A Splendid Little Holy War: Let's play Chaos World!

I can't shake this underlying feeling of Persona 2 I get from this game. Nothing plot or gameplay related, just name similarities. Maria, Maiyan Oracle. Ideians, Idealians. Holy Lance, Holy Lance. The Last Battalion, Swift's party.

Of course, that's all from the fan translation of Innocent Sin, so.

Also, they really couldn't even pallet swap the tiles for the final dungeon? Unless, of course, there's actually a very definitely final dungeon after this definitely final dungeon.

You can never have enough final dungeons. This just sounds like they had these great things planned, but ran out of steam and threw everything in at the end. "What, we haven't used all the emblems? Uh, just throw them in some chests and call it a day."

I do appreciate that people acknowledge that that something has happened in the world after you beat Aless. Not like Lufia II, it's been a year people, we had a montage and everything. Rebuild your town already! Standing there in the rubble isn't helping anybody.

Gee... Why am I not surprised that Aless wasn't the final boss? Although I am a little surprised that the final boss didn't show up immediately after Aless went down.

Underwater Temple? Oh, Chaos World, is there anything you didn't rip off from Final Fantasy 1?

Wow, that is some massive bullshit the game just pulled. I probably would've been burned out by this game by now.

I know meaningless fetch quests are practically all you do in this game, but I'm still shocked they managed to cram one right between the final boss and the very definitely final boss. Truly this is a game that doesn't do things in half measures (Except graphics.)

Some nice music there!

It has battle animations. Doesn't that put it above at least DQ?

And the spriting isn't half bad. Just the color schemes.

I dunno, I kind of like how you pick up the emblems. There's no "Go through this dungeon and overcome kind of thematically appropriate trial to prove you're worthy of this emblem!" bullcrap, it's just like any other loot.

(Although I do agree that they probably wanted to do a lot more with the game)

I actually really like the enemy graphics. The party battle sprites are hit and miss (especially with the unfortunate palette choices). I sure would have liked more than two frames of animation for everything in the game though!!!

Finale: The Gospel of Saint Swift

Here we are. This is the very final update. I'm not pulling your leg, or blatantly misleading you. This is it. Our girl Swift is gonna save the world. Let's take a look at the story so far:

Man, if this were a TV show, that would have all been summarized in a thirty second clip reel.


Despite Aless's letter telling Swift to go to Grand States first, then Bolder, she goes to Bolder. I mean, it just sounds easier, you know? The "priest" is the old man living up in Hokkaido that told Swift to get lost the last time she came around. I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I believe this man is supposed to be the prophet from the game's backstory. It makes sense, considering what he's about to reveal:


Four hundred years ago, the Great War that broke the one world government apart was waged between the followers of Ideia and Maria. This is thanks to Michenu sending the fortress of Sarvant back in time. But we already knew all this.

What we didn't know: The Ideians summoned a demon named Chaos to fight for them. Like many demonic entities in JRPGs, it fed on strife and hatred and all that bad stuff, and, well, it was summoned during a world war, so it had plenty to feed on. Unfortunately, the Ideians are dumb as shit and didn't realize that feeding a giant demon to make it grow bigger and stronger is an exceptionally bad idea. Surprise! It turned on them and began killing things indiscriminately.


Everyone, Marian and Ideian alike, banded together to fight Chaos, but it was already really strong, so things kind of got caught in a feedback loop. People die fighting Chaos -> Chaos becomes more powerful because of bloodshed -> People die fighting Chaos.

In the end, four heroes were able to overcome Chaos and seal it away, but two of the heroes were corrupted by Chaos in the process.

Hey! You know who claimed to have lived for 400 hundred years? That's right! Michenu! She and Aless were the two heroes who were taken by Chaos.

Yep, Michenu's endgame wasn't to cause evilness, it was to defeat Chaos. I mean, she was totes under the influence of Chaos, so a lot of the stuff she did was evil, but in the end she was trying to help. Look at it like this: She wasn't sending Sarvant to the past to start a war, she was bringing Carlint to the present so Swift could get the Rainbow Flower.

