Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

"Blood Omen, Good Omen"

One would think this game's sequel would surpass it, but I'm not reviewing Blood Omen 2, So, uh, on with the review we go.

Story:

An excellent story in my opinion, seeing as this was the first of the Legacy of Kain games, there's no confusing ''this is something to do with an event which occurred in the last game'' type of thing. The voice acting, as always, is superb. Simon Templeman really delivers the evil and coldness of Kain which makes the story that much enjoyable and realistic.

The story is basically about the nobleman Kain who has been murdered and then resurrected as a vampire. This story is about his rise to power and is full of plot twists and originality.

Gameplay:

I love the controls in this game, but seeing as it's in 2D, there's nothing confusing, it's just basically up, down, left, right and a diagonal direction you have to worry about. Boring as it may sound, you will have fun playing this game, as it is relatively fast paced and most importantly, fun.

The game is actually quite easy if you've played a type of game like this before, it'll take you a while the first time round to complete the puzzles, but once you do, you'll feel satisfied.

Graphics:

Arrr, I guess they could have been better. But then you have to take into consideration that this game was intended to handle many enemies on screen at once and has over 10,000 separate screens. And, this was quite back in the day, so you can't blame it for its low quality graphics.

In my opinion, having better graphics wouldn't have enhanced this game, I mean look at BO2, it was in full 3D for the PS2, yet a fair amount of people still consider this a better game.

Sound:

Lovely. I loved the sound in this game. And by sound I mean dialogue. The music was crap. Sorry, Crystal Dynamics, the only Legacy of Kain game with decent music was Soul Reaver 2. But like every other Legacy of Kain game, this had excellent voice acting. Every character's words are spoken with feeling and really add to that depth and realism of the characters which I think is an important aspect.

The music in this game, as 2 of the other Legacy of Kain games, sucked. It's always put down too low and it made to sound too eerie and dull. I understand this was to add realism to the surroundings, but if you're going to do that, at least put good eerie music in.

Replayability:

Definitely, if not to experience the excellent cut scenes and challenge, then for the excellent gameplay. The only reason I can see for a person not replaying this game again is if they have a serious phobia or disliking of excellence.

Buy or Rent:

What are you nuts? Who would only want to rent this? Hell, it'd probably be cheaper to buy it...

This has been out for ages so there's no excuse not to buy it if you're a fan of the series.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/14/02, Updated 07/14/02