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03/01 - Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
08/01 - Need for Speed: Carbon
12/01 - Devil May Cry (Normal)
15/01 - Devil May Cry 2 (Normal/Dante)
26/01 - Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
08/02 - Dishonored
18/02 - Deus Ex: The Fall
23/02 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Normal/Dante/Free Style)
26/02 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Normal/Vergil)
28/02 - Horizon Chase Turbo
28/02 - EQQO
02/03 - Yakuza 3 Remastered
03/03 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Hard/Dante/Free Style)
10/03 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Very Hard/Dante/Free Style)
13/03 - Mirror's Edge Catalyst
19/03 - A Short Hike
01/04 - Doom Eternal
02/04 - Lucah: Born of a Dream (NG+, Bad Ending)
14/04 - Yakuza 4 Remastered
17/04 - Fable Anniversary
21/04 - Transistor
01/05 - The Last Guardian
11/05 - Mafia III
15/05 - Mini Ninjas
17/05 - Burnout Paradise Remastered (Elite License)
20/05 - The Gardens Between
25/05 - The Wonderful 101 Remastered (Normal)
27/05 - El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
06/06 - Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death
14/06 - OneShot
16/06 - OneShot (NG+/Solstice)
22/06 - The World Begins With You
27/06 - Titanfall 2
10/07 - Vane
16/07 - What Remains of Edith Finch
27/07 - Braid
28/07 - Shadow Warrior 2
07/08 - Night in the Woods
15/08 - Night in the Woods
23/08 - Yakuza 5 Remastered
26/08 - Devil May Cry 5 (Son of Sparda)
04/09 - Hyper Light Drifter
05/09 - Prey (2017)
08/09 - Night in the Woods
15/09 - Hyper Light Drifter (Alt Drifter)
29/09 - Need for Speed: Underground
30/09 - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (Lord of Shadow)
01/10 - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2: Revelations (Lord of Shadow)
07/10 - Back to Bed
10/10 - Gujian 3
23/10 - Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
29/10 - No Straight Roads
01/11 - Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
12/11 -
Legacy of Kain: Defiance
And thus ends my journey through the Legacy of Kain games. Although in the end it was more of a Soul Reaver trip, seeing as how I skipped the first Bloom Omen and dropped off the second one. Don't feel bad about that though, since this side of the story seems far more interesting, with much better games and writing.
As for this game, I liked it a lot. Like the others, it had its problems, but also had a lot going for it that I haven't quite seen anywhere else. This was quite a big shift from the actual Soul Reaver entries though, and that comes with some pros and cons.
As I mentioned earlier, the combat here is vastly superior to what came before. Way faster and more stylish, and much more satisfying. And amazingly, it actually has some depth that allows you to juggle enemies and do interesting things with them. Something I was not expecting going in. It's far from a perfect system, but still pretty impressive considering where the series was with its older entries, and what other games were doing at the time. I'm not aware of any western-developed game that was even trying to do combat like this at the time, and this pre-dates the original God of War by two years. It does have some issues though, as enemies basically have no telegraphing on attacks, and camera angles can be a pain, with lots of attacks coming from off-screen or being hidden behind objects. When you get in to the late-game it also has some of the same issues SR2 did, by introducing enemies that are way more aggressive, have really strong hyper-armour, and can knock you down easily. You also can't recover health from them, or launch them for combos either. But aside from that, it's a pretty fun system for most of the experience. It also has some excellent blood splat sound effects as well.
The aforementioned camera is another big shift. Away from a free camera that follows the player character, replaced instead with fixed cameras that show stylised angles. While it does help give the game a certain flair that makes environments feel more impressive to look at, it can be a problem for actual gameplay. There's the issues with combat, and it can also make it hard to judge distance in platforming, and also makes it a bit harder to get your bearings in general, that can make exploration a bit confusing at times. It's not so bad to ruin the experience, and I'd say it's probably on par with other similar games that used fixed angles at the time, but it does make things a bit more fiddly than they should be.
Having both Kain and Raziel playable is also a big change, and one that I really appreciate. For how important Kain is supposed to be to this story, it's cool to be able to actually see what he's up to this time, and to actually control him in a good game. I like the difference in play style too, although it does have some weird quirks. Kain's chapters are more focused on action, and have very little in the way of puzzle solving at all, which makes sense given the role he is supposed to play in this franchise. His combat abilities are generally stronger than Raziel, so feels more satisfying to play in a fight, but he has less variety in secondary abilities. While Raziel's control scheme is similar, he has more of a balance between puzzle solving and combat. With lots of different elemental weapons, he also has more secondary effects in combat too. The puzzles themselves are pretty simple, as is usually the case with the SR games, but this time use more varied mechanics, although it does take a while for all of them to show up, as you unlock more Reavers. They seem to have factored in the different play styles with collectibles too, but it ends up feeling kind of strange. Raziel's collectibles are harder to find in general, and takes a lot longer to start getting a decent number of health upgrades, meaning he's weaker than Kain for a lot of the game. It's a bit odd, since I felt like I was missing something big and falling behind with Raziel until near the end of the game.