I mean, yeah, it's kind of a lame copout, and I think it would have been better if Michenu had done all that (brought Carlint to the present and told Swift how to get to Saradis) because Ideia wanted the Rainbow Flower for some nefarious purpose. Especially after that Maiden of Saradis chick made some remark about the Rainbow Flower being linked to humanity's future. But hey, you know, JRPGs!


....and Aless totes lied to Swift. The Old Man doesn't have the last emblem. Instead, it's in Mynelt. Groan.


Dona has this to say about Grand States. Wasn't this what was going on with the Underwater Temple?

I'm pretty sure you can choose to get the last two emblems in any order you wish even though it says that the last one is in Mynelt. In fact, I'm reasonably sure that the emblem in Grand States is supposed to be the last one, because it at least looks and feels like a proper final dungeon compared to what's waiting in Mynelt.


The quickest way to get to Grand States is to fly to Faltesis and sail down the coast until you reach Michenu's Tower, then sail east until you see an island with a cave on it. That's Grand States.


Grand States has new graphics! And, given those graphics, I think that the sprite used for the Underwater Temple was supposed to be for Grand States instead.


Like I mentioned above, I consider this to be the game's final dungeon. Not in the same way I teased Idevales and the Underwater Temple as being the final dungeon, but like, the actual final dungeon. As you can see, it's completely different from anything Swift's seen this far. Instead of tiny rooms, stairs and multiple floors, it's just one huge floor with lots of winding passageways.


...and Eggs. Eggs make up 90% of the battles here, and they're sorta like the Doppels from the island north of Ruval. There's a bunch of different "types" but they all look the same and have the same name. Some cast healing magic, some cast elemental magic, some just attack. They don't have too much physical offense, allowing Dona to sit in front of the party and soak up both all the incoming damage.

Eggs can also drop Feather Mantles of Light, in case you want more.


If you look closely at the map, you'll see that turning right at the entrance is complete bullshit, because it leads to a huge section of the dungeon that only has one chest. Swift needs to navigate her way up to the red dot, then practically backtrack to the entrance!

...on the other hand, the chest contains the Photonmail, the strongest armor in the game. It gives a hefty 36 Def to Samus, but I suppose you could give to any Ftr or Knight you happened to have in your party.

It's much easier to cast Turning to get back to the entrance than it is to backtrack. Mara's wasted like half her MP just getting to the Photonmail, so the Crusadin' Ladies head back to Faltesis to unwind a little. Samus gives Baran her old Windmail, and he gives his Flamemail to Marin. Hooray for hand me downs!

To make room in the carriage, Mara replaces her Feel spell with Cure and Dona replaces her Mind spell with Stone-C. It's not like petrification is a big deal here, but you know, just in case. I suppose I could just rely on Elixirs to fix it though...


Back in Grand States. The orange chest contains an Elixir, which makes it the most worthless treasure here.


During this trip, Swift learned the perils of the Recovery formation: This particular battle here could not be won because the party was in the Recovery formation. As you'll recall, Recovery should be Focus, and it causes your whole party to target one enemy at a time. Normally, this is really useful, because it's better to have two enemies at full health than three at half. That's because normally, enemies don't have healing magic. But these Eggs? They can have healing magic. The ones at the top and bottom were both healers, and my party didn't choose to take them out first, instead they opted for the Maskmage.

...Swift and her pals simply could not keep up with the healing the Eggs were putting out. I ended up having to wait for the three attacking enemies to slowly beat my party to death. Both Dona and Mara had to burn through all their MP first, and then the party had to use up all their Elixirs (and they had a lot of Elixirs) before they could finally die.

It wasn't fun.

(And not just in the way that Chaos World itself isn't fun)


The Emblem of Truth is unceremoniously located in the light blue chest. This is all you really need to do here, but you've seen the map. There's lots treasure to be had! (I, uh, actually thought that the Emblem of Truth was up in the pink chest, since that would have been the biggest douchebag move, but nope.)


Sadly, most of that treasure is just copies of stuff Swift already found. It's not really unwelcome, but it's not as thrilling as finding brand spanking new gear.

