Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

"A scary gothic game set apart from those Mario or Crash genres."

Legacy of Kain is a gothic, scary game for the Playstation. You are Kain, a vampire resurrected by the Necromancer to revenge your death at the hands of a band of criminals. Overall, Kain is a pretty good game, that is, if you're willing to spend over one hundred plus hours to beat it. Beware, this game is not for those people who get sick easily due to grotesque sights, such as impaled people. Now, lets talk about the game. The graphics are basically, gothic and dark. Most of the game is basically in the dark so you won't be seeing much. Sometines you'll be seeing pitch black while being attacked by other monsters, which is a downside. This is where Kain suffers here. The graphics aren't as sharp as Crash Bandicoot 2 or as clear as Mario World 64. But you could still be able to make out the figures and the area. The sounds of Kain are sometimes a pain in the butt and then, scares you out of your seat. For example, when fighting the Nemesis, he makes weird sounds everytime you hit him, and you have to hit him about a couple of times to beat him. And you're in this dark cave with gothic music filling the air when suddenly you hear a loud shriek ala Scream. The dialogue is good during certain parts of the game and during the full motion videos. Other parts of the game have bad sounds, such as boring death cries. You'll be hearing mostly WOOH sounds after killing most enemies. The controls aren't that responsive here though. Lets say you need to take out a bat with a fireball. So you tap a button and suddenly, the bat morphs into a demon that is immune to fire. A second later, the fireball comes out and heals the demon. And you tap slash five times in rapid succession and only two slashes come out. The replay value is pretty high because you have to keep looking for certain secrets that improve Kain's abilities to proceed through the game. The violence is pretty high here. There's a lot of blood and gore as you process through the game. In the opening intro, you'll see a sword sticking through Kain's body with a lot of blood over the place. Seriously, this game is not for the faint hearted. So my final point is, keep this game out of little kids hands but let the teens enjoy this game unless they don't want to.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99