Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (PlayStation) Playthrough
165A playthrough of Crystal Dynamics' 1996 horror-themed action-adventure game for the Sony PlayStation, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.
This playthrough shows the entire game, including all 100 secrets for a final prestige rank of "Overlord."
Since a couple secrets require you to wait until the full moon, there are two spots in the video where the footage is sped up to make the video fit within YouTube's 12-hour limit. They happen from 7:39:40-8:09:13 and 8:47:50-9:15:00, in case you want to skip them.
I show the alternate ending at 9:38:24, and you can see the Pandemonium commercial that's viewable from the main menu's Preview option at 9:41:57.
In the land of Nosgoth, a highborn young man named Kain is murdered one night as he's leaving a local pub. As he lay dying in the street, he is found by a necromancer, Mortanius, who offers him a shot at vengeance. Kain leaps at the opportunity, and a short while later finds himself awakening to "the pain of a new existence in a dank womb of darkness and decay." He has become a vampire.
Once he has slaked his newfound thirst with the blood of his assailants, he sets off on a quest to destroy the Circle of Nine - the guardian sorcerers of the Pillars of Nosgoth - in hopes of dispelling the curse.
Blood Omen is an action-adventure in the vein of The Legend of Zelda, but with a heavier emphasis placed on combat. Kain travels Nosgoth from an isometric top-down perspective, slaughtering enemies and raiding dungeons as he searches for the members of the Circle, always on the lookout for items that'll improve his abilities.
He can drink from his enemies to restore his life and magical powers, shapeshift to overcome environmental obstacles, cast spells, and turn his enemies into gory puddles by using a fun selection of weaponized tarot cards with names like "Implode," "Flay," and "Font of Putressence."
Kain is a great lead character with a lot to say, and his quest makes for a fun and lengthy horror adventure. There are plenty of towns, bad guy hideouts, and caves to explore, the engaging story moves things along at a brisk pace, and though they're ultimately inconsequential, the secrets give the game a long pair of legs for anyone looking to prolong their time in Nosgoth.
The game was created by Silicon Knights, a PC developer known for Dark Legions (AWESOME game, btw) and The Horde (https://youtu.be/99NXE00JwO0) and who later went on to create Eternal Darkness and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for the GameCube. Blood Omen was their first game designed specifically for consoles, and unfortunately, it shows.
The graphics and sound are great, especially for an early 32-bit title, but the game runs like a dog's dinner. The action grinds down to framey slog when too many characters are on-screen at once or anyone fires off a light-casting projectile, there are way too many loading screens (it gets so tiresome seeing LOADING flash up everytime you open a menu to switch weapons!), and neither of the camera options are ideal (the close view is too close to be useful, and the wide view is grainy and loses a lot of detail).
That all being said, anyone who can push past its severe technical hiccups will find an excellent game lurking beneath the surface. Vae victus!
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