The story is yet again a highlight, although this time it's presented somewhat differently than before. While the dialogue is still good, it does have a slight reduction in verbosity that was such a joy to listen to in the SR games, and a lot of it is back-loaded. Although there's probably more dialogue here than previously, a lot of it is used in a way that isn't as interesting before, for most of the game anyway. The SR games were somewhat similar, in that the vast majority of dialogue was put at the start and end of the games, with little in between. What was there was excellent, but infrequent. Like it was trying to pack in as much quality to the writing as possible in the short space it had. In Defiance however, both the protagonists narrate the game as they progress through it, usually to themselves, and in a much more straightforward way. A lot of the big reveals of the plot happen through them commenting on murals they come across, sometimes with things they already knew before seeing them. So it makes plot reveals feel a little less well earned than before, and the story in general is less driven by characters interacting and that then having an impact one where things go next. The beginning of the game doesn't dwell on story much either, wanting to get in to the action as soon as possible. But by the closing hours, things start picking up and dialogue starts becoming better and more frequent. As Kain and Raziel start interacting with other characters, the more interesting conversations come back, and the plot feels more naturally driven as well. The last few chapters in particular are very good. I have heard people lament how this is the last in the series, leaving open a cliff-hanger ending, and that is true, as there's still clearly a huge chunk of this story left, but I think it also concludes this particular chapter pretty well too, so I don't feel like this doesn't end on a good note.
The aesthetic and visual design is pretty impressive for the time, and for how big Crystal Dynamics likely was at the time. As mentioned before, there's the camera angles that frame the world in a cool way that shows good attention to composition. But just the environments and characters themselves are really well designed and nicely detailed. It has a cool atmosphere to it, adding a slightly otherworldly and eerie feeling to this Gothic fantasy. The designs of the vampire citadel ruins in particular were nice, as they are full of a lot of intricate Gothic touches, but done in a way that feels slightly alien, adding to the feel that these are places made for beings that aren't quite human. Although sadly, those ruins do show up quite a lot through the game, to the point where they start feeling a bit old. The sound design is good too, again with the slightly alien and eerie feel. Interestingly, this game takes most of its soundtrack from the previous SR games, without much original stuff. It takes some of the best tracks though, so I can't complain. And it's a cool throwback to put music from SR1 in to this very different context.
And there's one little detail that I've always been impressed with in these games that I always forget to mention too. The transition in to the spirit realm is really cool, and a smart way to make it feel different to the physical world, without having to create an entire new environment. Simply twisting the existing level geometry and turning everything blue is such a simple idea, but it creates this feeling of looking in to this warped reality where the light and atmosphere are completely different. And seeing the whole level dynamically change around you when you move in and out is fun to look at as well, being able to see the world contort in to something else in real time. I'm kind of surprised this idea hasn't been used more in fact. Perhaps it's something that isn't possible these days with how geometrically complex games are now. Either way, it's a nice little characteristic of these games that I appreciate.
I was a little surprised to find out how long this game was. I was expecting it to be in the same region as the others, around 10 hours or so. but in the end this took me over 17. I was taking my time through it though, trying to scour every inch of the game for collectibles (got everything for Kain, missed only a couple for Raziel), and having to stop and look around in first-person in case the fixed cameras may be obscuring stuff probably took up a lot more time than I would have liked, but this is still easily a 15 hour game. It did start to drag a bit around 2/3 of the way through, especially when I was starting to get a bit tired of the vampire ruins, so I guess there was some fat that could have been cut.
So despite its flaws I like this game a lot. It's quite different to what came before. Faster paced, more streamlined, and more cinematic. It does lose something in that change, but I think it gained some good traits as well. It's been an interesting evolution through this series, and a fun adventure of exploring something new to me. I'd probably rate this alongside SR2 in terms of what my favourite of the games is, although I can see either of them inching it out depending on my mood. It's a real shame it has to end here, but I'm happy to have experienced what exists. If I played these games when they originally released, I can see them having been some of my favourite games of the PS2 generation. Although perhaps some of the writing may have gone over my head at the time. Either way, I'm glad to have filled a hole in my backlog that I didn't realise I had back then.
