[PS2] Chaos Wars

The original thread for this game apparently died back in November 2006 with a comment that "It'll never be localized". Anyways they released it today. Sadly it looks like only enough copies were made to meet preorders and it's anyone's guess if they'll have any copies beyond that. Thank goodness I did preorder it.

For those who didn't see the original thread, basically this is a PS2 strategy RPG that takes a bunch of characters from different Atlus, RED, Aruze, and Idea Factory games.

Initial thoughts(I've only done two battles at this time):

The game plays kind of like Makai Kingdom. Free roaming map with a radius you can move in instead of a grid. Techniques work the same way as well with the little bubble or pillar that you place over your target or targets.

Graphics are very cutesy and obviously outdated(it is a PS2 game after all and it doesn't even try and push the PS2). Then again the target audience are people who play games like Makai Kingdom and Disgaea so generally we won't be bothered. I'm rather amused at the thought of characters from various videogames having this look. I can't wait to get Yuri and Alice(from Shadow Hearts).

I have seen a few load times here and there. Nothing bad so far although I've been told that some later stuff has annoying load times. I'll confirm or deny this when I get to the points in question.

The voice acting is atrocious. This might be a new low in fact. I can't even say that it's so bad it's good. It's just bad. Some of the dialogue sounds like it was a direct translation too so sometimes they say something that just sounds odd. I'm just waiting for someone to make a comment about being the master of unlocking or the like.

So far there's no real story to speak of. Kid gets dragged into alternate world. Wants to get out of alternate world. Quest begins. I'm not expecting anything great storywise in all honesty. It's about having Yuri and Karen and Alice fight alongside characters from Spectral Souls and Gungrave and whatnot. I'm hoping that Jack Frost will appear in the game as well(at least as a cameo) but who can say? I haven't seen a FAQ for this game yet.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Celisasu

The original thread for this game apparently died back in November 2006 with a comment that "It'll never be localized". Anyways they released it today. Sadly it looks like only enough copies were made to meet preorders and it's anyone's guess if they'll have any copies beyond that. Thank goodness I did preorder it.

For those who didn't see the original thread, basically this is a PS2 strategy RPG that takes a bunch of characters from different Atlus, RED, Aruze, and Idea Factory games.

Initial thoughts(I've only done two battles at this time):

The game plays kind of like Makai Kingdom. Free roaming map with a radius you can move in instead of a grid. Techniques work the same way as well with the little bubble or pillar that you place over your target or targets.

Graphics are very cutesy and obviously outdated(it is a PS2 game after all and it doesn't even try and push the PS2). Then again the target audience are people who play games like Makai Kingdom and Disgaea so generally we won't be bothered. I'm rather amused at the thought of characters from various videogames having this look. I can't wait to get Yuri and Alice(from Shadow Hearts).

I have seen a few load times here and there. Nothing bad so far although I've been told that some later stuff has annoying load times. I'll confirm or deny this when I get to the points in question.

The voice acting is atrocious. This might be a new low in fact. I can't even say that it's so bad it's good. It's just bad. Some of the dialogue sounds like it was a direct translation too so sometimes they say something that just sounds odd. I'm just waiting for someone to make a comment about being the master of unlocking or the like.

So far there's no real story to speak of. Kid gets dragged into alternate world. Wants to get out of alternate world. Quest begins. I'm not expecting anything great storywise in all honesty. It's about having Yuri and Karen and Alice fight alongside characters from Spectral Souls and Gungrave and whatnot. I'm hoping that Jack Frost will appear in the game as well(at least as a cameo) but who can say? I haven't seen a FAQ for this game yet.

Ah, Gamestop only. That's why I hadn't been able to preorder this at an EB, even.

Fucking ridiculous. I might grab this off of e-bay at some point, but from what I've heard, it's pretty lackluster.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I only got this game for Growlanser. I played a bit; it's cute, but now I'm a bit bored.

It's nice you can choose Japanese voices. And "interesting" they left the intro in Japanese.

Still trying to figure out the battle system completely. I haven't played games for a while so I'm out of practice.

I just want my Zeonsilt-darling. Oh when oh when oh when can I get him..

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Ah, Gamestop only. That's why I hadn't been able to preorder this at an EB, even.

Fucking ridiculous. I might grab this off of e-bay at some point, but from what I've heard, it's pretty lackluster.

