Review #222: Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain

 Why hadn't I played this game before?!

 Blood Omen had a rather... tumultuous development, barred in shady deals and mystery, which wound up with Kain and the world of Nosgoth, both conceived by Dennis Dyack from Silicon Knights, in Crystal Dinamics hands. Luckily the end result wasn't affected by it, even if it's a bit sad that the creator lost his character and the world he had imagined.

 The game is an isometrical adventure game in which you play as Kain, a nobleman, who finds himself without drink or bed, and is killed under an assault by bandits. Luckily, the game doesn't end there, a mysterious benefactor offers him a chance for revenge, in exchange for his humanity. Now a vampire, revenge is everything that Kain cares about, and about 30 minutes into the game, he achieves it.... but that's not the end of it. Kain gets, much to his chagrin, tied up in restoring the Nine Pillars that hold the world of Nosgoth together. The story and the lore of Blood Omen are both very interesting, it's a very bleak, dark setting, with a very deranged cast of characters. Most interesting of all being Kain, Kain is no hero, but he is not a villain either. He is given the option, if he so wants, to feed on helpless victims, as well as kill any non-important NPC in the game, if the player so wants to. You don't have to, but nothing is stopping you, and due to his vampirism, drinking the blood of these poor peasants might be the only way to heal yourself. But that? That's just a facet of his persona tied to the gameplay, Kain has a personality, and he will offer a lot of monologues, in which he always loves to inject his opinion or feelings about the matter. He is a very colorful narrator to say the least, and listening to him is always very interesting.

 The game has often been called a 'Dark Legend of Zelda' and the comparison is valid, but it's also so much more. Kain is a vampire, which I mentioned like three times already, and this confers to him a wide variety of spells and abilities, all of which must be found around the world of Nosgoth. He can transform into Bats, Wolf or Mist forms, not unlike Castlevania's Alucard, as well as disguise himself in order to be able to enter towns without having guards trying to slay him or be able to speak with NPCs. Bat form is a glorified teleportation method, it allows Kain to automatically fly to certain marked locations on the map. Wolf grants him speed and allows him to jump over small obstacles, while Mist lets him walk over water or other harmful floor obstacles without a hitch. Finally, Kain can strengthen his basic form by equipping different weapons or armor, all of which have nice secondary effects. For example, his basic armor provides protection from fire, but there's one that automatically sucks the blood out of his enemies, so that he can simply hack away, one that deflects some of the damage back to his enemies and another one that divides damage between his life bar and the mana bar. Then there's the weapons, the club can't kill, so you can feed without accidentally killing an enemy, as well as destroying certain boulders, and the axes are fast and deal a lot of damage while also being able to cut down certain trees, or a fire sword, that is just awesome and burns down your enemies.

 Then there's spells, of which there are many. You have a boring bolt of energy, which is quite useful, the Repel spell, which is the best spell in the entire game, it makes Kain invincible for a while as well as deflect any projectile that comes his way. There's also one spell that makes enemies fight each other, one that lets him possess an enemy, and another one that sucks the blood out of every nearby enemy. Options, there's many of them. As you've probably guessed, the game has many puzzles that involve all of Kain's abilities. Some are as easy as stepping over a tile or a switch, but you'll also need to use your spells and forms in order to get around. And just like Zelda, the game takes place on a rather large overworld, and it has a lot, and I do mean a LOT, of optional content. The game actually keeps track of the 'secrets' you find, there's 100 of them, and finding all of them without a guide is quite the task. The rewards do vary though, sometimes you'll get just a couple of items, but a few of them house items that increase your life bar and mana bar, as well as a couple of spells that are pretty easy to miss( And you don't really need, but they are nice to have!).

 And despite how awesome it sounds, it does have a fair amount of flaws, but I chalk them up to its age. The combat, while offering a lot of choice, isn't all that good, it's a very simple 'mash square' affair, no dodges, no blocking, no nothing, but the worst offender being the hitboxes. Sometimes they work on your favor, sometimes they don't, basically, you'll see a lot of slashes, both from you and your enemies, that should've hit but didn't. Take your energy blasts, a lot of times I knew that I hit thin air, but it still registered as a hit(Not that I really cared, since it made my job much easier!). And as soon as you get the Repel spell, the game becomes noticeably easier. As a matter of fact, couple the 'reflective armor' with Repel, and enemies kill themselves while attempting to kill you, without damaging you, and since they deal little damage to themselves, they end up on the 'sway animation', allowing you to feed. The camera is also a bit... unsatisfactory. You can zoom in or out, but the zoomed in camera is atrocious, you can't see anything coming up ahead. And the zoomed out camera doesn't always have Kain on the center, so it can be a bit disorienting until you get used to it. Still, you can zoom out even further(So much that Kain becomes invisible and an arrow has to point at his location), which is useful for scouting out the area.

 But the most annoying part of the game? The loading screens. There's a loading bar for every menu that you enter or exit, any area that you enter or exit. Oh, and you need to enter these menus to change your equipment. They tried to accommodate for this by forcing you to use 'quick menus', basically, you have to go to the 'Start' menu, and put four spells on a 'quick menu' and four items on another one, then if you want to use any of those, you press R1 for spells or R2 for items, and then you select them, so that you can press X to use them. But even in that case, the quick menus have a very quick loading in and out, at least it's much faster than going to the start menu. But weapons? Nope, gonna have to get used to the loading times. It's pretty annoying in certain sections in which you need to use the axes, to cut down trees, but want to use spells or items. Y'see, equipping the Axes doesn't allow you to use spells or items, so if you are low on health or want to use magic, you are gonna have to go in and out of the menus, to equip and unequip the axes, and then back again. There's only a couple of these areas, but you are gonna hate them.

 There's no way around it, the game is ugly. The game employs a rather muddy color palette, and the character and monster sprites are rather ugly, you can actually make out some details on them when zoomed in, but losing sight of your surroundings isn't worth it. And the FMVs? They are animated quite awkwardly, and the characters are rather ugly(Particularly Kain)... however, I kinda looked forward to them, due, not in small part, to the fantastic voice acting. Every character in the game sold me on their performance, as a matter of fact, listening to Kain was quite delightful! And it'd better, guy's really talkative! The music was also really good, it set up the dark, mysterious mood that Nosgoth promises.

 At the end of the day, I put up with all its quirks, because the game is so damn good. As a matter of fact, I'd say that the game was a bit ahead of its time. Having an anti hero as the playable character, a day and night cycle, that strengthens Kain at night, and sometimes it requires a particular night(Say, full moon) to access some areas, and the whole, big overworld with NPCs that could be killed in a whim... It certainly was ambitious, far more than what the developers could harness on the PS1 at the time. It's a dated game, one with personality, with great ideas and a good execution, bar some limitations at the time.
 8.0 out of 10