Here it is. The game I've been waiting for. As someone who loves great cinematography and storytelling in his games, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is THE game that feels like the first big step for the former in the games industry. Actual cutscenes of total length of over 25 minutes, incredible voice acting by a very talented voice cast (including Skyler from Breaking Bad), terrific writing, superb atmosphere and mature storytelling.
I don't play many cRPGs as part of this challenge because I simply can't deal with the poorly aged control schemes and gameplay systems, so I'm taking those out of this comparison. But for any non-cRPG I played from January 1 1990 up until November 1 1996 (this game's release date), this game is so far beyond all others in terms of writing and storytelling.
I know I only focus on that aspect of this game so far, but the game is fun to play as well. Thanks to its story it flows really well, but it also makes for a really enjoyable time as you take on the role of the titular vampire Kain and progress into an overpowered god by the end.
For any and all retro gaming fans, this is well worth a look. Here is why.
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| Title Screen |
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 10/10
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is set in the world of Nosgoth, a setting that would be used for the entirety of the Legacy of Kain series. I don't want to spoil too much here. All you need to know is that there are pillars protecting the health of Nosgoth, each pillar having its own guardian. The guardian's minds are poisoned by the lover of Ariel, the guardian of balance, in response to her mysterious killing. The pillars start fracturing to represent this, putting the health of Nosgoth at risk.
You play Kain, a piece of shit nobleman who is killed by villagers and brought back to life by a necromancer called Mortanius to get his revenge. He does so pretty much instantly, but when Mortanius calls these villagers the instrument, not the cause of his murder, Kain is motivated to push on. He finds the ghost of Ariel protecting the pillars. She tells him that he needs to find and kill all the guardians and bring their "tokens" (which represent their tie to the pillars) to the pillars back as gifts, at which point the pillars will heal again and new, uncorrupted guardians will be chosen.
From this point on, you hunt down all the guardians but uncover the actual backstory that the nobleman version of Kain never gave a fuck about. This attitude of Kain's is a key part of why the story and dialogue works so well. As you travel from village to village on your way to slay your next foe, Kain gives background information on these locations through an internal monologue, and every word and sentence is loaded with hate and disgust for the history and populace. It is not just a joy to listen to his diatribes because the dialogue is impeccably written, but because the delivery by Kain's voice actor, Simon Templeman, is just as strong.
The same goes for every other main character in the game. This is not another case of voice actor directionlessly and/or half-heartedly reading out the script in front of him, the actors are clearly invested in their characters and give them actual personality. For 1996, I am still shocked at how good it is.
While the game starts you off with an introductory cutscene where a fellow vampire starts killing a bunch of sorcerer-looking characters within a castle's halls, Kain's own journey starts off slow (apart from his murder, of course) and you are not at first privy to the happenings around him. This alongside the exposition given by Kain whenever you enter a new location make for a setting that feels real and that feels like it actually has a history, and it is really enjoyable to uncover more information as you progress. I can't say I felt like this about a game world as part of this challenge I'm doing outside of the RPGs.
As you progress, you have three plot elements to focus on. 1) Kain's internal struggle about becoming a vampire and all the pros and cons that come with it. 2) Uncovering the history and mystery about Nosgoth. 3) Following the main quest of fixing the pillars and realizing the actual role that Kain plays.
There is more than enough here to keep you engaged for its entire 10 hour main story run time. It never overstays its welcome. The quality of the writing always stays high. And there are two endings that round up the experience really well. Personally I can't wait to see where the other games in the series take things.
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| This sets the tone right from the start |
GAMEPLAY | 15/20
You start your vampiric journey in your own mausoleum. Here, you learn most about what the game has to offer.
First, you are equipped with a sword and basic armor. You get new equipment over time, such as a mace which can destroy bigger structures and give you access to previously inaccessible areas, or an axe that can chop down trees and achieve the same. You can even find the "Soul Reaver" weapon, which is incidentally the title of some other games in the series, so you know it's important. These weapons even have a special attack pattern if you keep mashing the attack button, none more impressive than the axe, which lets you swing in circles for a good 5 seconds, doing massive damage in the process. This makes an otherwise unimpressive melee combat system a bit more fun to engage with. The armor usually has different abilities, like the bone armor which de-aggros undead enemies, or the blood armor, which automatically drains the enemy's blood when slain.
