GOG finally has Blood Omen! - gog.la/HeartOfDarkness THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo Near three years after this video and the rights legal hell ended. I'll get to the rest of the games one day.
I couldn't get Soul Reaver to work on my PC. As for Blood Omen, I do remember it being on PC at some point, I played it. I also have the game on my PS3; it was on the Playstation store for a time. I'm not sure if it's still there, but I have it downloaded onto my console. I'm surprised you never mentioned the loading times though; even for back then the loading screens were a bit abyssmal. There was even a lengthy one when you wanted to open your inventory to switch items around, and you would have to do so a lot.
As I surveyed the area, I noticed an old fool inhabiting the town square, rambling on about something. There was nothing else in the area so I indulged my curiosity. The man, who called himself Mandalore, was spouting nonsense about an artifact he called the "Blood Omen". He would soon discover my sacred nobility, for I rewarded him handsomely with a subscription.
A parasitic transdimensonal fuck wit wanted kain to do the good ending. Don’t worry, Dead Sun was basically done and has a Stage play explaining that Kain and Raziel are ancient heroes of a sort who delivered the land from a great evil. The vibes it gives off in plot and story are similar to dragon age origins.
While that's true, it's also nice to imagine Blood Omen as it's own thing, since the game was developed under different waters from the sequels - although I still adore them too. Both endings are equally valid to me, after Kain's brief satisfaction over his revenge, his attention turns to the curse he would now have to live with. *Knowing that the only escape was death* , he accepts the massive quest of assassinating the guardians of the pillars in a desperate desire to be free of the vampire curse - or, in other words, to die. Then the story develops and he discovers the sadistic pleasures of being a vampire. So did Kain stay true to his previous suicidal wish for relief? Or does he embraces the wicked existence of a vampire lord? Both are great endings to me.
I love how the video glossed over how Kain got his revenge against those who killed him like 10 minutes after becoming a vampire; and the rest of the game is "well, I might as well find the necromancer who cursed me, kill the evil monsters who stand in my way and incidentally start restoring the land back to balance"
I literally used to open the inventory and cycle through all the items just to hear Simon Templeman say their names over and over. THE HEART OF DARKNESS... THE PENTALICH OF TAROT... THE SOUUUUUWL REAVER...
For me, Templeman is the GOAT ever since LoK. Biggest travesty in Voice Acting is his lack of [big] roles. (Though the same can be argued for any of the big ones in the LoK-series).
The voice acting in the whole series was amazing. I was extremely impressed as a child; it's completely different than anything I had seen before in games.
>Legacy of Kain Oh boy, I can't wait to play as my present self killing my past self with my future self in a room that symbolizes us killing each other.
The quality of Kain saying _"I will not deny you!"_ is just so excellent. Operatic and fun and full of confidence of performance. I wish villain characters and anti-heroes were brought back in this fashion. I like that Kain's existence may suck (haha) now but the game goes out of its way to make it fun and dramatic for you. That levity of experience and sheer drama is forgotten by games today. It's a damn shame.
@@Morec0 might have been a fidelity thing. older games had less space for long voice lines and high quality audio, so to compensate they made thier actors speak with more drama and theatricality, to get the same message and vibe across with fewer words. when you have six seconds to portray your characters fear and horror you make the most of it. but if you're in, say the xbox360 generation, then you've got enough disk-space to have a rolling commentary from the characters that is on a per-line basis much less dramatic/operatic.
Usually when I see reviews of older games mentioning the voice acting is high quality, theres a rose colored glasses filter going on that they seem to hear and appreciate the voices more than the actual quality it brings out, this was nothing like that. those lines were amazing, the tone he spoke them with spot on & sounded very fitting. Good stuff.
It works because it's intentional in the flowery writing and is read by stage actors who can pull it off. Simon Templeman is perfect as Kain but the MVP is of course Tony Jay. He was able to make anything sound good. RIP big man, your booming bass voice can never be replaced.
