Legacy of Kain: Defiance

"The flipped coin has landed"

You may or may not know this but this saga started off with the original Blood Omen, wherein Kain was given two choices at the end, two roads he could follow.

Both ways were unacceptable to Kain so he wanted to see if he could take the third road. See if the coin would land on its side. This game is the result.
See for yourself if the coin did land on its side or merely flopped on to the ugly mug of the Queen.
Anyway, getting to it.

Graphics: 8

Pretty solid graphics here. We're talking about beautiful, smooth character designs, no framerate problems, and minimal loading times.
You really can see the ol' Ps2 being shined up for this outing.

The solid graphics are based on some very unique and amazing character/location designs.

You got the beautiful ancient strongholds located on the mountainside, the majestic mansion of a "nobleman", crumbling and nature-ridden cemeteries and ancient citadels. Not to forgo the "sight-for-sore-eyes" Pillars of Nosgoth.

The architecture in this game is truly amazing. The designers clearly have spent numerous hours shaping up this world. There is a genuine Gothic feel to it all.

The developers are clearly proud of this and to show it, they have created unlockable sketches, 3D models and paintings of the locations. Very sexy.

The only graphical hitches you will notice in the game are the slight "Damn, his hand went through that solid wall !!". They are somewhat of a rare occurrence and you will not mind them at all.

Sound: 10

Wow... you know this part is since you see it getting a tenner.
Lets get it going with the "ambiance" music.

Very well done atmospheric music. You get you clearly creepy style in the Spectral Realm, complete with crying women and screams of pain.
Birds chirping in the Material Realm, the slightly instrumental music in the background and of course the battle music. Top notch.

And the voice acting. Damn brother, its near heavenly. You've got highly talented actors who truly have the skill to convey the emotions and style of their characters.

The east-euro, tranquil voice of Janos Audron, the devious and manipulating, sly voice of Moebius, the full of power and rage harmonics of the The Elder God. I lament the fact that Tony, the man behind The Elder God is with us no more.

The voice acting part is simply awesome. Using the true meaning of the word awesome. Yeah.

Then comes the actual sound effects. The crunching of footsteps, the screams of death, sound of doors and the lightsaber'ish noise of the Reaver... all done very well. They pop up the moment they are supposed etc etc. Very nice.

Gameplay: 7

Ach... the shortcoming of this game. Such a pity.

No matter though, the game is split between two individuals. You got Kain and Raziel and you get to play as them both during the game.
You play each according to the story chapters so you do not in actuality have a choice of who to play as.

That could seem as very bad taste since it could potentially ruin your playing style, but the fact is that both Kain and Raziel are very similar to each other.

Kain is like a tank, he's slow but he can take a lot of damage and he can dish out a lot of damage.
Raziel on the other hand is fast and agile, yet he is, initially, weaker.

They both have the same basic moves, so they are very much alike, though they have enough differences to be unique.

The whole combat style is molded a bit after the DMC series and that is by no means a bad thing. You got combos, uppercuts, blood/soul sucking and even some TK (Telekinetic) powers to boot. On the whole, it is quite satisfactory. One snag is the camera, but I'll get to it later.

The other main part of the game is puzzles. The puzzles are quite ingenious. Most puzzles play on Raziels part since he has he ability to shift between the Material and the Spectral Realm, i.e. change his perspective on the puzzles (you gotta try it for yourself to know).

Anyway, the puzzles are will likely have you stumped for a few minutes but soon after seeing things through a new light, you will solve them very soon.
Thats exactly how puzzles should be, tricky at first, easy later on.

Moving on to the errors of this game though, the game has two major flaw. First is the camera.

The camera is set with slight movement, i.e. its stuck in one place but you can move it slightly up, down, left etc.

70% of the time though, the camera will be pointed from where you came. I.e. it shows you your face and not actually where you're headed.

You can possibly land in a puddle of water or get attacked by enemies you cant see because of the damn ****ed up camera. And most of the damage you'll get WILL be because of off screen enemies. They seriously messed it up here.

The other major flaw is the glitches. I earlier pointed out that there are no graphical glitches but there are tons of gameplay glitches.

Some of these are quite serious and have the chance of ruining your entire game, i.e. you'd have to restart. Very messed up... guess they should have tested the game a wee bit more, eh?

Story: 10

Most games focus on their gameplay as their main focus, to propel the game forward. But this game (well... series) relies on its magnificent story.

Even though it spans across 5 games, its very well worth it. So if you havent really paid attention to the earlier games, you wont get much out of it, even though the game manual provides a recap of the earlier games.

So in this game the coin flipped by Kain finally lands. All the wheels within wheels, the convoluted agendas, all come to an end. More or less.

What can I say without spoiling the story.... its... its grand. Trust me. Its really fantastic.

Overall: 8

The game is very fun, moreso because of the story. Definitely something you could play once or twice but some of its errors can bring it quite low. All in all, an enjoyable game that you really should check out.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/07