Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

This is the first game of the legacy of kain saga, and soulreaver series. absolutly recommend play this game

A wonderful game. Not much more to say. The ONLY thing I see as negative is, that I wish they would include other Audio languages. The German Voice-Acting was a blast and in some regards better then the english original. Thanks GOG Team, after YEARS, you delivered.

This is THE original Legacy of Kain game before its story was mashed together with the originally unrelated 'Soul Reaver' game. It does feel very different from the later LoK games and the confusion of the LoK universe is easily explained by that. LoK:BO was developed by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics, who later went on to develop Soul Reaver, putting together completely different games, but managing - over time - to harmonize the original Kain storyline with that of Raziel. The game is a 2D top view action set on a very complicated (after)life of a nobleman called Kain, killed by bandits and turned into a vampire. In a search for vengeance and power, he sets to change the fate of the fictional world of Nosgoth. The story is as quite convoluted and complex, as the gameplay is long. If you are hardcore fan of the later LoK games, you may find this game a bitter candy - it provides a great first hand experience of events predating the sequels but it takes effort to play and finish this game. Fights can be a chore, and it's not difficult to lose your sense of orientation unless you find a good walkthrough. Fighting is enriched by a variety of weapons and abilities Kain can use to defeat his enemies, and the constant blood thirst requires the player to hurry to find new enemies to kill and feast upon. It took me around a week to finish this game. Please note that some users may experience technical issues starting LoK:BO, and will require extra effort to run it. Therefore, do not hesitate to visit GOG forums to seek unofficial support. Hence I give this game 4/5 - a story that pulls you back in, with unexpected twists in it; great atmosphere; character progression in place as well ... and all that only soured by gameplay that can get long and tedious for some.

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!

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.