Want to mention - paired axes with flesh armor is epic combination. Since you cant drink stuff while whirlwind attack, you become surrounded by whirlwind of blood, that slowly being absorbed by armor.
@@notinspectorgadget Don't remember exact name, but there was an armor that offered little protection, but automaticaly drink blood from nearby enemies.
Simon Templeman's voice acting is on point. Sometimes, I just load up a game near completion, then I open up the menu, & listen to him describe all the different stuff he has collected, & learned throughout the game.
My friend! How did you not mention that you can even beat bosses with mind-controlled late-game enemies? I really enjoyed fucking around in this game as the many different enemies i could mindcontrol and play as until they died. One time i spend 3 hours as one of these red knights with two-handed swords and beating up that strange commander in his castle. Was incredible and i miss games doing this.
My favorite secret I didn't mention in the video was the Lost City on the Stonehenge island I briefly showed. The fact that it only opened up during a full moon made it an extra secret place since it was easy to think the initial lobby was the entire secret area.
" _Rumored to have been ripped from the greatest vampire to ever have existed - Janos Audron - The Heart of Darkness restores vampiric Unlife._ - " _Life, is precious._ " _Janos discovered --- as it was torn, throbbing and bleeding from his own body._ " I adore, Legacy of Kain. The voice acting, the writing style, the story. Everything about it. I watch, rewatch and rewatch again the cutscenes to the point that I know just about every line in my head. So I enjoyed this video, it was a very nice one!
Legacy of Kain series as a whole had amazing writing (Amy Hennig knew what she was doing :) even if sometimes it turned convoluted), I like to call this series The Lord of the Rings of video game world hehe. The faux-Shakespearean language adds to it's atmosphere and uniqueness of the world. It's vampire lore and the art of the games especially in later games regarding the Ancients was always top notch in my opinion.
@@tamerofhorses2200 I adore Soul Reaver. It was my jumping-in point into the series and I think Raziel is a fantastic protagonist. While Kain knows what he has to do to move forward, Raziel constantly thinks he knows everything on the basis what he discovers but as they say " _You know NOTHING_ ". It deepens the lore set out by Blood Omen. I urge you strongly to replay Soul Reaver with a clear heart and open mind. Get frustrated by the combat if you want but absorb the story. Don't be afraid to spam the Gylph spells you can pick up if combat proves overwhelming. Then I also suggest you look up here on RU-vid, the original intended ending for Soul Reaver 1 that they scrapped when they realized they ran out of time, which involves Raziel utilizing the Human's weapon of mass destruction, the Silenced Cathedral, which was suppose to happen after Raziel slew Kain with the Purified Reaver / Ariel Reaver and absorbed his Soul, twisting them together forever with Ariel's desperate pleas and Kain's maniacal laughter thus creating the Kain reaver. Pay close attention to the chronoplast visions in the Timestreamer's chambers. Then move onto the other games - Soul Reaver 2, and Defiance. Take Blood Omen 2 last if you want to but it was originally going to be a sequel to Chakan the Forever Man so it's a bit tonal shift. Which is why I suggest it last. Trust me.
When I play Dragon Age, I can't help but think of Loghain as Kain before he becomes a vampire. End of the game you can have him do a blood ritual that kills most people. Wouldn't you know it? Drinking blood, he's just fine. Can't imagine why. ;) Warlord 2.0 Still waiting for a final installment, though reboots seem to be all the rage these days.
Also sang one of the best Disney songs ever for his role as Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame aka Hellfire. Dude voiced a lot of game and animated characters. Just replayed Fallout 1 after not touching it for years and noticed he's the voice of the super mutant lieutenant in the master's army.
@@streeTkiDwannaBe Yeah he was in Fallout. Man Frollo is my second favorite Disney villian hands down. Hunchback is a good movie in general but he makes it so worth while. Best villian song ever, hands down in damn near anything. Such a master of gab.
