The much-loved Legacy of Kain is truly out there on its own. This unique video game franchise consists prevalently of forward-thinking games, not only in narrative design but also in world-building across subsequent installments. Particularly on the Playstation, these games, much like the characters that physically occupy each and every one of their private and ever-shifting Nosgoth universes, are part of dark fantasy. They feature a world setting in the shadowy layer somewhere between Tolkien’s world and Marilyn Manson’s music videos. A world New Line Cinema might’ve done a decent job helping the Ringwraiths look the part in Peter Jackson’s big-screen adaptation, and even then, it’s still a tiny fraction of the actual Legacy of Kain oeuvre.
The Start of a Grim Story: Blood Omen
The Legacy of Kain series made its debut with Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, which emerged in 1996 on the PlayStation and then on the PC. This action-adventure affair dropped us into the world of Nosgoth and established the character of Kain. And who or what is Kain? He’s a nobleman (or was) who became a vampire (for reasons better left unserved at the moment) that is hell-bent on a quest for revenge, which is just illegal behavior in action-adventure land.
My initial experience with Blood Omen was utterly captivating. The dark and stormy atmosphere of the game’s opening cutscene and the voice acting of Simon Templeman (who played Kain) made for an intense beginning that set the stage for not only the first game but also the entire Legacy of Kain series. The tragedy of Kain’s situation, that of a man damned to live an existence as a bloodsucker (or blood omen) was both spine-tingling and tragic because the game took Kain and the player on a nearly open-world quest to not only gain various powers that enabled the vampire to express his vampiric nature in both exploration and combat but also to seemingly reclaim the compromised humanity of the pre-vampiric man.
Blood Omen stood out for its serious themes and narrative. It unflinchingly showed the brutal and ethically murky journey of Kain. I think, of all the games I’ve played, Blood Omen was one of the few that had the guts to dive headfirst into a cruel and unusual world and let you, the player, sort out right from wrong. The voice acting in the original game was competent, and the dialogue was really well done, giving the characters a lot more verisimilitude than most other games were attempting back in 1996.
The mixing of hack-and-slash and magic formed the basis of the game’s combat. With an array of vampiric abilities at his disposal, Kain could cut down his enemies or use his powers to defeat them. If Kain were to be damaged in combat, he could suck the blood of his enemies to restore his health, a mechanic that was both fitting and fun for the character. Challenging puzzles could also be found throughout the game’s world. Still, the means to solve them were often well-hidden. Better still, I felt as if The Legacy of Kain: Defiance allowed me, the player, to express some measure of strategic freedom.
The Blood Omen game started it all, giving birth to the Legacy of Kain series. In it, we were introduced for the first time to the intricate, deep universe of Nosgoth and the enthralling, perverse persona that is Kain. The game was dark, like its protagonist, and a fine mixture of ambition and gloom set up the stage for the fantastic drama in the next acts of the play.
Soul Reaver presents a bold, new lead character and a very different point of view.
The new millennium was ushered in with the release of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver in 1999. The protagonist was no longer Kain but one of his offspring, a reformed vampire named Raziel. The action took place in the underworld, an appropriate setting for a video game, but one that hadn’t been used to its full potential until this team took a crack at it. Crystal Dynamics made the Netherworld real and dangerous, an earthbound and aquatic place that looked and felt like it was a world of its own, filled with threats that didn’t come off as cheap video game enemies.
From the first instance I laid eyes on the box art for Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, I was transfixed. The tragedy of the character of Raziel, a vampire lieutenant who had been hurled into the Abyss by Kain, his superior, after being accused of treason, was evident even before I pressed the start button on my game console. Here was a character that plenty of players, myself included, once upon a time could feel for on a basic, “human” level. We were promised plenty of series staples, like epic set-pieces and gothic environments. And, true to Crystal Dynamics’ word, the appearance of the game did not belie any of the content.
The game environments, rendered in 3D, are some of the most richly atmospheric and painstakingly detailed ever to be seen in a video game. The stunning architecture of Nosgoth’s huge structures combines with creepy landscapes to make the land that Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is set in one of the greatest video game environments ever crafted. In the game, the lead character, Raziel, can shift between the real world and the spectral world he was forced to exist in. This change of state can also morph the environment. Both the constructs of this world and the parallel spectral world are playable spaces, and Raziel can shift between the two at will.
