Tag: Blood Omen

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Completed Blood Omen.
I must give credit where it’s due, they actually managed to recreate a battle pretty well. Two or three full screens covered in red and white soldiers, actually fighting and killing each other, with the king fighting at the front.
Then we transported to the past, to kill William the Just before he became Nemesis (another “inventive” name). The nice play there is the huge statue. At first we pass by it standing, then in the past we see it half finished, then once we are back it’s shattered.
Turns out this was all Mobeius plan, so he could hunt all the vampires in present. Although I’m not sure how Nemesis prevented that, as Mobeius was also manipulating him.
The Mobeius fight is weird, because it’s almost the end of the game, and he sends a few whimpy villagers at us. Also, you need to be very specific where you step, or he wouldn’t open the gates to the next arena for you.
The necromancer that resurrected you turns out to be also the one who sent assassins after you, which makes no sense, as Kain was a random minor noble. You beat Mortarius once, he turns into a daemon with a single attack, you beat him again, and given a Dark Souls kind of ending, where you can either restore the world or take control of it.

This was one of the worst games I managed to complete without dropping. Probably the most annoying aspect is that Kain is useless without mana, as he can be easily interrupted or even stunlocked, but mana recovers slowly, and there are no mana potions, only this orb that gives you infinite mana, then brings you back to zero again.
But yeah, I wanted to experience it, I experienced it, it was bad, very bad. The constant need to switch between weapons through the menu, because with half of the weapons you can’t heal or cast spells. So you see an enemy, switch to single handed sword, cast shield, go back to the menu, switch back to two handed 🤦‍♂️.
The collision detection, the lack of feedback, you don’t know if you’re hitting someone or not, which is annoying especially with bosses, the visuals, everything is bad. Can’t recommend at all, even as a joke.

Tags Blood Omen, Legacy of Kain

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Malek is killed offscreen in a cutscene, but you still pitted against two magicians at once. Not a bad idea, although the Druid just places water puddles, which is hilarious. I suspect that they rolled those bosses together due to time constraints, since when Kain brings their “mementos” to the pillars, he repeats “and the pillar accepted” three times in a row.
Because there’s no experience or currency in the game, fighting enemies is just a waste of time. Moreover, the further you get, the more annoying the enemies become, often stunlocking Kain with ranged attacks or poisoning him, while there’s a limited number of antidotes available. Kain has magic shield that completely negates ranged attacks, and mist form that ignores most melee attacks and floor spikes. Both require mana. If you don’t have mana, it’s best to wait around the corner for it to replenish, since enemies AI is lower that ghosts from Pac Man. They would literally try walking towards you through a wall.
The boss of the cathedral, Azimuth (sic!), is terrible. She fires homing missiles that have a knockback of a missile, and teleports before you even manage to get close. You just need to get lucky to hit her with the Soul Reaver, which you also get in the cathedral.

I found a way around slow menus: you can set CD-ROM speed to x8, which improves it by a lot. Setting CD-ROM to x16 breaks the game, though, menus stop opening altoghether.

Tags Blood Omen

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Malek castle is quite terrible, but at least it has a point: there are no one alive, so there’s nowhere to get fresh blood. I’m lucky I stocked on healing items.
The fight with Malek is one of the worst boss fights I can remember. He has literally a single attack with windup.
I was puzzled at first that while using axes, Kain can’t cast spells. Are those anti-magic axes? No, turns out he needs a free hand.
First time I got really stuck was in Vorador’s Mansion. There’s a bridge where you aparently need to take control of a human, but how? Turns out you can walk on water in your mist form, which isn’t explained anywhere.
The Mind Control itself implemented very amateurishly. First, when you hit someone with it, their corpse sometimes appears. Then, you have to travel with the mind-controlled person between screens. But when Kain travels between screens, enemies respawn. So you can bump into “yourself” when you come back 🤡

I’m playing the PSX version, because I wanted shaders and save states. But it has its own problems. First, there are no subtitles, so you forced to listen to repetetive audio for any clues (although I think the subtitles in the PC version are a fan made patch as well). And second, each time you switch your weapon, it takes you to a loading screen, and each time you switch your form, the game just freezes for a couple of seconds. Annoying.

Tags Blood Omen

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

While people rave how good Legacy of Kain games are, I’m puzzled by how bad this game is. You have no indication if your hitting your opponents or not, no indication if people are hostile or neutral.
The intro is confusing: some vampire kills some mages, while a knight runs to save them? And that knight is either immortal or made into immortal as punishment for not saving them? Then some woman is stabbed? Then we play as another knight, that walks out of a tavern, gets killed, then is resurrected by a necromancer that descends into hell where he’s bound and pulls the sword that impaled him our of his back, which turns him into a vampire, although he doesn’t seem to be hurt by either sun or rain, despite saying he is.
Then you find 9 pillars, and a ghost of a woman that was killed in the intro tells you that each pillar is connected to a mage, and you need to kill all of them to restore balance.
What is this? Student’s project? Also, the writing:
“The wind was carrying screams from the west. I smiled. Someone was suffering more than I”. So edgy 🤡
At it’s core, it’s Legedend of Zelda. You get disposables, like shourukens, you get some spells, and you have different forms. Although one of the forms is basically just fast-travel, and one of the spells is basically return-to-checkpoint.
The first boss is environmental boss, I’m not even sure it has HP. It fires walls of projectiles at you, but some of them dissipate, so you need to dodge through the gaps multiple times to get to him. As a reward, you get a mace to break stones. Just like in Zelda games.

Tags Blood Omen