Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain

The RPG drought on PlayStation is long over and one of the most interesting RPGs to quench your thirst is Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. You play Kain, a nobleman turned vampire, out to quell the evil running rampant in your homeland by dismembering, desanguinating, and destroying your enemies.

The intense story you re part of is the best of many strong features in the game. All of the villains have unique histories that are integral to the plot. Exposition is done exclusively through uncommonly good voice over. Enemies, peasants and friends all have distinct voices and Kain s own interior monologue is both gruesome and entertaining at the same time. The effects and atmospheric sound are also extremely well done.

When not running around the country side sucking blood, you can use spells and tools like putresce and implode to turn evil henchmen into flesh shrapnel. You can also change your form to become a wolf, bat, or mist. Each shape has its own use and mastering the forms is integral to reaching the end of your quest.

Controlling Kain is simple. D-pad movement is quick and responsive and all your spells and artifacts are just a button or two away. Unfortunately, there just aren t enough keys to load more than one spell or artifact at once so you have to stop the action to switch inventory items.

Like all disc-based games, the load time is agonizing. It s not as bad as the scene changes in Resident Evil, but when you move from screen to screen, there is a delay of a few second as the map is loaded into memory. Crystal Knights should be credited, though, for making the loads as unobtrusive as possible.

Most RPGs are good for one play through and Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is no different. There are minor variations based on decisions you make, and the developers have included temporarily inaccessible areas to encourage you to come back to them, but it s mainly a one shot title. On the upside, there s easily 50 to 70 hours of game play here.

Overall, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is a great RPG. If you enjoy RPGs and you re not playing Suikoden right now, you should definitely pick up Legacy of Kain. By the time you finish, Final Fantasy 7 will be almost upon us.