The yellow chest has another Hat of Light, so now Dona can have one too.
The lime green chest holds a Dark Crystal for Orion. Even though you get two Dark Crystals, there's only one Bow of Light in the game. What a shame.
The purple chest has the only other new piece of gear in this place: The Bracelet of Light. It's the best caster shield in the game. It raises Def by 24, and Mag and Int by 8 each. Mara equips it and gives her Earth Ring to Dona, although at this point Dona's spent like 90% of this dungeon standing in the front so maybe she should have been the one equipping all the spiffy new upgrades and passing her leftovers to Mara.

The white chest contains another Feather Mantle of Light. That's not so bad considering it's the best body armor for like, eight of the game's characters.
The pink chest has another Holy Staff, which, again, it's the best weapon for four different characters, so I'm ok with that.

That's all for Grand States. Swift flies back to Faltesis to unload some of this loot on her cohorts: Orion gets the Dark Crystal, Feather Mantle of Light and Dona's old Bracelet of Strength. Sylva gets the Holy Staff.

Now that my OCD need to hang on to things I will never, ever use is satisfied, it's time to get that last emblem.


In Mynelt...
Ryui tells Swift that while they were mining, a wall collapsed and opened the way to a huge cavern. That sounds kinda like Dragon Quest VII.


The elder, or mayor, or whatever he is, seems completely unconcerned with this development, but a man hanging around in town suggests that the huge cave might have been made to hide something. Something like... an ancient sleeping demon and his army of uber vamps??? Quick, let's get on it! To the Mines of Mynelt!


...they haven't changed much. Same enemies, same music, same graphics.


Swift's goal is to get down to B4 and go down the newly developed stairs, which lead to...


...a place with the exact same music and graphics as the previous four floors.

Yeah.

This is technically the final dungeon, but you can see why I said that I consider it to be Grand States. Sure, that place was kinda disappointing, but it's better than this.

There are new enemies here. Chaoservants attack by making air quotes at you (they appear to be physical attackers from the screenshot) and Dracolichs are undead so they take huge damage from the Holy Staff.

...the Eggs were way scarier.


And guess what? The layout is equally disappointing.


Whatever, let's just grab the Emblem of Courage and get. FWIW, the Emblem of Courage is the gold one and the Emblem of Truth is the green one. More proof that Grand States is meant to come second, despite what the storyline says.

Taking the Emblem of Courage doesn't cause a giant demon to attack or anything of the like, so it looks like Swift's gonna need to go ask the old dude in Hokkaido what to do next.


Remember that little ditty from way back? I told you that by time it became relevant, its actual meaning will have been spelled out for Swift. He's talking about the good emblems! Of course, it probably would have made more sense earlier if the game had correctly identified the Emblem of Hatred.

Before talking to the Prophet/Sage/Priest/Whatever, Swift removes her Bow of Light. Again, there's only one in the game, and what's about to happen can be pretty upsetting for people who have issues about unique items in games.


Swift: "Oh! I feel it! I feel the Cosmos!"


Swift reaches enlightenment and the emblems become Flare Riser, the ultimate weapon. Flare Riser is now permanently affixed to Swift's weapon slot, and whatever she had equipped when she spoke to the old man is gone forever. Which means if you're playing as a Knight, Ftr, Thf, or Mage, there's a very real chance it'll completely destroy the Holy Lance, Sun Sword, Aless's Sword, Bow of Light, or Michenu's Staff.

The Flare Riser raises Atk by 18, Def by 4, Int by 56 and Mag by 4. It seems to deal damage based on Int rather than Atk, or maybe it's just set to be strong versus everything. And it is strong against everything. Like, dealing around 150 or more to every enemy. Swift is pretty much God now.


Heck, even the world map music recognizes Swift's new found godhood and changed itself accordingly. Give it a listen, it's a really nice track.


It's such a nice track that it keeps playing, even when a bolt shoots down from the heavens above and destroys the old man's house as soon as Swift steps away. (Don't worry, the Horse and Carriage are fine even though they're standing on the same tile as the house).


The sky grows dark and laughter echoes across the world.


It would seem that Chaos does not fall into the category of silver tongued demons, so at least we know he won't be able to con Swift into selling him her soul or signing a contract or something crazy like that.

