With the success of Dynasty Warriors 2, various musou games spawn. Meanwhile, Chaos Legion remains there. No spiritual successor or anything. Another problem is how slow the dodge roll/hop, in both input execution and the dodge move itself. In the end, I rely on sole jump to dodge enemy’s attack. Most of the bosses are interesting until the game reuse some of them. The multiple 3nd level bosses at the level 4, are the worse case.
On to the good part, the idea of Sieg having Legion to assist him is very brilliant. Most of the time, you should go with squad mode instead of solo mode. Although there’s some time that solo mode is better like in boss fight or when there’s specific enemy that can obliterate your legions like the giant or mortar monster. Solo mode allows Sieg to run and have increased attack power. But most of the time, squad mode is better for fighting enemies even though that makes Sieg can only walk. There’s potential that legions can go unexpectedly but as far as I know they work pretty well just remember to issue attack order once in a while. Sometime, they can go stuck in some terrain but re-summon them will fix the problem. There’s feature that allow the legion change their mode between offense and defense. You can check their mode status by looking at the color of the crest or the flame on the legion’s feet. If it’s red, the legions are in offense mode. They actively engage with the enemies (except for Blasphemy and Arrogance) and they have increased attack power. If the color is blue, the legions are in defense mode. They only fight enemies when you give them attack order and they have increased defense power. I realize too late that changing the legions into defense mode is perfect if you want them to act as diversion in boss fight. I always make them into offense mode and that’s probably not the best way to play the game. But most boss fight is better in solo mode in my opinion because I don’t want risk of breaking the legion. I mentioned the flaw of CL when comparing to DW 2. Even though in DW 2, enemy soldiers are dumb but that same goes to allied soldiers. On the other hand, legions do the heavy lifting, mostly. I mentioned that each legion provides specific enhancement. Sword legion (Guilt) enchants sword attack. Bowgun legion (Malice) enchants lock-on shoot. Bomb legion (Blasphemy) enchants maximum soul pool. Shield legion (Arrogance) enchants defense power. Claw legion (Flawed) enchants jump ability. Power legion (Hatred) enchants maximum health pool. Legions also provide Sieg with extended moveset. I must mention about Spiritual Gem item that makes Legion of your choice to have extension of all aspect by 1 level. Which means, you can have 1 more summoned legion, stronger legion assist than before, and stronger legion in attack and defense power. So, I can have 6 sword legions in my squad but it requires 8,000,000 experience points for the upgrade. Yep, the game really expects me to farm experience points intensively. The spiritual gem also allows you to have legion’s enhancement become permanent without equipping it. But it only applies to extra moveset and not stats enhancement.
For other thing. I like Arcia part which basically you play Devil May Cry but only using handguns: Ebony and Ivory. She can do side somersault while firing her gun. Very impressive. She can also lie backward firing her gun and then able to side roll or hop backward to get up. Sadly, I can only play as Arcia only at that level 10. Yeah, it takes very long to get to play as Arcia. Also, that also take very long to obtain ability to revisit previous levels. As I have mentioned before that revisit previous level is useful to farm items and experience. But keep in mind that there’s untold limit of how many useable items that you can carry. You will get small experience gem as consolation prize if useable items that you desire, exceed the limit. Which doesn’t make sense if I expect life recovery item when finishing a level at AA rank, instead I get experience gem (S). When I can get experience gem (L) at B rank. Though I get attack up (S) consistently if I finish a level at AAA+ rank. I tell you the item limit because I feel generous. The maximum limit of: 1) Life recovery item (S) at 6. 2) Life recovery item (L) at 2. 3) Soul recovery item (L) at 2. I mentioned before that enemies are too tough but when I revisit previous level, they feel more tolerably weak so I assume each level has increasing enemy’s power compared to previous level. Obviously, weaker enemies yield less experience points than stronger ones. Mainly, because experience points are counted proportional to enemy’s health. I’m aware that enemies have different color on their health bar but I can only interpret some of it. Yellow health bar is the weakest type. Monster generator always has grey health bar. Green health bar is stronger and blue is even stronger. I think there are total 16 levels so I'm bit past half of the game. The music is pretty ok. I like music on early stages and not on later stages which I feel less energetic. Some people may describe as some OST as butt rock. The sound effect is fine.
Think of Chaos Legion (2003) like this: Sieg is not strong on his own so CL isn’t as intuitive as DMC for hack-and-slash game. Enemies are way too strong with complex formation, so you can’t treat this game like any musou. So, CL is little bit both of DMC and musou game. To describe how puzzle-y and arduous the combat. Imagine jigsaw puzzle with pieces that have uncommon shape like triangle or trapezoid. On top of that the pieces have sharp edge that can cut your finger. If you think you can handle that oddity, then give it a go. I reckon the game is obscured gem even with all those badness and flaws. Emphasize on flaw because I like flawed legion. You can play either PS 2 or PC version. I’m unlucky with PS 2 emulator that doesn’t run smoothly when playing any game. So, I prefer PC version which run smoothly and I can ignore some texture missing. Side note: the game is based on Japanese novel. That counts for quite something.
Anyway, thank you for reading this special article of the 9th anniversary of this blog. As always, I owe you reader that keep me indirectly accompanied me up to this point and so on and so forth. It means a lot to me. Obviously, I still want to keep doing this hodgepodge of writing antique. So, bear with me or enjoy it, whatever you prefer. Either way, I’m grateful to you.