I think the company that makes it went out of business or something. Apparently their boards are completely flooded with spam at this point and whatnot. I'm rather surprised it came out at all. I was fully expecting to end up transfering the money I preordered this with to some other game. And yeah, I'm not expecting anything grand from it. It's probably going to be the epitome of average with only the various crossovers giving it anything of note at all.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Hmm...I'm slightly disappointed then. I was looking forward to this game. I'll probably still pick it up because it still sounds good, but I suppose I'll begin lowering my expectations for it (well, they weren't very high to begin with).

I was speaking idiomatically.

So I picked up this game yesterday because I found it sitting in a Gamestop and I suppose I'll give my impressions of it. First impressions were bad.

I left it in the English Voice Acting the first time around before resetting it and putting it in the Japanese track. Seriously, the English voices in this game sound like utter shit. Partially, that's because of the translation having a lot of errors in them as well, but some of it is just inexcusable. The captions clearly say "summon" buy the guy says something along the likes of "salmon" so I'm guessing they only had one run through this and called it a day. The last thing about the voice is that some of them sound horribly unmotivated, and it sounds like they were reading a piece of paper in front of them monotonously. Either that, or their script has no punctuation marks whatsoever and they couldn't be arsed to throw them in themselves.

But past the shitty voice acting and translation, the game itself isn't that bad, being a strategy RPG in the vein of Phantom Brave. The lack of animation for talking scenes is a bit cheap, but I've been playing Fire Emblem for a long time now, so this doesn't bother me as much.

It's pretty average beyond that though. As from what I got from the story, guy goes exploring in a cave with some friends, finds something (I seriously have no idea what he finds, actually) gets sucked into some other world, and wants to get back to his. Teams up with another person who jumped worlds (called "Knights") and the Gate Master and they go along their way.

It's not a bad game. I generally use the Japanese voices if there is an option for them, so the English voice acting doesn't blemish it too much, except for when the times I forget to turn on Japanese. Game play seems pretty solid and story maybe a bit cliche, but not too bad.

How ya doing, buddy?

Initially, I was interested in this game for the premise of Shadow Hearts + Growlanser although my knowledge of both universes are close to none. Perhaps, if only to get a glimpse of how the characters would act outside of their franchises as a kind of smorgasbord offering to see if they'd be cool to go back to the original games to check out.

After a couple of videos, I certainly am now more interested in the game for the laugh value of the god-awful English script and VA. This "Karen" character sounded so devoid of life that I would replay the video over and over again just to hear her clearly apathetic voice. Uru sounds equally laughable and the lines also seem rather cookie-cutter.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), this seems to be one of those releases that have only made its way to the US and not Canada, which seem to be few and far between with games I want, but still possible (Puyo Pop Fever, World Heroes Anthology, Fatal Fury Battle Archives Vol. 2, etc.). The ebay prices seem to gravitate around $60 so I was wondering if it would be worth it gameplay-wise at least, since laugh value only goes so far.

FELIPE NO

I think the game itself is actually quite rare where I am. I went to Gamestop and picked it up for $40, and it happened to be the last (un-gutted) copy.

I don't know about anybody else, but I thought the game-play was quite solid. There's lots of dialog to sift through though. Outside of battle, I've only seen one of two types of screens: the save screen, and the screen with 2 static portraits of talking characters. I'm going to guess you won't see much else. Of course, I've only played the first two battles and stopped after that, I can't say for sure, but I hope there's more action to come.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Bah, this' why I sacrificed this game [traded it into GameStop]. So that I can get 360. The english acting just flat out sucks. Now when I think about it, just the mention of the Chaos Wars game makes me cringe. >_<

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Zeta26

Bah, this' why I sacrificed this game [traded it into GameStop]. So that I can get 360. The english acting just flat out sucks. Now when I think about it, just the mention of the Chaos Wars game makes me cringe. >_<

No one plays with the English VO on. The only reason they had that was because Sony forces games to have an English VO track (so they used their damn family members as voice actors, it's true).

You should have just switched to the original Japanese VO track.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by JazzFlight

No one plays with the English VO on. The only reason they had that was because Sony forces games to have an English VO track (so they used their damn family members as voice actors, it's true).

You should have just switched to the original Japanese VO track.

I put it on the first time just for laughs. At first it was just hilariously bad. Then it stopped being funny, and kept going downhill. Around the time of the first battle, I turned it off and put on the Japanese voice track and restarted the game. Haven't looked back since.

And yeah, the voices aren't done by professional voice actors. The guy seriously got his family in on the game. To be honest, I can't think of anybody sounding so emotionless, and it's not even the robot kind of emotionless voice.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I played through the entire game with the English voices. They never stopped being funny.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?