Time Fades Even Legend
A noble has been forced to the road and murdered by bandits. A necromancer saves him from eternal burning in the lake of fire by gifting him a second life, at a price. In exchange for the revenge he craves, he has been cursed with vampirism. Now he walks a long road to defeat the forces that led him to this fate, and perhaps save himself along the way. Thus, the Legacy of Kain is born. In the sea of action-adventure games, Legacy of Kain is truly something to behold. A Shakespearean tale of vampires, time travel, dimension-shifting, and the concepts of fate and free will. The storytelling is so legendary you could make a top ten best cutscenes in all of video games using just these games and will likely have comments saying you missed something. Yet despite the history of this now thirty-year-old franchise, it remains in an awkward spot. While I’m very thankful for the remasters of the more famous games, fans have championed a new game in the series that embodies the spirit of Kain. Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain remains in perhaps the most awkward position of all. Despite being the first game in the series, it remains almost completely untouched from its 1996 incarnation. It's easy to see why. This franchise is known mostly for its 3D games, and the first game is a top-down 2D Zelda clone developed by a different studio than the one that would retain the rights to the franchise. It also may have been more advantageous for them to remaster other games in the series. Its much more famous sequel Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver , vastly outperformed Blood Omen in the market and is generally seen as a better game by fans of the series. I’d also wager there are people who have never even played Blood Omen. I cannot let this stand. If the whims of fate chose to leave Blood Omen in the dirt, then I will be its champion. I hope by the end of this, I will have convinced one person to play Kain’s death, rebirth, and quest for revenge. Happy 30th anniversary to Legacy of Kain, the world of Nosgoth, and happy Halloween.
Nothing is Free, Not Even Revenge
The story and writing of Blood Omen are without a doubt its strongest asset. Thanks to amazing voice acting (for the most part) and clever word choice, you truly feel as though you're watching a theater play unfold before your very eyes. It starts with a confusing collection of cutscenes that are near incomprehensible until the halfway point of the game (unless you've played Soul Reaver 2 ). Then transitions into a gameplay segment, forcing you into a losing fight against infinitely spawning bandits, ending in the death of the titular character, Kain. Kain is then met by Mortanius the Necromancer in the Underworld and offered a new life, and a chance at revenge. Without considering the cost, he accepts the offer, but is cursed with vampirism. He soon escapes the mausoleum where his corpse was brought and finds the brigands who murdered him. He takes joy in his revenge, and after thinning the herd, he remarks on a job well done and considers his quest over. That is, until he hears a voice that tells him that the men who killed him were merely the instruments of his murder, not the cause. This thought, along with the questions of what to do about his curse, leads him to The Pillars of Nosgoth, a structure that reaches infinitely into the sky and deep into the earth, and will be visited in every game in the series. Upon reaching the pillars, he meets the spirit of a woman named Ariel, who was murdered, as seen in the cutscene compilation at the beginning of the game. She explains that there is no cure for death, only release. Ariel also explains that the Pillars of Nosgoth had been corrupted after her murder, for her former lover, Nupraptor the Mentalist, had poisoned the minds of the other guardians using his sorcery. If Kain seeks peace and revenge, he should go after the guardians and slay them both for himself and the world. Here the plot truly unfolds. Kain's journey will have him scouring the land of Nosgoth, the setting of the franchise, in search of nine pillar tokens which will restore them to their former glory. Every pillar is assigned no more than one guardian and one principle of reality, such as conflict, nature, or death. It is a tale full of rich lore and characters of questionable morality, but also one of lies and misery, and Kain is the tragic hero. But perhaps hero isn’t the correct term for Kain. For he too is one of questionable morality. He takes joy in the suffering of others, kills innocents in pursuit of his goals, and in the canon ending of the game, sells the world and falls to decadence. As you explore the places of Nosgoth, you’ll find red triangles named vista markers that prompt a monologue from Kain. These are used similarly to codex entries, where Kain will lore-dump about either a town, an event, or some facet of the world. With most things, he speaks with vitriol, not even sparing any kind words for his hometown. So no, Kain is not a hero, far from it. I’d almost call him downright evil, although he does have his moments of “kindness”. Many people choose to describe him as an antihero, and I think that’s the best title to call him. While it does conjure images of hack writers to copy and paste The Punisher, it fits, and through this lens it helps us understand what the people at Silicon Knights were attempting with the story of Blood Omen.
