Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Developer - Crystal Dynamics
Publisher - BMG
Players - 1
Extras - Memory card

The bit on the box

"An eternity of midnights. You're the vampire Kain, damned to feast upon the blood of man. Steel yourself for an epic quest of vengeance that will drag you to the depths of depravity."

Graphics

The intro to Legacy of Kain pretty much shows what is to be expected from this game. Polished, violent, and bloody confrontations with all manner of demons and creatures. There are many more FMV sequences situated at various points in the game, all of which are the highest quality. The main game graphics resemble a much more advanced version of the graphics engines used in Alundra and Suikoden, with graphics that are much more detailed and better animated, viewed from a semi-bird's eye view forced 3D landscape (the characters are also much bigger). There is gore aplenty in Legacy of Kain as blood is sprayed about liberally while in battle, while the effect of the blood rushing into your mouth from a victim's neck is rather disturbing (and fun!)

Sounds

The sound effects are quite excellent. While wandering around outside you hear the calls and howls of various animals in the forests and mountains, and in battle the clangs of weapons sound great. There is also sampled speech from kain himself (when he shouts his battle cry and when he narrates the story), from townspeople who can sometimes provide clues as to what to do next, and from poor victims who beg for release and mercy right before you neck them. The speech, however does get repeated quite often and I found myself killing people just to shut them up. The soundtrack fairly much fits the game and goes a long way to adding more ambience to wandering in the spookier areas of the land.

Gameplay

In the area of gameplay Legacy of Kain mostly resembles Alundra or the old title Zelda. It uses real-time combat in an arcade manner, but foregoes the platform jumping elements of the other titles. Kain can collect cards that give him extra powers (some which are necessary to continue) and also new weapons and armour during his journey. Puzzles are usually fairly simple and the dungeons are much more linear and less maze-like than have been used before. The usual vampire pros and cons apply here too, with Kain becoming weaker during the day and stronger during the night, and if the right cards are found and collected he can also morph into a bat, wolf,  or nobleman (which comes in handy for interacting with villagers later in the game).

I feel a verdict coming on

I thoroughly enjoyed Legacy of Kain, probably because the subject matter appeals to me greatly. It certainly is not the greatest game around as far as RPGs go, but what is there is definitely entertaining and should appeal to anyone who enjoys vampire stories and supernatural adventures. A warning to parents, alot of the content is not suitable for young children, and unless they are vampires themselves they may not enjoy the constant use of blood which splurts about in abundance during the game. For those who enjoy a good story, then this definitely has that, unfortunately, though it is long and provides many hours of gameplay, it is a bit easy to complete (but that just might be me). I can't wait for a sequel.

Review by D.R.T.Barrett