...wait, if Aless and Michenu were both corrupted by Chaos when they fought him, doesn't that mean the same thing could happen to Swift? Now that she's the most powerful thing on the planet, him possessing her might be something of a problem. I guess we could be charitable and say that the reaching enlightenment and having Flare Riser would protect her from his influence but what about Samus, Dona and Mara?

Anyway, at this point, the entire world is cast into darkness and there's no more day-night cycle. All the stores will be open permanently, not that you'd really need to visit any of them.

Swift feels an urgent need to check on her homeland, but decides to stop by nearby Bolder first to check on them and also to make sure that Chaos isn't gonna be blowing up every location she walks out of. It turns out he won't.

The people of Bolder are, predictably, flipping their shit, even if they're completely unconcerned with the old man's house being wiped off the face of the planet like that.


The people of Rodetia are also flipping their shit. They apparently thought that the prophecy was loxian and not literal. Silly Rodetians, the "darkness spreading across the land" was not a metaphor for a religion you disagree with!


Despite all the doom and gloom coming from NPCs, Swift's friends gives her words of encouragement.


The Ruval royals are a bit more enthusiastic about Swift's chances of success.


Meldi even orders to return safely.


Orion is ready to fight. Too bad he's gonna be stuck hanging around in Faltesis while Team Lady Action fights Chaos.


The Mayor's Son in Izaruro wants everyone to stay inside where it's safe. Yeah, they'll be safe until Chaos decides to start smiting everything.


Kail and Wendy offer their support.


Again, y'all, locking yourself in your houses isn't gonna protect you from the pan-dimensional demon. He's just gonna blow your house the fuck up.

There's really not a whole lot of variance in what the townsfolk have to say. Most of the messages are reused several times across many different towns. Obviously important characters tend to have some unique stuff to say, but as far as apocalypses go, it's a pretty big let down compared to the one featured in Lufia: The Legend Returns.

There's also a translation hiccup in Litton where every female character starts spewing text from the ending. So now, in case you didn't want to actually go through with the final battle, you can still see what happens. (But come on, if you've made it this far, how can you give up now?)


And if you were wondering why Orion had so much to say, it's because he shares those lines with Baran, who is the closest thing to an actual character the party had. I couldn't get any of the other characters to give me lines, even after spending literally thousands of Gold staying at the inn over and over. I doubt they have anything different to say compared to what we've seen this far, but it's a little disheartening to know that Leon, Juno, Nande, Sylva and Enak don't believe in Swift.


Despite the confidence the Ruval royal family has in Swift, she can't even get in to see the King and Prince Alon in Ryuita.


Even though General Faltesis offers Swift the use of his army (!), there's no way to take him up on it. Sure, why bring an entire army to fight the demon when you can just send four ladies? Either way, General Faltesis is the last significant NPC in the game, so that's it for Swift's apocalypse world tour. Alls that's left is to buckle up and go after Chaos!

...

Hey, have y'all noticed something? Swift got all the emblems, reached enlightenment, got an ultimate weapon, was personally challenged by Chaos itself, the apocalypse started and, uh, no one has mentioned where Chaos actually is.

Oh come on, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Let's take a look at the world map and see if we can spot a suspicious location that might be used to hide a world-destroying demon:


Yeah, it's in the great forest. The one that Swift was warned not to go on in because of all the powerful monsters. The one that the people of Nazaal could never clear out. The one that a single NPC in Nazaal refers to as the Chaos Forest at some point before you defeat Aless.

I'm sure that most folks would agree that having a single NPC hint at the location of the final boss several hours before it becomes relevant isn't the best design choice, especially when that NPC is tucked away in a town that you have no reason to go to after you've passed through the first time. But, you know,whatever. Chaos World!


Swift flies to Nazaal, travels through the border cave and into the Chaos Forest.


Oh, and Dona totally equips Gaia, because this is the only point in the game where this spell would be remotely useful. It also would have been really smart to remove Blast from Mara's spell list so she won't try and spam it against the final boss, but you know, what can you do?

If Swift had come here earlier, she would have seen this circle of stone structures deep in the heart of the forest. And maybe picked up a couple of Windmails, because enemies known as Ferians drop them out here. Anyway. Stone structures. Earlier in the game, she might have misconstrued them as markers for an Yggdrasil Leaf spawn point in the center, like in Dragon Quest III. Instead, they're the seal on Chaos. When she steps into the circle...


