Chaos Legion is a great action packed game that deserves more than its credited for.
The Bad: relatively short length, environments are a bit cramped, game starts off slow.
Chaos Legion has been labeled a Devil May Cry duplicate. I wouldn't know since I've never played it (EDIT: Now I have), but it wouldn't matter as I don't judge games as rip-offs but each of their own. However I can say that Chaos Legion is a great action packed game that deserves more than its credited for.
You are Sieg Wahreheit, dark knight for the glyphs. You mission is to find & confront your long time ally, Victor Delacroix, and bring him to justice for his crimes and stopping him from purifying the world into Destruction. However the story is developed much further than Sieg's mission, which uncovers as you seek Delacroix out. During Sieg's search he comes across Arcia Rinslet, a maiden who decides to journey with Sieg to seek Delacroix for killing her family.
Gameplay overall is good though it's quite slow at the beginning. When you start Sieg has only one sword combination attack and one legion. A Legion is a soul creature from the dead that fights along side with you, protecting you as you fight. As you progress through the stages you'll gain more legions to use and gain experience which can be spent to upgrade your legions and improve their stats.
Also by improving legions it also improves Sieg as you gain new moves and abilities as your legions get stronger. There are 7 different legions to choose from although your only aloud to use 2 legions in each stage, which adds to the decision and difficulty to each stage.
By gaining new moves and abilities through the legions you can also upgrade your health, legion soul power, attack and defense power by collecting special items through each stage. Also hidden items are spread throughout in each stage which requires certain legions power to find them.
Graphics are very good, character, enemy & boss models are quite detailed. Sieg's and Arcia's outfits are quite defined and give them both a unique look. The environments themselves do look a bit bland but do fit in well to the theme of each stage. Animation is above par with enemy and boss movements looking great. Character movement is decent though some animation movement lacks a bit in realism.
The sound department though is where the game is at its best. The Music is done by Fukasawa Hideyuki who did the music of Onimusha: Dawn Of Dreams. Most soundtracks are accustomed to a Gothic, Opera and Rock mix which carry over exceedingly well with each piece fitting well to its set location. I enjoyed the music that I got the Original Soundtrack to Chaos Legion, though you may not focus on the music as much as you'll be too busy slashing away but the music adds well to the depth to the dark gothic theme.
The voice acting is decent to above average. During cut scenes the voice over acting are quite good and fit par with the character involved. Sound effects are cool from sword swings to monster screams which all sound great to add to the intensity within the game.
Despite what Gamespot says, there is replay value in this game. Once you've beaten the game on easy difficulty you get to unlock movie clips, result screens and other goodies in the extras section. When you beat it on Normal you unlock Arcia as a playable character as well as more goodies, plus the hard mode. If you manage to finish the game on hard mode more extras are unlocked plus a super hard mode. Besides that you can play through all the stages on Side B world which gives more challenge with harder enemies and bosses. Also you can max your legions levels and gain experience including perfecting Thantaos's Forms.
If you have viewed at images and thought, that actually looks quite good, but wondered why Game Critics gave Chaos Legion such a bad score I suggest you don't heed their advice, I didn't and I'm glad for it. The PS2 version plays practically the same as the PC version though the frame rate worked a little better for me on the PS2. I really enjoyed Chaos Legion and if the game interests you then go buy it. Plus the game is cheap you can pick it up for under $10 but If you can't find it anywhere try eBay or a trading place. I got my copy from EBgames but the organization selling the game you can get from (www.red-ant.com.au). Chaos Legion may not be the best action game ever but, without doubt a very fun and challenging one that will give great entertainment for it's duration from beginning to end.