Kain and Raziel together in the same game! Was this game done right, though?
Written: Nov 27 '03 (Updated Nov 30 '03)
Product Rating:
Pros: Fun battle system, superb voice acting
Cons: Camera, too linear, too easy
The Bottom Line: If you've played previous games in the series, rent this. If you want to kill things, rent this. If you hate an intelligent story, don't rent this.
C_A's Full Review: Legacy of Kain: Defiance for Xbox
(This review is for the PS2 version. It is not listed on this site.)
OK, unlike everyone else, I am not going to waste a paragraph or two explaining the entire Legacy of Kain series. All that you need to know is that this is the fifth game in the series, and if you haven’t at least played the Soul Reaver sub-series then this is not the game for you. However, if you are one of those typical people that don’t care for plot and just want to knock the hell out of things in an innovative and fun way, be my guest and start plowing through this game without any idea what is going on. Legacy of Kain: Defiance features two main heroes (or anti-heroes as some love to say), Kain, a badass ancient vampire whom the series is named after, and Raziel, a badass former vampire now undead soul-sucking wraith. Each of these characters has had two games of their very own, so some crackpot go the idea to have both characters playable in this game. It was a blockbuster idea, but did it play out as well as many had hoped it would?
Both of these highly well known characters get to vent their frustration on ghouls and punky looking humans like they never have before thanks to the new and improved battle system. Gone is the standard 3-punch or 5-hit combo that you have to do over and over again without any other options of attacking. Now it’s all about hacking and slashing like an ungodly force, knocking enemies into the air, and juggling them with fiery death strikes of the legendary soul reaver blade for ten to fifteen seconds, waiting for them to beg for their souls and blood to be sucked from their soon to be rotting corpse. Raziel and Kain happily oblige, of course, for they need to suck that nummy blood or that luscious soul to stay undead. (Actually they just blink and go away after dying. Bah!) Annoyed at that magic summoner shooting fireballs at you? Use your telekinesis to pick him up and throw him over a cliff nearby! Miffed that four archers are trying to snipe you from meters away? Pick one up with that same telekinesis and knock over the rest of ‘em! Anyway, in this new installment of the Legacy of Kain series, you can finally show them that “you da man,” er, I mean, vampire.
The battle system features a type of “level up” system where that if you fight around with the baddies enough you’ll gain new abilities to knock the hell out of vampire hunters and monsters. Some of these special moves would look like something straight out of Dragon Ball Z, or in one case Soul Calibur II. If you can utilize these special attacks well enough even some of the toughest of monsters can be juggled around and destroyed in one series.
Depending on what type of gamer you are, you’re going to either love or hate what I’m about to say. The game is easy as hell. The game is totally linear, the enemies and the bosses are easy, and the puzzles are laughably the farthest from difficult than they ever have before in the Legacy of Kain series. When I bought this game I was figuring that I would need a strategy guide or at least a walkthrough like in Soul Reaver 1 and 2, but even a pre-teen could plow through this game in less than fifteen hours without asking questions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since it means the frustration level is tons lower than it should’ve been. I was expecting a little more of a challenge though out of such a series recently notorious for difficult, intricate puzzle solving.
Graphically Defiance is kind of a mixed bag of ups and downs. Don’t get me wrong now; I believe the world of Nosgoth is crafted more beautiful than it ever has in this fifth game. The outside settings are very well-detailed, varying from a gloomy, dark cemetery to the pillars of Nosgoth to, well, that’s about it really. Defiance comes off as to say, “It’s a small world after all!” Of the four Legacy of Kain games I have played, this one definitely has the smallest world maps. The stages of this game that occur inside buildings, castles, or dungeons seem very unimaginative, with too many recurring corridors and rooms that looked exactly the same, unlike previous games in the series such as Soul Reaver 1 where the levels were immense and practically every room was unique. Raziel’s “reaver forges” do not help, either. There are six or seven of these stages, and all of them, aside from a few notable differences such as large statues, portal placements, setting color scheme (like ‘white’ for light reaver or ‘black’ for dark reaver) or unlit torches, these small levels look almost exactly the same.
I have only one question to ask about the camera.Why? The camera in this game is the worst I have encountered in the series. For a large amount of the time I found myself fighting with the camera more than fighting my foes. I had to draw the enemies out into the open field where the camera would actually be able to show the fighting. If I didn’t do this every time things would get a little zany. There’d be a huge cluster of two or three peoples filling up the whole screen and I couldn’t tell what the hell I was doing. Unlike in the previous Soul Reaver games, the camera can’t be manipulated at all to help you out. There is a first-person perspective you can use but it is still severely limited. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
It cannot be said enough how much I appreciate and love the voice acting from this game. Simon Templeman (Kain), Michael Bell (Raziel), and Tony Jay (Elder God), are the three main factors that have given this series a very unique and interesting feel to it. No other video game I have played has had such high-quality storytelling and voice acting. The characterization of the heroes and minor roles is simply amazing, as I found myself truly growing feelings toward the characters, unlike in such games as Xenosaga and Final Fantasy X.
However, there did seem to be an inconsistency in the pace the plot was progressing. For nearly 90% of the game it just seemed as though everything was going so slow and that barely anything was getting accomplished, but after an inevitable train-wreck near the end of the game, the story picks up to a rapid quick pace full of surprises, oddities, and “WTF”s.
The musical score used for this game, although obviously an homage to all of the previous Legacy of Kain games, still seemed a bit lazy to me. There weren’t any noticeable new tunes at all. I mean, it’s one thing to play Kain’s “I’m such an evil guy with a huge fan base. Fear me!” theme during his boss battle, but to play the same music slightly remixed from previous Soul Reaver games in most, if not all, of the stages seems a little odd to me. The quality of the music isn’t unbearable or something like that, I was just expecting to hear something a little more original.
I honestly have a hard time bringing myself to play this game again. There are a few extra things you can do if you didn’t catch it the first time around, such as finding “tomes” which unlock promotional, concept, and CG artwork. The game just seems so short, though, with the lacking amount of settings in Nosgoth. I don’t need to play through the game to see any important cutscenes either, since from my complete game they can all be viewed from the “Dark Chronicle” on the title screen.
Overall I’d say that Legacy of Kain: Defiance was a satisfying experience, but I shouldn’t have shelved out fifty big ones for it. It’s definitely worth the rental, however. There are several factors that bog this game down from being great, but in this case the pros (story, voice acting talent, and gameplay) outweigh the cons by quite a bit. If you’ve been following the series at least loosely the game is worth the rental.
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