Uh


Chaos is a tree. I don't have anything to say about his speech, it's something we've all read a hundred times in a hundred different JRPGs.


In the battle, I went with Pyramid formation, but Mag Atk would have been better so Dona would have used all her MP instead of just half. See, there are only like two things that can really, truly damage Chaos: Flare Riser (that is, your main character's attack) and Gaia. Gaia is actually more powerful here, as it's dealing ~150 per hit, while Swift is only getting to around ~130. Sure hope you didn't roll a Mage as your hero and give him or her the Gaia spell! (Although it really doesn't matter. You either have enough healing to win the war of attrition, or you don't. Gaia certainly helps speed things up, but it isn't necessary for victory)

Once Chaos's face breaks off, you get the option of changing your formation. Not that it really matters at that point.


After the battle...
Dawn breaks and Chaos laments his loss at the hands of Swift. He threatens that one day, he'll revive and then he'll destroy humanity.
...even though he needs humanity to revive.


And the Rainbow Flower shines, purifying the souls of Swift, Dona, Samus and Mara from being in such close contact to Chaos. This time, there won't be a repeat of what happened four hundred years ago.

Swift defeated Chaos!

...and then we have to sit and watch Swift hoof it back to Rodetia.


Literally watching her walk all the way from Chaos back to the throne room in Rodetia. Upon her return, the King doesn't even congratulate her or thank her, he tells her to go to Ruval. And she does. By flying. Right out of the throne room.


She lands smack dab in the middle of Ruval's throne room. I'm ok with this. It would have been even more annoying to watch her walk from Rodetia to Ruval.


Levin tells Swift that they've decided to reunite the three countries into a one world government. It's funny that he'd say that, because I only count two countries being represented in this particular scene: Rodetia and Ruval. I wonder what Ryuita thinks about all this?


He asks Swift if she intends to continue adventuring, and she says...

> No, I'm tired of fighting

Levin and Meldi agree that Swift has done enough and deserves to rest. They promise that Swift's legacy will never be forgotten, and Meldi hints at something even greater awaiting Swift on down the line.

> Yes, adventure is my life

Levin says he expected as much, Final Fantasy and Meldi wishes Swift the best on her journey.

Either way: Roll Credits


The credits are displayed over key scenes in the game: Swift waking up at the beginning of the game, Swift killing the Slug in the arena, Swift meeting the King of Rodetia, Swift meeting Michenu, Swift being throne in jail, etc, etc, etc. There's a nice little song that plays during all this.

END

I was gonna write a big "overall thoughts" post, but I decided to leave it at this:
Chaos World: It could have been better. Thanks for sticking with me the whole way~

Yeah, Chaos World seems to have had a lot of big ideas for its time, but they obviously didn't really have the means to make most of that vision a reality (and for what it's worth, its Job Board system is still much better than the one in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.)

Congratulations on making it through another Natsume game!

Pretty much what I was gonna say, besides "What other Natsume games have you played?" I haven't been here very long, after all.

Tell me, sir. Do you like randomly generated dungeons?

Speaking of: I was being too harsh towards Lufia at the end -- for all its problems, localization and otherwise, it seemed like there was a genuinely nifty game that routinely peeked out from below a thick, sedimentary layer of Natsume. Chaos World seems more like it has some nifty concepts, but that they never made it all the way out. Does that seem right?

*shrug* Never played a game with randomly-generating dungeons, really. Besides the Abyss from Wild ARMS 3, I mean, but I was never insane enough to run through the whole dungeon. Thanks for the link, though!

Huh. Am I alone in thinking that the final boss being a forest is actually kind of cool?

Nope! I also think it is kinda cool.

No, and the boss's battle sprite(s) are quite nice for NES.

I would say that the NES really wasn't the proper medium for this game.

I like that the party members will give advice when you stay at the inn. I think this is a neat feature and I'd like to see this kind of thing in the SaGa series.