Soul Reaver’s battle mechanics felt hilariously responsive, which made the game a joy to play, even when it was a slog. Raziel, who in a previous game was a vampire, now served as a reaper of sorts, which tied together with the narrative. In place of the laughable health pick-ups found in most games, this one had the absorbingly simple twist that Raziel sucked the souls of his defeated foes to replenish his health. The souls acted like a magnet to Raziel… And Soul Reaver was a very, very memorable game.
Soul Reaver was distinguished by its narration. The tale was by no means simple and was made even more complicated by not one but two unreliable narrators. Moreover, it used the nonlinear storytelling only video games can achieve to tell the events of its story in a highly effective way; a storytelling style first pioneered and first perfected by Soul Reaver.
But why should we have the events of what was essentially a revenge tale told and retold to us between antihero and villain? And why should we have them unfolded in such a way that the two narrators emerged where there should reasonably have been only one? Was story itself good, even?
The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver game saw great success both critically and commercially. It confirmed the already well-reputed series known for its deep storytelling and innovative gameplay. The boundary-pushing game from the 32-bit era left an indelible impact on the action-adventure genre. Proclaimed “one of the greatest video games ever published” by Tom’s Hardware (a PC hardware/gaming industry site), it has tremendous longevity and maintains a special place in the heart of many gamers.
The Awesome Extension: Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2
Soul Reaver’s triumph brought about not one but two sequels. The first was 2001’s Soul Reaver 2. The second was 2002’s Blood Omen 2. Far from just being more of the same, the team at Crystal Dynamics used the sequels to follow up on the at-the-time-very-shocking plot twist and to go further into the series’ underlying world, to really explore why these characters are in the situations they’re in and the rather clever ways they resolve those situations.
Soul Reaver 2 resumes where the first game’s action left off, with Raziel following Kain into yet another time portal back to the realms of Nosgoth. But this time, what Crystal Dynamics aimed to do in terms of the game’s storytelling clearly required a finer touch to pull off. Soul Reaver 2 doesn’t just use the same ideas from the first game. I can’t think of another sequel that tells a better story, in fact. This is a tale folks are going to remember.
Soul Reaver 2 took the already solid gameplay of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and made it better, with a refined fighting system, more involved puzzles, and a world that invited well, forced players to do lots of simulated spelunking. Also, while we’re on the topic of visuals, can we just take a moment to give the PlayStation 2 version of Soul Reaver 2 its due, with special kudos to the console port team? Because not only is the game much more lovely to look at than its predecessor, it’s also one of the few really good action-adventure games that players could enjoy on the system in its day, with very few imitating its style, or successes, on the road to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
Raziel and Kain’s relationship grows in depth and complexity in Soul Reaver 2. The very thing that Kain fears is what Raziel has become: a being powerful enough to stand up to Kain. However, the true nature of the Reaver is revealed to Raziel, which makes him question his intuitions and decisions. By the end of Soul Reaver 2, Raziel empathizes with Kain a lot more but has also become the Soul Reaver himself. Yet after so much philosophical discussion, during which the characters were fleshed out, the next line of the series was just as eagerly awaited.
In contrast, Blood Omen 2 is all about Kain. If the Soul Reaver series is in danger of forgetting what makes its characters great, Blood Omen 2 risks going to the other extreme, with its story doting upon Kain at nearly every turn and location throughout his renewed journey across Nosgoth. But this isn’t a bad thing; in fact, it’s quite refreshing. Whether Kain is grinning, laughing, roaring, punctuating his sentences with the flash of his wings while he’s in midair swoops in, or using his vampiric gifts and a steady assortment of weapons against his foes in combat, he’s an antihero the player can still love.
Blood Omen 2 is viewed in a variety of ways but still is loved by many fans of the series. The game tells the tale of Kain and lets one live the life of a vampire who uses both human means and supernatural powers to reclaim the seat of a vampire overlord. The combat may not always be elegant and sometimes feels rather mundane. However, the rich environments, sumptuous visuals, and satisfyingly brutal nature of the combat when all was said and done went a long way to truly making the incredible gothic world of Nosgoth under the rule of Kain in Blood Omen 2 feel believable and also delightful to exist within for a time as a fan of the series.
The Last Show: The Heritage of Legacy of Kain: Defiance
The Legacy of Kain series was at its zenith in 2003 when it came to what was the apparent climax with Legacy of Kain: Defiance. This video game brought together the two main narrative strands of the past installments, controlling the pair of either Kain or Raziel. ‘Defiance’ was their chance to not just pull back the curtain and reveal the answers to some long-burning, serious questions and riddles but to also serve up what they intended to be the awesome and fulfilling wrap-up that tied together Kain’s stories and odysseys.
