400 years have passed since the vampire Kain damned the world in the original Blood Omen, choosing to rule the world in damnation rather than die for its salvation. Now Kain, who once controlled the land of Nosgoth with his vampire armies, finds his brethren slain and his dark powers stripped by a m...
400 years have passed since the vampire Kain damned the world in the original Blood Omen, choosing to rule the world in damnation rather than die for its salvation. Now Kain, who once controlled the land of Nosgoth with his vampire armies, finds his brethren slain and his dark powers stripped by a mysterious figure. To reclaim his rule and exact his vengeance, Kain must dispatch armies of zealot soldiers and overcome legions of demons in order to uncover the ominous plot that threatens the land he seeks to conquer.
Blood Omen 2, the second instalment in the Legacy of Kain Series, is a 3rd person 3D action/combat game in which you assume the role of the vampire Kain. A compelling story takes you through huge, lushly detailed 3D environments and challenges your skills in combat, puzzle solving, stealth and exploration. With each success, you’ll gain new dark gifts that will grant Kain the ability to access treacherous new areas to explore and the power to face stronger, more aggressive enemies. As you develop a stronger, more skilled vampire, you’ll be rewarded with dozens of dazzling in-game cinematic sequences that unfold the continuing epic of Nosgoth, and Kain’s attempts to ultimately rule over it.
Move through crowds unseen cloaked in stealth, travel stories above the peasant herds on which you feed leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and use mind-control on hapless fools to help you overcome vampire-proof inventions.
Unleash your wrath in a lushly detailed, blood-chilling gothic environment that is not only gorgeous to the eye, but also alive with the soon to be dead.
Beautifully choreographed combat with surgical precision as you engage armies of demons and humans alike.
First, get the Peixoto's and Widescreen patches and you're golden. No bugs/crashes whatsoever.
Blood Omen 2 is a hit-or-miss title, but regardless of its stature with fans I myself enjoyed it.
It was developed by a B team at Crystal Dynamics and it was their first game ever. Let that sink in...
With that in mind, I think they did a great job.
They sought to create a game that was more action focused and they deducted exploration and puzzles from the previous entries.
Gameplay and combat are enjoyable and I really liked the stealth mechanics together with Kain's powers at your disposal.
It gets repetitive after a while, but I can't say I was bored.
Graphics are aged sure, but they are still pretty fine, well except for some awkward animations and face models for civilians.
The general atmosphere of the game is awesome and it really fits the game, as well as the soundtrack.
Now for the story...
I can see why fans don't like this game so much. It's because it feels like a spinoff of the series.
And as it stands it kinda is.
But! The story of the game was meant to introduce some very important plot points and to foreshadow the events that would happen in a sixth game that sadly never was released.
There were some things that were left unexplained like how and why Vorador get resurrected and what were Seer's agenda and part in the series...
I am sure that if the sixth game was released this game would be seen as a completely different picture.
The dialogues and the story itself are not bad per sē, rather they are subpar in comparison to other titles, which is understandable in my opinion, especially because the A team was developing Soul Reaver 2 at the moment.
Except for Kain of course. Kain as a character was done excellently and the voice acting of Simon Templeman is as good as always.
In summary, I liked the game pretty much and I'm probably biased here because this is one of my favorite game series.
Off to end my playthrough of the series in Defiance.
Cheers!
That's pretty much what Blood Omen 2 is. Stitched together from previous abandoned games, and created in tandem with Soul Reaver 2 without any interaction between teams, Blood Omen 2 suffers from the rest of the series having such high standards. Blood Omen 2 does a good job of feeling like Kain in a new setting and control style, but fails in characterisation and storytelling. As it stands, it's the weakest in the series but I personally still find it fun enough to play multiple times. If you're looking for something enjoyable and either don't care about the over arching Legacy of Kain series or can remove it enough from the rest of the story, it's well worth your time picking this up.
Let me start this review by saying I have a lot of nostalgia tied to BO2, so that may be a factor. Apart from that, even when I was unfamiliar with this game I still grew to enjoy it. It doesn't exactly feel like the rest of the entries in the series, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy.
The controls are going to be hit or miss for many, but I found them fairly easy to learn. I've heard there are issues with rebinding, but there are programs that may help with that ( if you don't mind using them ).
The graphics are what you may expect from an older game, but not terrible for its age.
Boss fights feel pretty nice overall. Not too strong and not too weak.
The performance, which many have had trouble with, may indeed require a bit of tinkering. I had the same issue as others with the menu freeze and I found that limiting my frame rate to 60 I believe was what ultimately fixed it. To be safe though I'd recommend running in compatibility mode for an older Windows.
I really wanted to like this game. I saw so many great reviews about this game, not just on GOG but on other sites as well. But alas, I couldn't, let me explain to you why.
Let's start with the story. Comparing to other Legacy of Kain games, the writing is sub par. Those famous monologues from Kain in the original Blood Omen are almost non existant, and that was one of my favorite things in the series. Since this was separately made from Soul Reaver series, there is a lot of inconsistency with the plot, but even ignoring Soul Reaver, it still has contradiction with the original Blood Omen. Existing characters are more simplified and less interesting than previous games. Kain is no longer an ominous vampire that seeks power, now he is reduced to a mere lackey that follows orders. The in game story is full of plotholes and just bad writing.
The graphics are okay. For 2002 they are nothing spectacular, my only complaint is that the human models look absolutely ugly. Environments range from okay to plain boring, nothing really memorable.
Music is completely dull. Again nothing really memorable, just a 15-30 second loop.
Controls are terrible. Even if you switch to a controller using a fan made patch, the main problem is that combat is absolutely attrocius. Extremely limited combat that involves parrying and sidewalking until you build enough rage to use a special attack, normally at the first few levels you can beat enemies easily, but later on your attacks are just limited to using special attack because enemies like to parry your every single attack. Dash is non existent in this game, which is kind of funny because Soul Reaver games had dash. Spells are also non existent. Remember how Blood Omen had variety of spells and consumables? Not in this game
There was some effort put in this game, and it's not completely unplayable, despite some game breaking bugs, and for that I give it an extra star. Trust me on this, just skip it.
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