Chaos Wars is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover Strategy RPG released in 2008, featuring characters from designers Idea Factory, Aruze, Red Entertainment and Atlus. It is infamous for the ridiculously poor voice acting and localization.
Should not be confused with Chaos War, a 2011 Marvel Comics Crisis Crossover.
There are lots of characters to choose from, and they all range from a variety of games:
- Idea Factory
- Spectral Towernote
- Spectral Force
- Spectral Blade
- Generation of Chaos
- Spectral Souls
- Blazing Souls
- Steady × Study
- Rebirth Moon (also the game whose engine was modified for use in this game)
- Mars of Destruction
- Aruze
- Atlus
- Red Entertainment
- Gungrave: Overdose
- Shinsengumi Gunrouden (a.k.a. Code of the Samurai)
- ASCII Media Works
- Dengeki Playstation (a gaming magazine)
The story opens with three Ordinary High School Students—the sourpuss Hyōma, the hyperactive Shizuku, and the cowardly Hayatemaru. They agreed to ditch school one day to investigate a strange cave that is said to hold mystical power. The story goes that if one prays there, his/her wish will be granted. However, when they reach said cave, something bizarre happens and they are sucked into a parallel dimension: a world called "Endia" ("the end of all worlds"). Endia is composed of a ring of islands, and oddly, has a sun that never sets. Hyōma is separated from his friends and encounters a purple-haired girl named Rin Sunroad. Rin is a "Gate Master"—she can operate special terminals that allow the transport of goods and even people. She tells him that he is a "Knight" (a person who is usually pulled from another world). Hyōma finds his friends early enough and must now gather an army of fellow Knights, and take part in a race to find the Keys, which may be the vital items that allows everyone to return to their own worlds—or even new Knights to join Hyōma's and Rin's cause.
Has a Spiritual Sequel of sorts in Cross Edge, another Massive Multiplayer Crossover involving Idea Factory with a Trapped in Another World premise. Zelos and Meu appear in both games.
The character sheet has been recently overhauled, but still needs to be heavily worked on. Any contributions will be appreciated.
Provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The bookshelf in the hub provides info on each character, their Realize weapons, personal bio, origin, and even artwork.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only have 5 units sortied on the field at any given time, out of your lot of 40+ units.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation:
- This and the English voice acting is what got the game most of its attention.
- The game Rebirth Moon was erroneously translated as "Reverse Moon". While リバース could be either "Rebirth" or "Reverse", this is a game that had a Latinised name visibly displayed on its logo and in the address of its official website
.
- Combination Attack: Group Attacks, which need both of the characters to be in range and all have 1 S gauge.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Beating certain boss characters with a specific unit (sometimes the killing blow must have the unit in Realize mode) causes the boss character to join Hyōma's party after the fight is won.
- Dull Surprise: Doesn't even begin to describe how bad the acting is. It sounds like 9th graders being forced to read aloud from a book that none of them are interested in. Here's an example. Thankfully, it's possible to switch to the Japanese voice track in the settings.
- First Law of Resurrection: Downplayed. Basically, anyone who gets summoned to Endia gets cured of any ailment they suffered from in their world (such as Okita's Incurable Cough of Death). The most blatant example is Grave. In his home series, "Deadman" like Grave had to periodically undergo specially-prepared treatments that refreshed all the blood in their body in order to stay "alive" and mobile. In Endia, Grave no longer requires this, and still has all his powers (nor does he need to eat or sleep).
- Fragile Speedster: Mika is quite fast and can strengthen Beyond the Grave if she participates in a combo attack with him, but it doesn't take much to knock her out of the fight.
- Guide Dang It!: Standard fare for Idea Factory games and this one is no exception. Finding all possible playable units is no easy task and to get some of them requires counterintuitive or obscure actions, and there's no real hints anywhere.
- Hub Level / Player Headquarters: Hyōma and company find a summer house on a nearby island and lay claim to it because "no one's using it". Hyōma can speak to up to three characters that randomly spawn in the base, arrange his army, use the terminal to accept missions or shop/upgrade weapons and so on.
- Improbable Weapon User: Zard the "old-fashioned" detective uses a Kingdom Hearts-esque giant key during Realize, Gepetto uses his trademark puppet Cornelia when in Realize, Rocketbilly Redcadillac uses his electricity-shooting guitar when in Realize, etc
- Incurable Cough of Death: Sōji Okita has tuberculosis in his world, and will eventually die of it just like his real life counterpart. In Endia, however, he's perfectly healthy. (see above)
- Mascot RPG: The game brings together pre-established characters or mascots from four different companies, and like many examples of these, is a Strategy RPG.
- Mighty Glacier: Beyond the Grave hits hard, but slow. He can grow out of this and catch up with other units, with the right accessories.
- Mirror Boss: Late in the game, you'll encounter Mimics, which are copies of some of your units, like Grave or Carmine.
- New Game Plus: Allows carryover of bookshelf entries, money, and any items/equipment you were not using/equipped with.
- Opposite-Sex Clone: Endia, the "boy of the sun", was a construct created by the Will of the Egg of the World, which also created Rin, the gate master.
- Overrated and Underleveled: Many of the late-game recruits, like Shelley, Poly-tan, and especially Endia whom you literally get right before the final battle.
- Paper Fan of Doom: These are Shizuku's weapon of choice when in Realize mode. Outside of battle, she tends to playfully whack other characters with them.
- Permanently Missable Content: The vast majority of the game's recruitable characters can be missed, generally by not using the right character at the right time.
- The Power of Friendship: In a sense—some characters (Grave and Mika, Billy and Juji, Hyōma and his two friends, etc.) have a passive skill called "Friendship"/"Partner". It raises the attack power of the characters when they participate in combo attacks.
- Rank Inflation: Higher grades at the end of a match yield more money and items.
- Recursive Reality: Sort of. Since Shinsengumi Gunrouden is taken straight from the events of the eponymous real life group, Original Generation character Hyōma Kusaka of Like Reality, Unless Noted knows who Sōji Okita is.
- Redemption Demotion: That boss character that had a ton of hit points and resilience? Joined your party? Well, the good thing is that you don't have to fight him or her anymore, but once on your side their incredible power is all but gone, as well as most of their hit points.
- Rule of Cool: Your party can consist of an Ordinary High-School Student who can generate a Flaming Sword, a guy who can transform into an EldritchAbomination, an undead gunslinger who carries a coffin on his back and wields guns akimbo, a demon girl who uses a big-ass scythe, and the Shinsengumi. Tell me that's not awesome.
- Sinister Scythe:
- Hiro's Realize weapon is a large scythe, although she's not evil at all—she's practically one of the first few party members you get. Scythes/sickles are also a weapon class.
- While Hiro is not evil, she IS ruthless and without mercy (she outright tells Hyoma she will kill him if he becomes a burden or, worse, an obstacle), and in her own canon she has a Superpowered Evil Side that revels in wanton destruction and cold-blooded murder due to it representing her repressed demonic nature. The scythe is more fitting than it appears at first.
- Spell My Name With An S:
- Many Non-Original Generation characters, likely due to O3 Entertainment (the American localisation team) working from the original Japanese names rather than the pre-existing localised names.
- Most noticeable with Shadow Hearts characters: Uru might be better known to American gamers as Yuri. Likewise, Nicole is based off the original ニコルnote , rather than the altered Nicolai.
