Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is an action/RPG that combines a rich story with Diablo-like gameplay, resulting in a game that's surprisingly good. You control Kain, a vampire who was once a nobleman, but was murdered and reborn, and is back in the world of the living seeking revenge. Early in the game, you'll come across the main quest of the game, restoring the seven pillars of Nosgoth, the land the game takes place in. Each pillar has a respective Guardian, and the only way to restore each pillar is to kill its Guardian. Your quest to hunt down the Guardians will take you to snow covered mountaintops, through swamps and forests, and even through time. The game cycles between night and day, and as a vampire, you are weakened during the daytime. At night, you'll be twice as strong, and your enemies will fall much easier. A blood vial indicates your health, and you'll constantly need to replenish your health by sucking the red blood of humans you knock unconscious. You'll have to be careful not to suck the blood of the undead, as it will poison you. Shrines and caves around Nosgoth will provide you with the power-ups and items you'll need to complete the game. As to be expected, Kain can acquire and use weapons,armor,and magic spells. Different weapons have different uses and advantages. The axes are the only weapon that can cut down trees, the spiked mace can destroy certain stone walls in your way, the flame sword gives you a longer range, but you won't be able to suck blood from your fallen enemies, and the Soul Reaver is a two handed sworded, but uses your magic energy with each hit and prevents you from casting spells or using objects. Most impressive is the abundance of spells and special items you'll have your disposal. They're all plenty fun to use, and include mind control, blood gout, which sucks the blood from all nearby beings, repel, and implode. Similar to the blood vial, you also have a magic meter that recharges with time and allows you to cast magic spells. There are other unique gameplay elemements. One is the ability to change into different forms, such as a werewolf for speedier travel, a bat to fly to places you've already been, and disguise to take the appearance of a human and gain clues by talking to other humans. Also very handy is the ability to bring up an overhead map of the surrounding area. Saves are done at special save points scattered throughout the land. The graphics are adequate. There's nothing really special about the character sprites, but in some of the dungeons you'll run into beautiful colored lighting. The voice acting is superb, with Kain describing the world he sees, voice dripping with cynacism, and further enhancing the actually interesting in the game. Only a couple of complaints about this game. One is the horrible hit detection. This problem rears its ugly head in a couple of situations: one, when you attack. You'll have to be facing your target head on, and also be at some distance away for the hit to register. Attacking an enemy that's right on top of you is fruitless. And when you're hit, either by enemy's attack or environmental elements like spikes, Kain will be pushed back a bit. However, if he gets pushed onto something that will register a hit, such as more spikes or another enemy, he'll take the hit without having a chance to retailiate. This can result in some frustrating pinballing before you can break free and get to safety. Second, the default walking speed is much too slow. To get around this, you can use your wolf form to get around a lot faster, but it would have been nice to have a run mode. All things considered, Blood Omen is an excellent game and should appeal to anyone looking for a simple to play action game with a great story.
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