Ever since the emergence of Final Fantasy VII (and the spate of RPGs that followed in its wake), gamers have thought of the PlayStation as the RPG fanâs system of choice. There has been no shortage of role-playing games over the last few years for the venerable 32-bit system, but it wasnât always this way. In fact, in the early days of the PSX, RPGs were hard to come byâgamers were forced to choose between Suikoden, strat-RPG Vandal Hearts, and the much maligned Beyond the Beyond…choices were slim, to say the least.
Things started looking up, though, with the arrival of Silicon Knights and Crystal Dynamicsâ darkly themed action RPG, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Boasting an epic and nightmarish storyline, frequent full motion video sequences, solid voice acting, and addictive gameplay, Blood Omen became one of the best of the early PlayStation titles. Since Blood Omen 2 looms on the horizon, thereâs probably no better time than now to take a look back at this early effort in the series.
Vey victus!
You are Kain, a lowly noble whoâs tossed out of a local tavern at closing. As you wander outside the bar, you encounter a band of brigandsâmen who seem to want nothing more than to spill your blood. Fighting them is futileâtheyâre there to kill you and nothing will stop them.
You awaken to find yourself in Hell. Mortanius, a powerful magician, offers you the gift of eternal life so you can go forth and seek your revenge against the men who slaughtered you. Greedy and foolish, you willingly acceptânot realizing that your eternal life will be spent as a vampireâa creature of the night forced to feed on the blood of humans. Undaunted by your new form, you set out to avenge your untimely demiseâbut thatâs just the beginning. Mortanius has more in store for you than you could ever imagine.
The land of Nosgoth is relatively peaceful now, but many centuries ago, a great war took place. Malek, a sarafan Knight, launched a vampire holocaustânosferatu were slaughtered by the thousands, impaled on stakes and left to suffer and die in the light of the sun. Malek didnât act alone, thoughâhe had the blessing of the circle of nine, a group of god-like deities who guarded the nine sacred pillars. The pillars maintained balance and order in Nosgoth and the guardian of each was the physical representation of his or her pillarâif he were to die, his pillar would crack and the universal balance would shift.
The vampires didn’t sit idly by as Malek slaughtered them, however. Vorador, the most powerful of the vampire lords, fought back by killing three of the nine guardians and upsetting the balance of the circle. Things grew worse, for the circle soon dispersed entirely and Nosgoth teetered on the brink of chaos. As Kain, you must find the members of the circleâand either bring them back together and restore balance to the land or destroy them once and for all, creating a new world bathed in blood and darkness.
As you can see, the story is richly drawn and highly detailed. Nosgoth is a world in the truest sense of the wordâcomplete with different regions, terrains, its own mythology, etc. and covered with monsters both human and supernatural. The labyrinthine plot features enough twists and turns to keep you guessing well into the game, and the final showdown features a choice for the future of the land which should satisfy those gamers whoâve always wanted to play as a villain. If youâre looking for a dark, gothic, story-driven adventure, then Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is worthy of your consideration.
Gameplay
Complimenting the fantastic story of the game is the gameplay itself. Blood Omen is something of a cross between an adventure game and an action RPG, but letâs not spend a lot of time worrying about thatâthe endless debate over categorizing games can get pretty dull.
Youâll control Kain throughout your journey, and youâll view him and the action from a fairly traditional 3/4 overhead view. Youâll spend the majority of the game traversing the Nosgoth countryside or hacking and slashing your way through one of its many dungeons in order to procure more powerful weapons, armors, and spells.
Battling takes place in real-time, with the square button swinging your weapon. Thereâs no block feature, so just keep flailing away until you vanquish your foes. If you manage to strike enough blows to leave your enemy near death, but not quite dead, the enemy will swoon on the screen. While this happens, you can perform your âblood drainâ by pressing the circle button.
The blood drain is the gameâs coolest feature by farâKain sticks out his arm, makes a loud sucking sound, and a stream of red blood flows from your victim and into Kain. Draining blood restores your health meterâso itâs important if you want to live to see the end of the adventure. Of course, one must be careful when it comes to blood drinkingâhuman blood (red) will restore your healthâbut green blood from monsters poisons you. Drink with caution.
Aside from manual combat skills, Kain also has the ability to use magic. His variety of spells runs the gamut from a lighting spell that illuminates the dark dungeons to more offensive minded offerings like lightning bolts. Youâll also gain the ability to use spells like âinspire hateâ (which causes the enemies around you to attack each other) and âspirit wrackâ and âmind controlâ (which allow you to take control of enemies while leaving Kain protected in a cocoon-like shell). Magic spells detract from your magic meterâwhich gradually refills as you travel around.
The other facet of magic that youâll encounter throughout the game is magic items. Like spells, these items allow you to dispatch enemies without using your sword. Theyâre all suitably icky, such as âputresceâ, which turns your enemy into a green pile of acid, or âimplodeâ, which is self-explanatory.
Aside from offensive maneuvers, youâll also find things like the heart of darkness, which revives you with a small fraction of your health meter should you die in battle. Magic items are found as cards and stored in your inventoryâif you use all that youâve found of a certain magic item, you wonât be able to use it again until you find more cardsâso use your resources wisely.
Unfortunately, you can only have one spell or magic item readied at a time. This means youâll be pausing the action and switching around a lot during battle so that you have the correct spells or items cued up as you need them. Depressing the X button uses all spells and items, and the one thatâs active is shown with a pictorial representation on the right side of the screen where all the status information is displayed.
Since Kain is a vampire, heâs endowed with many of the traditional vampiric powers. These range from the ability to turn to mist, because vampires canât cross water; a bat, to better navigate the large countryside; a wolf, for making jumps to high up areas; and a human, so he can navigate towns without being attacked. Youâll need to acquire and use all of these powers as you progressâand after finding them, backtracking is a good idea because there were probably areas that you couldnât access before that will now be open to you.