Even though I did make fun of it, I like the game's plot. There's a lot of fetch questing, sure, but it makes the world feel connected, instead of just a bunch of unrelated, disjointed vignettes. I like that a number of the plotlines were running concurrently: You have the business in Litton, a stolen relic in Dolgis, the two princes in Ryuita, the civil war in Faltesis, etc, etc, and you don't get to neatly wrap one up as soon as you encounter it, then move on to the next. I think on a stronger system, they could have really fleshed this out and done something wonderful.

The battle system is godawful. Full autobattle for the whole party, all the time? Why would they do this? I like formations and stuff because I'm a weird little kid, but dang, it just does not work out in this game. There are a lot of different ways to approach correcting it, like, you know, letting the player choose the commands, or letting you set up macros/gambits. And, even if they were just dead set on making it all autobattle, they should have at least let me stop battle so I could change my formation or retreat.

There are other problems that are standard to the system, such as no in-game documentation on anything, from the stats of items in stores to spell effects. The best you get is the shopkeeper will warn you if no one in the party can equip what you're trying to buy. This is particularly annoying for magic because combined with the battle system, it makes it very difficult to figure out what these spells do.

I like all the character classes, but I feel like they could be differentiated a bit more. Like, the Mages, Priests and Bishops can all equip the exact same weapons and armor. Shamans and Bishops both get access to every spell in the game (Japanese websites say that Shamans can't equip L-Gaia, but, uh, none of them say where you actually get L-Gaia from, so I'm not sure it actually exists), effectively rendering the more specialized Priests and Mages pointless. Knights and Fighters are supposed to be differentiated by Knights having more Def and Fighters having more Atk, but it ended up being that Leon and Baran (the boys) have more Atk while Marin and Samus (the girls) have more Def instead. Some sort of skill system would have helped, or maybe giving the different weapon types different characteristics.

Three things about the guild mission:

1. You've played FFT (the original). You know that in competent hands, this can be pulled off.
2. I have mixed feelings about forcing you to take guild missions to advance the plot. I think if there were more missions available, this would be less annoying. Since there are so few guild missions, you sort of get in the habit of checking a town's guild on your first visit, doing whatever job is there, then never stopping by again. If there were more available, you might stop by the guilds more often to see if anything new is open.
3. That being said, I do appreciate that the guild missions let you skip some of the boring stuff like delivering food to Bolder or cleaning the Ancient Weapon.

The music is really great. The enemy sprites are in general quite nice.

I think a competent developer could take a lot of these ideas and concepts and synthesize them into an actual good game on the DS, PSP, or something.

(Sorry if this all sounds more incoherent than usual, I started typing at 4 am)

I really miss when RPGs made you walk home after killing the last boss. Seriously, why the hell did that stop? Gave you a great chance to do a victory lap around the world, talk to everyone, sometimes keep a post-victory save file, and Phantasy Star did a really awesome pre-emptive subversion of it.

As did DQ..3? 4? You beat the boss, go home, and then an even worse evil entity from beyond smites your trumpeters from its evil lair before they can fanfare your victory.

Because they don't want to rewrite every single NPC's dialogue for the occasion that most players will not indulge in, I imagine.

omg ffv totally ripped of chaos world

Woah, thanks for spoiling the FFV LP currently in progress!

So a time loop and the final boss is a demon named Chaos.

...

I'd mock Chaos World for this but I just don't have it in me anymore. Chaos World has sucked all of the joy out of making fun of it. There's just no challenge to it now.

Maybe Square figured that since Chaos World ripped off so many things from them they should rip off at least one thing from Chaos World.

How so? FYI - I have been playing FFTA recently and just completed it a few days ago.

What do you mean? Are you referring to the facts that the FFT propositions aren't required to win the game and don't depend on plot triggers for completion?

Congratulations!

I can't say I was expecting a World Ending Demon to be a robo-brain in a tree.

Mother Brain stuck inside a tree in a forest, even. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

The game seems to have very little consideration for the player. Well, most NES games had little consideration for the player, but this one seemed to take it to a new level. I don't think I'd be able to force myself through this. But now I don't have to! Yay!

Hmm, this game doesn't seem inherently awful. It seems like a decent basic plot, and a battle system that could work in theory, combined with getting pretty much all the small and medium-sized details right. The developers were on to something here; a pity it didn't work out.