Both Tony Jay & Simon Templeman played (guest) villains on The Adventures of Lois & Clark back in the 90's with Dean Cain... no relation. Tony Jay played an old-school British hitman while Templeman played an evil Kryptonian. I practically shit myself upon seeing this, as I was a huge Legacy of Kain fan. Tony Jay also voiced Virgil, the wise chicken-man, on Mighty Max.
I would love to hear your take on the rest of the series, Legacy of Kain is one of my all time favorites, mostly because of the elaborate story and voice acting. I really love Kain as a character, he is so interesting and different from other protagonists, not a standard brooding antihero he is truly a pompous self-absorbed asshole of a villain, but considering the stupid amounts of power he keeps acquiring it makes sense for him to indulge his ego in this way. I really appreciate your uploads, keep up the good work.
Time fades even legend, and the origin of the Soul Reaver has been lost long ago. But its purpose remains - to feed on the souls of any creature it strikes. Kindred, this blade and I.
Thank you for highlighting one of my old school favorites in Blood Omen. Yes, the voice acting (with Simon Templeman doing a bang-up job as Kain) and dark tone made it stand out for its time. The only two regrets I have about this series is a) how convoluted the time travel element made later games and b) how the story remains unresolved.
Legacy of Kain is an interesting series when you consider how much of it was a happy accident. For starters, development switched hands from Silicon Knights to Crystal Dynamics after Blood Omen. Whatever plans there were the for the rest of the series, including that twist final boss, were unknown to Crystal Dynamics who just had to piece ideas together. Soul Reaver wasn't originally even planned as a Legacy of Kain game, something that is usually a recipe for disaster. But it helped that even though that game and its sequel switched to a new character named Raziel, the series still had the awesome dialogue that fun to listen to in the original so Raziel avoided being a boring character. Also helping things is that given Blood Omen's ending, making Kain a full blown villain for the sequel was the logical next step. Soul Reaver was originally intended to be the end of the series, but not all the planned content for it could be finished in time, including its final few levels. As a result a more complex plot was written involving time travel and Kain having this grand scheme instead of just being a straight up villain. Blood Omen 2 was also not originally intended as a Legacy of Kain game, and unlike Soul Reaver that did not work out for the better, turning it into the black sheep of the series. In terms of plot you can actually skip the game, there is nothing essential explained that isn't also explained in Defiance. And why does Kain need people to explain abilities to him in this game, everywhere else he doesn't need people to explain items and abilities, he can do that himself. Defiance was better received than Blood Omen, but not well enough to continue the series. Which is a shame since it did nicely conclude some major plot points and from where it ended its sequel looked promising, at least in terms of writing. Unfortunately, Defiance's writing and dialogue were about all it had going for it. Mechanically it was mostly a generic Devil May Cry clone that offered next to nothing in terms of gameplay you couldn't get out of better hack and slash games like the previously mentioned DMC or Ninja Gaiden. As such it wasn't able to sell well enough for a sequel to get greenlit. I had hopes of seeing the series cliffhanger finished, but given all we got is some generic MMO, that is probably never going to happen. From what I have heard about the other planned entry in the series, something that was announced in 2011 and cancelled, it's probably for the best the series doesn't get picked back up. That game had none of the feel of the original series, not to mention the series iconic characters were nowhere to be seen in its footage.
Nosgoth was a average team based shooter with some really cool ideas, no an mmo, the only reference to LoK was a Raziel Statue and Classes based on Raziel’s brothers
I would actually recommend Blood Omen 2 for it's neat low/mid fantasy Steam Punk setting, not to mention the game mechanics, music sound effects and co are very well done too. Yeah you probably won't miss any plot on it but that doesn't mean it won't be worth it. Though it takes quite q while to get used to the slightly wonky controls and you better set the combat blocking to "assisted" in the options menu. Also the save-point feature is annoying because the actual savegame function does only save your stats, but neither Kains current position on the map nor the current weapon you hold in your hands, you literally often spawn unarmed and while the game is still loading, the enemy AI is already working, allowing your enemies to hit Kain before the game can receive any controller input.
