Blood Omen Review - St1ka's Retro Corner (PS1)

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You know, generally speaking, gaming used to consist of fast, arcade-like experiences
with little care taken into crafting a well developed story or cinematic experiences.
Of course there were exceptions to this rule, the Super Nintendo featured a strong library
of RPGs while PC gaming offered a vast bouquet of adventure games and its own take on role-playing.
These however were not the most popular genres, western sales of well-established franchises
like King's Quest or Final Fantasy could not hold a candle to the popularity of Super
Mario, Sonic The Hedgehog, Street Fighter 2 and other faster paced classics.
This trend began to change with the advent of 32-bit consoles, 3D gaming and optical
media. Suddenly, developers were more willing to invest in intangible assets like story,
lore, characters and dialog. One could claim titles like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear
Solid laid the foundation of what gamers expected from a plot driven experience for years to
come. With that said, there were other games that tried to claim this crown before
it was eventually jointly-shared by Squaresoft, Konami and other Japanese developers during the 32-bit era.
Blood Omen: The Legacy of Kain was perhaps one of the most serious contenders during
the Playstation's early years. Developed by the then relatively unknown Silicon Knights
with support from Crystal Dynamics, Blood Omen created quite a splash with the media
when it was first unveiled at E3 in 1995. Proclaiming itself as a mature story-driven game,
players were invited to play the role of a blood-thirsty vampire whose moral compass
swinged from villain to anti-hero. Blood Omen's sales reports are conflicting at best, ranging
anywhere from 300,000 to 2 million units. Regardless, it went on to spawn a successful
series consisting of 5 games and a recent online spin-off.
The game comes in a regular Ps1 Box, and I gotta say, I really like the cover art. It
sorta reminds me of Castlevania in a good way. Inside we find the disc and a pretty
thick manual. It gives you a pretty good description of most weapons, items and spells and even
has several black and white screenshots, but is overall a pretty standard manual. At least
it ends with an advert for Pandemonium. A game which surprisingly I've never played
Players take control of Kain, a nobleman murdered
in cold blood who later resurrected as a fledgling vampire. Our anti-hero's motivations are
initially simple; to enact revenge on those who assassinated him and discover a cure for
his newfound vampire status. The plot, lore and dialog take front and center in Blood
Omen, often being a prime reason as to why both this game and series are so fondly remembered.
Unfortunately, the narrative flow in Blood Omen often seems confused and direction-less.
Kain's motivations and persona keep shifting from repulsion of his newfound condition
to adulation with no explanation as to why. his stance varies so wildly and abruptly that
at times I thought he suffered from bi-polar disorder. To make matters worse, the story
is extremely disjointed, hastily introducing new plot elements with no warning or foreshadowing
only to then quickly resolve and permanently dispose of them. In fact, most of the narrative
elements provided in Blood Omen tend to function as self-contained set-pieces with a barely
coherent, overarching series of events tying them together.
In the game's defense, these serve a brilliant purpose of lore-building, I often found myself
interested in learning more about its characters and locations. Places like Nuprator's keep
and Vorador's Mansion provided a decidedly dark and gruesome experience that had me eagerly
clinging for every piece of information, effectively crafting a compelling narrative while leaving
enough room to let players fill the gaps themselves. Sadly, we are eventually called back into
the main plotline, which is awkwardly presented and at times seem to have had elements removed
at the last minute with little concern as to how it would affect overall flow. At one
point, Kain is asked to fight a war to which he accepts, despite there being no logical
motivation for him to so. In the end, our villainous anti-hero fought a war simply because
he was asked to. Perhaps even more egregious is the endgame battle where a new plotpoint
appears out of nowhere for the sole purpose of adding in a boss fight.
Despite all the flaws plaguing Blood Omen's story the writing style is downright Shakespearean
and surprisingly solid. This is further strengthened by Simon Templeman's stellar delivery as
the titular Kain. If our main character were played by anyone else the series would have
lost one of the pillars (see what I did there?) which made it so memorable. The voice
cast is generally well-rounded by veteran professionals including Richard Doyle and
Tony Jay, most of which would return in future installments. Sadly, I feel these were not
their best performances, most likely they were given little voice direction and as a
result, characters weren't as fleshed out as they could have been.
