At the peak of the Legacy of Kain series Eidos/Crystal Dynamics thought that it would be a great idea to try and make two Legacy of Kain game series, The Soul Reaver games that involved playing Raziel and the Blood Omen series that involved playing a young and brutal Kain. So while Soul Reaver 2 was being a made a separate team started and created Blood Omen 2, using an engine that was meant for a remake to the game Chakan: The Forever Man. The ending result was a game that was a rather slap in the face of most Legacy of Kain fans. Legacy of Kain has always been about deep story and plot as it's main draw and you will not find that here. In fact Blood Omen not only has the weakest plot of the series but contains some major plotholes due to the team working on it not paying attention to established series lore. This has created much resentment of this game among most diehard fans of the series. The Soul Reaver team in their next game Defiance did their best to reconcile these plot holes and got most of them.. and now Blood Omen 2 is considered to be an alternate timeline created by the events of the Soul Reaver games time traveling and time changing events. However not all is bad with Blood Omen 2. The game is actually one of the more fun games to PLAY in the series. A great combat system. You are Kain set loose upon the citizens and Sarafan and at your arsenal is a plethora of ways to maim and kill your foes. The game is quite long, linear but long. Only the original Blood Omen is longer. Blood Omen 2 will take you at least a good 20 hours to beat and as you progress the level design gets really good. Unlike Soul Reaver 2, there are actual Boss fights again as well and the game does a great job of introducing new skills slowly through out the entire game. Kain himself voiced by the amazing Simon Templeman is full of his own style of one liners that will make you chuckle and cheer but what is a great surprise is the city of Meridian very lively and the conversations many of the citizens, thugs and Sarafan will have while you creep around in the shadows is hilarious and outstanding. Graphically of course the game is showing it's age but at 1920x1080 resolution the game I still think look great. Go into this game expecting a fun but casual experience and I think you will enjoy this game quite a bit. Don't go into this game expecting jaw dropping story because you won't find it.
Legacy of Kain returns in yet another great storytelling masterpiece. The Soul Reaver storyline arc of Legacy of Kain is concluded with Defiance. Picking up some time after Soul Reaver 2 leaves off. You now take turns controlling both Kain and Raziel as they make their way through their own perspective fated paths as they try and uncover the truth and how to correct their fates. The incredible voice cast returns in full and the magnificent scripting we've all grown to love is here in abundance. However there is a major change to this game, mainly the gameplay. The typical action/adventure controls and camera type system found in Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2 even, has been changed. In an attempt to capture a new audience Crystal Dynamics tried to go with a Devil May Cry inspired Combat system. Fixed camera angles based on each area, instead of following the characters directly. The actual combat altered to be more about stringing combo moves together. While the animations for the characters differ, the results in combat are mostly the same. So as you control both Kain and Raziel at various times, they actually control nearly identically. The only real difference between them is Kain levels are more combat intensive so he is a bit stronger with his Telekinetic and combat abilities. While Raziel is still a bit more puzzle influenced, though don't expect Soul Reaver caliber puzzles here. As the game progresses Kain and Raziel can learn new combo moves to use in battle. The combat can be a fun novelty for a little while but after few hours of the exact same combat and the same environments and recycled enemies over and over it becomes mind numbingly repetitive. Part of the problem is the master pacing of the Story segments is not present. For some reason the developers decided to barely give you hardly any story for the first half of the game. So by the time you get to the really really good stuff. You are numbed by repetitive combat that never seems to end. But once you do get there, Oh my.. the absolute breathtaking story will floor you over and over all the way to the end of the game. So many questions are answered, so many are resolved. a couple of plot elements or plot holes (depending on how you look at it) found in Blood Omen 2 are explained and fixed. The Soul Reaver storyline saga mostly reaches closure here and you will be full of all sorts of emotions by the end. There are a few questions that remain afterwards which I won't go into here, questions that we will likely never have closure on based on the state of the series at this point, but for the most part the series closes with a bang! As a fan you must play through this game. Enjoy it, buy it.