Blood draining is an important mechanic here. Because instead of health drops whenever you kill enemies, you can either drain the blood of innocent humans who walk around in villages or are chained-up in dungeons, or you can stagger hostile humans and some other types of enemies and drain theirs. While at first I tried to avoid this out of fear that an ending might be tied to how often you drain innocents, I quickly realized that this was not optional. Not only do dungeons later get much harder, but Kain's health also slowly goes down as time passes, indicating his lust for blood. In this way, the game cleverly conveys to the player how Kain's humanity is slowly slipping away as he is overcome more and more by his vampiric urge to drink blood. Very impressive how it is done in my opinion.
The biggest gameplay element in the game comes from power ups and spells you pick in mandatory and optional dungeons. Some of these can make your time playing this significantly easier.
First there are the power ups. There are consumables like the "Heart of Darkness" - which I've heard so many times that I can only say it in my head the way that Kain says it - which heals you and even resurrects you with a tiny bit of health if you ever die, meaning I never actually saw a Game Over screen. There is also a consumable which cleans out the poison in your blood if you were attacked by specific enemies or accidentally sucked up poisoned blood, which is another clever mechanic.
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| Kain having a sip |
Then there are the ridiculously overpowered offensive power ups. These will one shot a single or groups of enemies in various, gruesome, gory ways. Limbs being separated or entire bodies exploding and leaving you showering in their blood for example.
You find these power ups in lower numbers by just going through village houses and dungeon halls, but there are a total of 100 secret areas to find (either by entering a hidden passage or backtracking and accessing a previously locked area) which can in many cases have insane amounts of power ups in them. I'm talking dozens of Hearts of Darknesses in one secret area
Then there are even more powerful spells. You have your defensive spells again, like the overpowered Repel spell which shields you from also any type of damage. Then there are offensive spells, like a magic bolt or, again, a one-shot spell that sucks up the blood of all enemies visible on your screen, bringing down even the toughest enemies just like that and massively healing you in the process. It's just fun.
There are mind-controlling spells as well, which you shoot at enemies to take control of them and turn otherwise inaccessible levers that block your way, adding a puzzle element to the use of your abilities.
Finally, you can shape-shift into a werewolf to traverse areas quicker or jump to higher platforms, you can turn into a bat for fast travel, you can turn into a peasant to talk to some humans and you can turn into mist to walk past surfaces that would severely damage you otherwise. They play a smaller, yet still noticeable role, though gamers spoiled by modern games will wish for the transformations to occur faster than they are.
This, outside of the boring melee combat, would be my only other gripe with the gameplay, and it is exclusive to the PSX emulation: The loading times are unbearable. If you want to switch your abilities or access your inventory, you need to sit through 3-5 seconds of loading EVERY time. Then there is the frame slow-down you have to deal with as well and it just is not playable. BUT THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO THE GOG VERSION. THAT ONE IS GREAT! THIS MAKE IS GREAT!
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| The inventory screen showing your available weapons and armor |
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
I don't think there is anything left for me to say about the voice acting. It is incredible. The sound quality is of course not great due to the game's age, but that hasn't stopped the actors here from getting their superb delivery across.
The soundtrack is also fantastic. It's not very long, and a lot of tracks repeat, but these set the mood for the mature adventure to come. Some tracks are stand-outs I'd suggest you to check out. These are
- Road to Vengeance, listen to when the flute kicks in
- Avernus
- Elzevir, probably my favorite
What you will also remember most sound wise is the "ooooooh" and "please help me, kind sir!" that chained up humans in dungeons say. That's literally their only two lines and they keep saying them. On the one hand, it's repetitive. On the other, it is calming to know you got access to healing again whenever you're in a pity.
Another great sound is the satisfying click whenever you interact with a lever or switch. Or the sound whenever you pick up a power-up. Or whenever you swing the Soul Reaver. Outside of these things, the sound design is rather average though.
The only other minor critique is that instead of properly looping, whenever a song ends, there is an awkward quiet for a few seconds.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
The game has an isometric perspective. The visuals suit the dark gothic style of course, but what impressed me the most was the detail in some of the textures and the structures.
This is supplemented with (in some areas) foggy environments, broken-down architecture and devastation that becomes apparent by the large group of corpses thrown on top of each other in one of the many villages that were destroyed.
The striking animations are pretty smooth and the weapon movesets add a little bit of detail as well.
The game does a good job of playing with color brightness, focusing on muted colors for the most part and then using bright, vivid colors to help areas stand out.
