Chaos Field | DJcube

Blast ‘Em! Use Swords! Avoid Fire! Power Up!

JP release: 24th February 2005
NA release: 20th December 2005
EU release: N/A
Developer: Milestone
Publisher: Sega (JP), O3 (NA)
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

Chaos Field is a vertical scrolling shoot ‘em up much like Ikaruga, with its key selling point in the arcades being that it’s a boss there’s five levels, each with three bosses and no other enemies. And the bosses get intense almost immediately. The GameCube port doesn’t quite have as many features as Ikaruga (no Tate mode, for example), but does come with a new mode.

The confusingly named “original” (as in new to this version, not the first version of the game) actually does add some regular enemies to fight against. But not many, just a dozen or so before you fight the three bosses as usual. It’s quite strange that it doesn’t do more.

In terms of mechanics, you have homing weapons and a defence that sweeps around you and absorbs certain types of bullets. You can also switch to a chaos mode which disables the homing ability of your weapons but makes them more powerful, while also making your ship weaker. On top of this, it switches the graphics to make the levels look more oppressive. It seems like it would be good for people skilled at the genre.

Fine

Despite its problems, Chaos Field is still worth checking out if you enjoyed Ikaruga and its predecessors, and aren’t expecting more than just another shoot-’em-up that tries to be different but doesn’t break the mold. There’s no shortage of challenge to be found in this game, and it’s got some decent visual effects here and there, but Chaos Field seems like it could have been a lot better with more fine-tuning.
Greg Kasavin, IGN

Remake or remaster?

A re-release would be good.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get Chaos Field.