Chaos Wars

Chaos Wars, Idea Factory's multi-dev collab, was similar in concept to the crossover tactics of Namco x Capcom (released a year earlier) but whose guests largely hail from RPGs. Studios such as Career Soft (Growlanser), Aruze (Shadow Hearts) and Red Entertainment (Gungrave, Code of the Samurai) lent their characters to a mission-based TRPG intersected by VN cutscenes, with stylized visuals and marked by plot and skits that could've been penned by Gust. Another 'gathering' of sorts takes place in the gameplay. Enclosed in small, slightly elevated maps, its battles are unique in rendering Phantom Brave's turn-based, gridless tactics with AP mechanics (reminiscent of Fallout) and a rather strong fixation on positioning and elements, relying on unite-attack systems to perform combos and achieve a high mission rank. But this semi-original, five-member setup faces an issue comparable to the one that hampered Front Mission 3 & 4, and their gauntlet-style quests only highlight it further. The teamwork-friendly mechanics plus simple map and scenario designs promote a single strategy for hours: Dogpile one enemy before moving on to the next. Variety - instead, is found more often in the menus than on the battlefield. Their systems allow quite a bit of freedom as far as customization goes, from its units (recruitable and almost fully customizable - if easily missable much like Chrono Cross, identified by special passives and equip types) to its weapons (with similar passives alongside leveling and synthesis features) and to its skills (in which abilities not only gain EXP as well, but can transfer between units and even morph into other skills at random). What results is a fair degree of both character and party building, but also a lot of mindless tedium.