Now Playing: Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain

 And thus begins the Legacy of Kain-athon.

 So, what does the Legacy of Kainathon entails? There's five games in the series, with two 'branches' that merge into the fifth, final game. There's the Blood Omen branch, which includes Blood Omen and Blood Omen 2 and the Soul Reaver branch that includes Soul Reaver and Soul Rever 2, and then there's Defiance, the last game that ties both narratives together. Kinda, since it picks off from Soul Reaver 2. Regardless, there's two ways in which you can play these games, if you care about chronoligical order that is: Blood Omen, Blood Omen 2, Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and finally Defiance or Blood Omen, Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2 and Defiance. Why is that? Blood Omen 2, technically, takes place on an alternate timeline created during Soul Reaver 2. But the way I see it, Blood Omen 2, whether it's what actually happened or what happens after fumbling with the timeline, it follows Blood Omen, so it makes sense to play it after Blood Omen. And yes, I did review Blood Omen 2, but I will give it another look and see how I feel about it two years later.

 Thus begins my journey with Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain. It's... it's surprisingly fun. I mean... it's an isometrical adventure game, with a very dated, muddy look and the combat is simple to a fault... and yet something about it sunk its claws on me. At the outset, the game looks massive. There's 9 pillars that require fixing, which involves killing its keeper, and I gave the map a look... and it's kinda huge. I like how it seems that the game will give you a ton of abilities, I read the instruction booklet, so I know that I will get an axe at some point, and with it I will be able to chop down trees! Not only that, I got the wolf form and now I can jump over small ledges! I can't wait to see what the game throws at me. That said, I'm cautiously worried about bosses, just how much fun can they be with these simple mechanics? Combat involves mashing on Square and hoping for the best, no dodges, no defense no nothing... although I found out that it's pretty easy to move around enemy attacks before slashing them a couple of times and then rinse and repeat. Still, there's no depth to the combat, so... let's see what the game pulls off.

 All in all, it feels like a great way to start the franchise, and this style of gameplay won't be revisited by any of the subsequent games! That said, I noticed that there seem to be a rather obvious focus on puzzles, which is what the other games focused on as well... except Defiance... But I'm getting ahead of myself, and my memory of Defiance and the Soul Reaver games might fail me. There I am, digressing again! All that matters is that Blood Omen led me off to a great start!