I think it was called last sun? I saw the trailer though for the game that got cancelled and it looked awful story wise but gameplay wise like shadow of modor. Sad/happy it got cancelled.
@@brig.badger2896 I don't think calling Mandy 'pc' does him any credit, i think of Mandy as a sane Sseth with more restraint and subtlety when it come to jokes but also lightyears ahead of Sseth's when it comes to actually reviewing the game in question. I mean he used to ran a slave ring when he was in elementary school, and his slave fetish only got worse ever since.
Loved this game when it first came out. Still remains in my top 10 favorite of all time. Couldn’t help but imitate Kane’s voice. Then when dragon age origins came out, so many memories flooded back when I first heard Loghain talk. Over all, good review 👍🏻
They need to make a new 3D game for the #LegacyofKain series where Kain is the good pratoganist who hunts and kills the soul reavers whom are devouring all living life and to #end the #world #of all #soulreavers. Really needs to be top notch visuals and revolutionary gameplay. Kain rids the world through hatefull vengence of the soul reavers destroying all life, even the animal kingdom. Also needs to play alot like ori videogame yet with 2d and 3d gameplay... or like a hyper advanced 3d catslevania. Loved the mechanics of the old legacy of kain games. NEED A NEW ONE FOR #2025 BEYOND.
That graveyard, the runes, when translated with the user guide, gives the devs names. Also there was a major glitch that affected diagonal things. In fact the wolf dungeon had to be re-designed after a endless jump glitch was discovered with the diagonal jumping.
Alex only twelve names from the joint crystal dynamics/silicone knights team made it into the released version, but if you have the original booklet there is a page where you can translate English to the blood runes script, and if you translate the runes on the gravestones, you get a dev name. As for redesigning the wolf dungeon, the dungeon where you first get the wolf form and you have to do all those jumps to get to a switch? That dungeon had to be redesigned after a B-class bug was discovered with the wolf form’s diagonal jump, a feature it originally had, where it would endlessly loop the jump animation, and cause you to travel out of the game bound forever until you re-set the game.
Alex yes, but I can’t remember where, if you search you can find it. As for the B-class bug, it was found in development, and patched out, but not before a bunch of levels had to be redesigned, most weren’t too bad, but the wolf dungeon had to be completely overhauled.
A warrior sentenced to hell, then brought back by a necromancer? ...man, i have JUST started replaying Revenant! Now that's a review I'd love to see here.
I've been enjoying it! it's a fairly simplistic hack/slash game, nothing too ground breaking. It has some pretty great voice actors too (at least, for the time period.) But I may be biased cause I played it a bunch when I was a little baby?
Pig Wank Don't... the PC rights are owned by Activision. Beyond the PC version is EXTREMELY buggy and hard to get running stably on modern rigs, due to MULTIPLE compatibility issues with both modern OS & Hardware, and that's WITH the fixes. Like the issues so bad that it is pretty much completely incompatible with and unplayable on them. While there are fixes they only make it marginally playable. The stability is STILL a major issue, and the game is completely crash happy as a result. Pretty the only way to play it is on a pre-XP Windows PC. I sold my copy because of it.
Just play the ps one version on a emulator, it runs way better than the pc version and youc an use save states if you get stuck on a wall. Or you can wait for the blood ominicide remake.
There is a magical operation of maximum importance -- the initiation of a new eon. When it becomes necessary to utter a word, the whole planet must be bathed in blood...
Mandalore you don't know how happy it makes me to see this. The Legacy of Kain series is one of my all time favorites and Soul Reaver specifically is the game that both inspired me to want to make games -and- want to be a writer. I seriously hope that one is on The List, too.
I loved this game. It was one of my favorites from the original Playstation. I don't feel like it gets enough respect for how great it was. I loved the whole series too. I wish they would bring it back.
