Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

I'll be perfectly honest. I played this game for the first time in 2009, I think, and even then it felt really old and I didn't like it. At first, it was a chore and I only played it for the story and to see firsthand the "birth" of Kain. After an hour or so you get used to it and it somehow grows on you. Now after a while I wanted to replay the whole series again, after that survey by Crystal Dynamics came up 2 months ago. This time I was prepared and the game felt really different. I didn't have that same feeling of dated graphics and gameplay mechanics. This game is a masterpiece in storytelling and the narrative and dialogues are one of the best I've ever seen (or read) in any medium with the excellent performance by Simon Templeman and Tony Jay (RIP). So mature and with lots of plot twists it can easily fit into a class-A novel. The character progression is excellently done and you can experience what motivated Kain to evolve into Kain we know from later games in the series. As for the gameplay mechanics, even though dated by today's standards, they were nearly groundbreaking in the early PS1 era. So many spells are at your disposal and different armor/weapon combos to face off against different types of enemies. I'm glad I've replayed this game and hope it will get a remaster (no need for a remake or reboot). Be sure to download Verok's patch as it fixes a lot of stuff like long loading screens, better cinematics, HQ sounds and music, added subtitles, to name a few. Off to continue my journey through Nosgoth in Soul Reaver. Cheers!

Les graphismes sont dépassés mais ils gardent encore du charme en particulier certains décors comme les châteaux ou la grosse statue. L'ambiance sombre est réussie avec ce gore dans les combats et ses environnements remplis de corps et sang. Les cinématiques sont bien réalisées et passent encore très bien. Mention aussi à la carte du monde : très jolie et celle en jeu est très utile même si elle manque d'originalité : c'est simplement le plan du niveau avec les graphismes normaux... Une carte dessinée aurait été plus immersive. La bande son est excellente et contribue grandement à nous rappeler Diablo. Les voix françaises vont du correctes au nanardesques. Cela pourrait être un défaut mais là encore, ça rajoute une certaine personnalité et je défend toujours les VF. Vous pouvez la trouver très facilement sur internet. L'histoire est aujourd'hui peu originale mais à son époque, c'était vraiment quelque chose de nouveau. Kain est un anti-héros charismatique et on suit avec plaisir son aventure dans Nosgoth. Les transformations sont sympas et les objets à trouver aussi même si certains ne servent que très peu voir pas du tout. Même si on peut changer quelques touches, on ne peut pas se déplacer en AZERTY mais étant donné son âge, je lui pardonne. La vue du dessus est un rappel de Zelda avec ses donjons qui peuvent devenir compliqués si on n'est pas méthodique. On a des pièges comme les piques ou l'eau qui nous blesse. Cette caméra est trompeuse car les hitbox ne sont pas ce qu'elles semblent être et il arrive souvent qu'on tape dans le vide alors que notre arme touche visuellement. Même chose avec les piques et ça peut devenir problématique quand votre vie fond car vous rebondissez sur les pièges. En terme de durée de vie, comptez dix heures en moyenne. Ce n'est pas vraiment difficile, le jeu est très généreux et son sort de bouclier vous rendra la vie (trop ?) facile. Blood Omen accuse le poids des années mais il reste encore agréable à jouer.

Finally getting around to playing the LoK games. Surprisingly good writing in all regards: world building is tantalizing and mysterious, characters are interesting and theatrically dramatic, and each item comes with delicious flavour text delivered by Kain . Line delivery by the main voice actors, especially for this era of games, is excellent. The magic is wonderfully varied and brutal with their effects. Atmosphere is usually great with the lighting and weather being a big plus. Traversal was mostly enjoyable with traditional vampire abilities coming into play. Unfortunately it's not all blood fountains and misery. The audio quality for the voice acting often sounds like it was recorded on an answering machine from a camcorder. Audio cues will replay every time you go to certain places or do certain things and in a game that encourages backtracking I found that it was an odd choice. Combat can be very rudimentary early on or if you're out of magic or just hoarding them for later, the hitboxes are often ludicrous, and enemies can get stuck on you/each other. UI can be a pain to navigate, especially in certain areas that require frequent changing.

This is the game that started it all for the Legacy of Kain series and was the second one I played, after Soul Reaver. You play as Kain on what initially seems to be a tale of revenge that quickly twists and turns in knots that unfold over multiple games. Parts of the gameplay and combat feel very dated today, however, the voice acting, character development, story, musical score, and the world all mesh together to create an exquisite experience. If you're a fan of the series or just a fan of good ol' games this is a great game to add to your collection.

I only finished this game once in my life and that was on the old Playstation 1 in 1997. While the graphics in this version look the part, the game itself plays much smoother than I remember. It used to slow down so much when multiple enemies were on the screen on the Playstation 1 version. I also own this on the Playstation 3 and it does the same thing there as well. But thankfully, this PC version is fully optimized to run clean as a whistle on modern computers while keeping its original rough-around-the-edges look. Imagine one of your favorite classic VHS movies given the blu ray disc treatment, and you'll get an idea of how this classic game used to run versus how it runs now. The pixely graphics and cheesy voice acting are all here in all of their classic mid-90s glory, and should give some of you a glimpse at how your mom and dad used to play games just a few generations ago! Sit back and enjoy one of the greatest gems ever released on the Playstation 1, now in fully optimized modern PC splendor.