Certainly, Legion is somewhat jarring on first impression, but I have warmed to it. It's overall quite charming in its batshit little way.
There's alot of esoterica going on in one package. Can't think of another STG with a rewind mechanic off the top of my head, although I'm sure there must be another out there. Right now, it's sorta reminiscent of Giga Wing's bullet repulsion bomb. You have the time-limited power ups, so you want to be picking up your homies and breaking crystals with regularity. There are certain stretches without, and so far it seems to me that the one you don't want to be left without is the speed boost. Base speed is very slow as the action ramps up.
Then you have the loops and branching paths. Took me a little while to realise that I was replaying the same stages over and over again
But here's where Hamster's Preference settings save the day once more. They give you the option to toggle a display that handily sits outside the playfield telling you what loop you are in, but more importantly what stage you are currently in. Very helpful indeed when choosing your path forward at the end of a stage, because it's easy to forget where you are and end up taking yourself back a stage or two.
Speaking of loops, anyone know if there are a finite number, or is it an infinite looper? Last time I checked, there were some folks on the leaderboard made it up to loop 3.