Amy Hennig was part of this game, I think she mentioned being an assistant to the main writer at some point and she was the one who wrote the remainder of the Legacy of Kain series.
Usually when I subscribe to a review channel it ends in me only watching reviews for the games I'm personally interested in... but Mandalore man I don't know how you do it, you make me personally interested in every game you review
I love this game. Finding the soul reaver and one shotting demons was so satisfying. Finding all the armors and deciphering the books to find all the magic was awesome.
The real unfortunate part of Blood Omen's ending is even the evil version doesn't really make sense on its own. It's basically just a kickoff point for the series overall, which actually is a very well-written and interesting take on the concept of fate vs. free will, the futility of truly altering the future, combined with the time travel events continuing in later games and adding entirely new context to events of earlier games, etc. It's a real shame that Dark Prophecy never came out and thus the story is unfinished. It looked like it was once again going all the way back to this game to add new context to past events, at the very least with a return trip to the fortress of one of this game's main villains many centuries later.
I cant help but feel like the series as a whole would have been much stronger without leaning into all the time-line shenanigans. There was plenty to work with without that
@@InternetHydra They are certainly difficult to do well. I think Interstellar and (maybe?) Terminator 2 were the only cases I can think of where it kinda worked.
It's funny. Despite the fact that some of my teachers in college worked on these games, I've never played one. Thanks for giving me a glimpse of what I've missed out on!
One of my Top 10 all time favorite game, spent some many hours on it. Easily my favorite in the franchise. I wished we could have a remaster or a pure remake for this someday.
Love this game. The music, voice acting and script are very good. It is also quite lengthy, especially if you want to explore everywhere and find all the secrets. An all time favorite of mine.
I love that you did this game. It was one of my fav PlayStation launch titles that I remember getting when it first came out in the United States as a kid. It was def a new take on Zelda for me.. and I loved it. My one big gripe with this game is that I could never understand the voice acting without subtitles, it was so hard to understand anything the people were saying
For the longest time, I have been looking for this game. (Memory loss so the name escaped me) All I remembered was getting stabbed in the beginning of the game. Thanks a lot... and I cannot play it anyways haha
Run the eboot on a modded PSP or Vita to play it "on the go". Sony also has it (plus Soul Reaver 1) legitimately for download (on PS3). Just transfer it to an unmodded PSP or Vita after download.
The beginning of my favourite story ever told! The story and acting in Blood Omen is good, but it wasn't until Soul Reaver 2 that the dialogue and acting reached it's potential. The story scenes in that game are something to marvel at.
A Celt first used the term on a Roman after said Celt was accused of rigging weighing scales for getting more gold than was expected, he placed his sword on the scales and said "Vae Victus". The Romans weren't allowed to say anything else except continue to pile the gold on to the scales
4 года назад
@@beelzeboss9631 It was Brennus, a Gaul (whom are indeed Celts). And the correct quote is "vae victis" (victus means food - among others).
I've never seen your channel before but this video randomly popped up in my recommended and I got super excited thinking this was a review on a remaster for the games. I want one SO bad! But I stayed anyways and I love the review, you got my sub :)
This is still my favorite game in the series. Amazing narration, great dark fantasy atmosphere, great spells and weapons, and, well, Kain himself as the protagonist. It really is a shame that it's the only game in the series that can't be ported anywhere, and I'm still kicking myself for losing my PS1 copy almost two decades ago somehow...
Oh man, you really got my hopes up when I saw you did this video. I thought gog already made a port. Still love you did a review on a game from one of my favorite series.
irrlicht321 I feel like spending countless hours getting an old 90's game to run, playing it in the dark and cracking open a cold one is the most nourishing nostalgia trip there is. Going to odd sites to download it, browsing forums for fixes, that's part of the experience.
I'd love to see you do a video on Command and Conquer: Renegade. Flawed but very memorable FPS with a great multiplayer back in the day. No idea if there's some sort of community still active for it unfortunately.