The story for which the later games isn't included here either as the rest of the series
would be handled by Crystal Dynamics. I mean hell, even the Soul Reaver looks pretty stubby
when compared to its sequels. Blood Omen's gameplay is reminiscent of
Nintendo's Legend of Zelda, featuring an overhead view and a focus on light puzzle
solving. As our character progresses, new abilities are earned in the form of magic
spells, vampiric powers and weaponry. In this regard, Blood Omen is extremely ambitious
as I have yet to play a game that so accurately managed to capture the feeling of being a
vampire. Kain can transform into a total of 4 forms; mist, human, wolf and bat. These
carry different purposes ranging from increased speed and fast travel to avoiding enemy detection
and more. New abilities are often found in dungeons
or other similar locations. The main campaign is pretty linear and must be completed
in the same exact order with each playthrough. But there are several optional dungeons to
explore which give you of new magical abilities, items and ammo.
And I have to say, I really love the freeflow form that you'll find when solving puzzles.
You're given such a wide range of spells, items and abilities to use that most puzzles
end up having several possible resolution methods and it's really up to you to pick
which one you're more comfortable with. As a vampire, Kain's health is constantly
draining, so regular feedings are a necessity. When an enemy is stunned or near death, he
can feed on his prey, delivering a killing blow. Civilians and chained humans can also
be fed upon and they'll offer no resistance. If you return to a place you've previously
visited, you'll find all residents are now ghosts and feeding on them restores mana instead
of health. This means you can visit a brothel, kill everyone and then create the world's
first ghost brothel. Somehow I
expected more action. Sadly, other than feeding, there's really
nothing to do in towns or villages. There are no shops or even any monetary system to
speak of. Players can break into weapon smiths to steal ammo, but these never respawn, so
once visited, there's no point in returning to past towns. Even the villagers share very
little useful information so I just simply ignored them.
Despite the wide range of tools available to Kain throughout his quest I rarely found
myself using them. Early on, you'll come across what is easily the barrier spell which
is easily the most overpowered spell in game, protecting you from just about anything Blood
Omen throws at you. In fact, I just kept spamming it and killing every foe including the final
boss with little regard as to tactics or strategy. You'll also find so many healing items in
Blood Omen that dying is practically impossible. The combat and feeding mechanics also get
really repetitive really fast, as you essentially just do the same three hit combo over and
over again, which isn't helped by Kain's constantly shouting Vae Victis everytime you
do it. Ergh. Blood Omen doesn't shy away from blood and
gore, hell, it celebrates it. Often, spells and items dispatch foes in the most spectacularly
gruesome ways, displaying their blood and innards for all to see. Even more impressive
are the lighting and particle effects these create. Despite the visuals being somewhat
unappealing, Blood Omen occasionally delivers in eye candy. Towns and forests are generally
plain-looking as well, though certain locations like Vorador's mansion offer a mix of blood,
gore and luxury that looks really good. Don't get me wrong, there's a clear artistic flair
here, it's just that Blood Omen launched during a weird transitional period in gaming
that visually has not aged well. I mean, I love games like Baldur's Gate
and Icewind Dale, but maaan I just find this graphical style so unappealing.
The game is also plagued by constant load times. Entering and exiting a menu or a location
prompts a 3-5 second loading screen. This may not seem like much, but they really add
up after a while, especially considering how often you're encouraged to change your gear
towards the end of the game. I also felt the game was either too zoomed in, or too zomed
out, I'd like to have seen in-between option, especially considering you can run into some
serious slowdown issues when the camera is zoomed out.
It's easy to see why Blood Omen has such a cult following, its strong lore, dark themes
and quality voice acting which places its production values well above the 16-bit generation.
Sadly, despite the captivating lore, Blood Omen's story is incoherent at best. The
gameplay draws cues from Legend of Zelda, but is nowhere near as polished and suffers
from long loading times. Despite that, I really enjoyed the puzzle solving aspect and how
most puzzles have multiple solutions based on your play style. Blood Omen was once a
sign of what the 32-bit generation had in store for us, and while it's been easily
surpassed by now, it's still an intriguing game to play.
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Blood Omen Review - St1ka's Retro Corner (PS1)

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