A Dank Womb of Darkness and Decay
The first dungeon you explore is a great introduction to the primary gameplay loop of Blood Omen. You awake in the tomb of Kain after his rebirth, to the pain of a new existence. He is weakened by sunlight, water’s touch is acid, and he must serve a never-ending hunger for blood. The vampire’s touch helps distinguish Blood Omen among other action adventure games, even the Legend of Zelda series, which this game plays very similarly to. You can suck the blood of stunned enemies to regain health, and you are stronger at night. However, many humans will attack you on sight if you're not disguised, and without certain upgrades, the weather itself can be your downfall. Still, not all is lost, as many upgrades and unlocks help cover the weaknesses of Kain's curse and give him new toys to enhance his strengths. Blood fountains, when found and drunk from, can permanently increase his strength or remove passive damage from harmful weather. As you explore dungeons, you also have access to unlockable weapons and armor, which give a variety of options in physical combat. Spells give you extra spicy options for ranged combat and puzzle-solving. And new forms such as wolf and spirit form give extra mobility and traversal options to find secrets. Even when the unlocks aren't playing into the vampire thing, they can still be memorable for the cool factor of using them. The flame sword burns enemies to a crisp whenever you kill them with it, preventing you from feeding on enemies, but is perfect against the undead you can't feed on. The mind control spell allows for some of the coolest puzzles in the entire game. And the Soul Reaver (hey, wait a minute) is a one-shot on practically every non-boss enemy as long as you have the magic power to use it. However, for every cool upgrade I've found, there's another one that I refuse to use. The dual-wielding axes I found a pain to use. While they provide the utility of cutting down trees, and have a spin attack when spamming the attack button. The big downside of using them is that you can’t use spells or items when they’re equipped. With how broken some of the spells and items are, this is a major downgrade. Unlike the Soul Reaver, which has the same downside, its upsides don’t make it worth it for me. The energy bank is another item that I only use when I absolutely need to. It gives you unlimited magic use for a small window, but afterwards leaves you with no magic left to use. There’s already a healing potion equivalent in the form of the Heart of Darkness, yet the magic restorative item leaves you with nothing. At the very least, you can just stand still for a bit, as magic does regenerate over time. I would have preferred an item with more consistent magic healing personally. And when they're useless or annoying to use they're just downright broken. I almost never use any armor in the game besides the Chaos armor, as the damage reflect passive it gives feels almost too much. I can't tell you all how many times in the late game I've just let enemies hit me once or twice, watch them get stunned, and then restore most of the damage they've dealt to me just by sucking their blood. But nothing compares to the over centralizing unlock of the Repel spell. While active, it will reflect most attacks and projectiles of every enemy in the game. With how much this game focuses on combat, this is an instant win button. Boss fights are almost nonexistent with this spell, and with how early you get it, I’m amazed they allowed that spell into the game in this state. Still, at the very least, you can choose what you find most enjoyable to use. The game isn’t hard, and most things you’ll find have their use, no matter how niche. There’s bound to be a few stinkers with the amount of things you have to collect, and you may forget you even have access to some of them. Don’t worry, Kain himself in later games will too. Blood Omen 2 can laugh now)
Strip Ragged Flesh From Bloodstained Bone
As I said before, combat is a major component of Blood Omen’s gameplay. You have a basic attack button and an item/spell button. You can equip five different items and spells each, with only one being allowed active at a single time. Do damage to an enemy until they die. Human enemies can be stunned, and during this state you can drink their blood to restore health. It’s not the most in-depth combat system, but I personally don’t see much of a problem with it in most scenarios. It gets the job done, and even in the early stages of the game, I find myself really enjoying the simplicity of it. Unfortunately, this is where we start to notice some major flaws with the game. This is more of a personal gripe, but I’m not the biggest fan of only having one slot for either an item or a spell. Having to open up menus multiple times during combat to either heal myself or be able to shoot lightning bolts from range feels like a major pace breaker. I can’t help but think this is because every type of unlockable has its menu tied to a button. I can’t help but wonder if they could have just consolidated these into just one menu and one press of a button, freeing more buttons for more item slots. Another issue I have is that taking damage feels horrible. Okay, let me be more specific: the knock-back when taking damage, combined with the hit stun you’re forced into, feels horrible. I understand when it's because I'm stepping on spikes, but against basic enemies, I find it too much. I’ve had many times when trying not to abuse the repel spell, where I’ve been surrounded by enemies. When this happens, I've found that there’s a high chance of getting ping-ponged to death. Thankfully, after the heart of darkness revival you’re given at least some invincibility frames. This is likely my fault for not making better use of items; as with most games, I tend to keep my consumable items until I need them. When I “need” them, it happens to be during the final boss. But the worst part, at least mechanically for me, has to be the boss fights. I will admit some of them are decent. The first boss, Nupraptor, serves as a decent introduction. He teleports around, spamming giant moving circles that you have to dodge. The first phase will have gaps you can clearly walk through. The second phase has the circles blink in and out of existence, so you have to time your movements to walk through them while also making progress towards Nupraptor. It's solid and gets the job done. The worst boss fight in the game is against Azimuth the Planer. She teleports, spams projectiles, and summons enemies. If you have the repel spell active, she teleports away from you before you're able to damage her. I…