During the course of your journey, youâll encounter numerous dungeons, spirit forges, and blood fountains. Dungeons have multiple purposesâthey can be passageways from one area to the next, they can house a more powerful weapon or armor, or they can hold a new spell or vampiric power. Needless to say, acquiring the goodies in dungeons is essential to completing the game. While Kain can be a one-man wrecking crew with his swords/axes/mace, youâll need to use all the tools at your disposal to continue advancing through the game.
Spirit forges are caves where Kain can enter and receive extra magical itemsâfor a price. The price is usually roughly 75% of his health meter. The nice thing is that you can return to the spirit forges as often as you like and get more stuffâprovided you have the blood to pay for it. This is a vital component of Blood Omen, since there are no shops in the game itself.
Finally, blood fountains are another cave area that Kain will discover as he progresses through the game. Drinking from the blood fountain will give Kain a boost in his statsâlike making him stronger (so he can push boulders that are blocking his path) or making it so his magic meter regenerates faster. Seek out the blood fountainsâyouâll need them.
There isn’t an abundance of stats in the gameâat least not numerically. You donât gain any experience for defeating enemies, therefore you donât level up. Since there are no shops, you donât get money. Increasing your blood meter is done by finding blood vials hidden in dungeons and across the land. Increasing your magic bar is done through finding rune triangles. Youâll find other power-ups as wellâblood beakers, magic spheres, etc. Exploration is very important.
About the only downside to the game is the horrible load times. Blood Omen was an early PSX game, and as such, it suffers from major load times every time you leave one area and enter another. These loading screens also rear their ugly head any time you enter the menu system to switch weapons and whatnot. Playing the game on a PS2 with the faster loading on will alleviate most of the problem, but theyâre still there. If you hate load times, proceed with cautionâtheyâre the one negative factor of this game.
Graphics
After reading about the story and the gameplay, itâs probably easy to look at Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain as something of a precursor to Konamiâs Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. That feeling only gets stronger when you look at the gameâs graphics.
Blood Omen is nowhere near as stunning, graphically, as Symphony of the Night, which still stands as one of the most beautiful 2-D games Iâve ever seen. However, it utilizes a 2-D graphical engine, sprite-based characters, including some gruesome monsters, and an abundance of areas to explore.
Blood Omen lacks the polish of Symphony of the Night thoughâits sprites arenât as nicely detailed, the environments are often very dark, and many of the backgrounds arenât quite as breathtakingâbut you canât really hold that against the game. While the graphics certainly pale in comparison to Konamiâs vampire game, theyâre not atrociousâtheyâre merely very dated. For its time, and I originally played this game when it was first released, Blood Omen was a pretty decent looking game.
The game also boasts twenty-five minutes of full motion video. The FMV is decidedly first generation PSX in appearance, but it doesnât hurt the game at all. Mouths donât match up to the dialogue, and everyone looks kind of stiff and blocky, but I never found the full motion video detracting from my enjoyment of the game. If youâre expecting Final Fantasy-style FMV, youâll be disappointedâotherwise, you should find the sequences decent and enjoyableâand suitably gory in some parts.
Control
Not much to report on the control front. Navigating Kain is simple when traversing Nosgoth. The game was made before the advent of the analog stick, so youâre forced into using the D-pad on the PSX controller, but thatâs not a bad thing, really. Battle control is equally goodâKain responds well to your commands with minimal hesitation. Canât ask for much more than that.
My main beef is with the fact that you can only have one spell or magic item queued up at a timeâthis makes going into the menu and switching them around a common thing. That wouldnât be so bad if you didnât have to deal with the load times when you made the adjustments. However, itâs not really a fault of the gameâitâs more a limitation of the PSX controller and its 4-button scheme.
Control does become a bit of an issue on the world map. Pressing the directional pad shifts the cursor to another locationâhowever, there are instances where it continually skips the location you want. Iâm not sure why it does this, but there were several instances where I had to cycle through the map numerous times before finally getting the cursor to highlight the location I wanted. Again, itâs not a major flawâbut it did inspire some annoyance.
Music/Sound
Just like the controls, thereâs not much to report here. Blood Omen features some music, but on the whole, itâs pretty forgettable. In the instances where it is used, it adds to the mood of the gameâbe it creating some atmosphere or being raucous and inspiringâbut it never lives up to the level of something like the Castlevania games. In short, I doubt anyone will be looking for a soundtrack for this game.
Ambient noise is decentâyouâll hear some water, the âoofsâ of Kain taking hits, metal clanging against metal, people begging not to be slaughtered, squeals as your enemies are drained of blood, and my personal favorite, Kainâs cry of âvey victus!â and his dark chuckle as he slaughters his foes. Again, though, itâs not really anything to write home about… well, maybe the âvey victus!â stuff isâthat amuses me to no end.
The area where the game really shines aurally is the voice acting. Kain has a suitably snotty and contempt-filled voice that brings the character to life. Couple that with some darkly funny and well-written dialogue, and I was happy that the entire game was voice acted. But itâs not only Kainâs voice that works, itâs really all of the voicesâthere wasnât any single character who I hated hearing… no small accomplishment, really.
Conclusions
While certainly showing signs of its age graphically, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is still a game worth checking out. As a dark and often graphic (it didnât get that mature rating for nothing, you know) action RPG, it still delivers the goods. The story is engrossing, the gameplay mechanics solid, and the voice acting entertaining. While it probably wonât yield the 80 hours of gameplay the back cover promises, it will offer up 30 or so hours of epic adventure. If you liked Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, then Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is certainly worth a look.
