Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

I played this game a number of times like my dad. We both loved the series for what it built even though some aspects can be jaring, like the Moon doors. I'm glad I could play this game again after so long.

Its definitely updated with the loading times being way faster. Its a great game from back in the day.

From the viewpoint of a player who likes to explore in gaming's history Legacy of Kain is clearly a cornerstone of the late '90s-early 2000's gaming era and this is where it all began. I encountered Soul Reaver earlier and I expected a way harder experience from Blood Omen because of that, but I'm fine with what I got. A few tricky and more not so tricky boss fights, a basic hack&slash combat system where most of the results depends on how you use your skills and items. I mentioned the game isn't too hard, but that doesn't mean that you can't make yourself looking at the 'Game Over' screen if you're not cautious and plan ahead with your equipment. The story is quite tricky to follow, and it creates the basics for the upcoming installments well, also short enough to not get bored over it, not to mention that peak voice acting that Simon Templeman and the rest of the cast delivered, and I must speak about the fully animated cinematics which aren't long, but it's a miracle what the devs brough out of the systems in 1996 - I was surprised how many emotions can be showed, mostly on Kain's face. It matched perfectly with the VO. I know it looks very clumsy compared to today's standards, but graphics like this have their charm, and it's a good one. The isomteric view and the 2D gameplay passed through for me either. And if I mentioned the cinematics and the voice acting, I have to take a moment for the music too: it's cozy and creepy, sets the game's tone perfectly. The game doesn't hold the players hands, it forces us to think and listen - that was the part I liked the best after the acting. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes retro games or is interested in the Legacy of Kain universe, I really enjoyed my time in Nosgoth.

I had more fun with this than I expected even though there's a lot of issues with 90's game design logic like going into menus constantly to swap spells and weapons. Tons of hit detection issues as well. But the positives are that it was plenty playable and presented a unique and enjoyable story and world. Very keen to play Soul reaver next. Also like most games of this era it didn't take 99999 hours to complete and that's always a big plus.

I started playing this after getting Soul Reaver Remastered 1 & 2, for such an old game it runs well on windows 10. The game has so much context for soul reaver that I am constantly going "oh so thats where this came from" every time someone speaks or a cutscene plays.