Overall, it's a good looking game for its time, though some areas are designed very similarly to each other, so that you can't really differentiate between many of the villages without having played it many times over.
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| The detail on that tapestry is impressive |
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
The game's dark gothic atmosphere is felt throughout. The music sets the tone, the visuals add to it greatly and the voice acting tops it all off.
Many of the villages you visit have been destroyed, there is blood, dead chained-up humans and limbs scattered about everywhere to convey the decay and devastation, in line with the condition of the pillars, the state of mind of their guardians and the internal turmoil within Kain.
The game's main buildings are architecturally impressive yet daunting externally, and many of their halls and rooms are surprisingly in-depth. A stained-glass depictions of a battle between a vampire and the protector of the Circle of Nine in one room for example. And that's the only thing in there. The devs were simply like "look how cool this shit looks", and they are right.
The soundtrack supplements the oppressive feel really well. There is one track called "Oracle's Cave", which kind of has this weird suspenseful yet lulling to sleep kinda quality to it, but then hits you with a loud chime and has you instantly focused on the task at hand again.
Finally, the gory depictions of the enemies that Kain slays is a great presentation to showcase how powerful vampires are and why they are so feared in this fictional world. Overall, the game does a great job with its atmosphere and it comes from all elements working well together and individually.
CONTENT | 9/10
The main story takes roughly 10 hours, which is a great length for it. Then there is all the side content, which does not involve any questing or side missions unfortunately, but you do get to hunt down a bunch of optional caves, dungeons and areas akin to something like The Legend of Zelda, where you can find new powers and stock up on existing power ups. Even without backtracking, there is a great amount of content here to enjoy, particularly at today's price point.
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| One of the many villages you will visit, and a power-up for the taking |
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
The world map is impressively designed and the game does a great job guiding you without the use of any quest markers or something similar.
In the overworld, you look for secret areas or the main path, which will lead you to caves and dungeons. Additionally, your path will cross a bunch of villages. These villages are all very similar in their layout. There are a few houses and some of them have open doors. You can enter these to find barrels or chests with power ups in them, or humans that you can feast on to replenish your health. It does get a bit repetitive by the end, but it works for the game's purposes.
The main, and even many optional, dungeons and caves can become quite complex, but never in a way that you are overwhelmed by it. Your main way to progress is by finding switches and levers to flips in order to open doors. Spikes coming off the floor or the walls, melee or magic wielding enemies and the doors are the main obstacles you will find. Sometimes the floor will require you to turn into your mist form and sometimes the game requires you to figure out which ability would be useful to progress, meaning there is puzzle solving as well.
Finally, there are repeating caves in the game. One is simply a fountain of blood that will increase your strength (ability to move bigger boulders) or improve your magic recovery speed. The other is a temple to offer your health for 10 of a specific power up.
What I also appreciate about the game is that it has save points right before each boss fight. Definitely not typical for its time, but makes the game age much better.
Overall, the design here is very good, the only fault being some of its repetitive structure.
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| Save haven |
The game design is not all too different from a Zelda game, but adding a mature theme makes it stand out. Additionally, the voice acting set a new bar for the gaming industry at the time, and it might have the best writing in any non-RPG until its release too.
Entering dungeons to find a mural on the ground depicting an upcoming ability to find within is also a very nice way to get the player excited for what's to come.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
I found 18/100 secrets myself, and have mainly focused on certain power ups over others. In subsequent playthroughs, you can change your playstyle a little bit and go on the hunt for more secrets. Additionally, there are two endings, though they are limited to an end-game choice.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
This score would depend on whether you play the original PSX version or the recently released GOG version. The GOG version is pretty much exactly the same, but has higher resolution of course and, most importantly of all, removes the loading times. The difference here really makes me go from "don't play Blood Omen" to "play Blood Omen!!", that's how bad it would be if the GOG release hadn't happened.
So I'll dock a point here to account for this, but the GOG version worked perfectly fine.
OVERALL | 86/100 ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was a lot of fun and I'd consider it in the Top 5 of all games I've played as part of this challenge so far, which is now 129 games. The quality of the voice acting and writing puts the game on its own level up to this point, and it sort of feels like the turning point for me as far as what to expect from the games coming in 1997 and beyond. Obviously I know what will come, but this game feels like the big step in cinematography and storytelling that I'd been expecting. For retro game fans, I 100% recommend this at the low 7€ price point on GOG.
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