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Legacy of Kain blowjob thread

DraQ

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Ed123 said:
Noooo Defjam you must play BO2
False.
:smug:

Also, isn't BO2 technically set after Defiance?
With Beast being Janos after hyldenization, lulzy inconsistencies like Vorador being still alive notwithstanding.

It might follow BO1 directly, in terms of chronology, but chronology is such an empty term in LoK.
 

Murk

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Yeah, in terms of things making sense its BO1->SL1->SL2->Defiance->BO2

Also, that's probably the best order of games too in terms of quality, hoo hooo
 

Darth Roxor

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Actually, Vorador being alive is not that much of an inconsistency, I think. After all, Moebius dies in Defiance, so he never gets the chance to behead Vorador.

Although doesn't Defiance end the moment Kain refuses the sacrifice at the pillars? Because if so, then it is rather inconsistent.

*shrug*

Blood Omen 2 is a spinoff anyway.

Also, that's probably the best order of games too in terms of quality, hoo hooo

I'd say Soul Reaver 2 was better than 1. Although 1 was more gothic and grimdark.
 

Murk

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I liked the open world aspect of SL1 and the vermin like presence of humans. I'm a sucker for worlds you can revisit old areas in.

How do you mean defiance ends when Kane refuses the sacrifice? Do you mean the ending in the game... or?
 

Darth Roxor

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Mikayel said:
How do you mean defiance ends when Kane refuses the sacrifice? Do you mean the ending in the game... or?

Doesn't it end like: Kain kills the Elder God, then looks out of some ruined tower or something, suddenly shit starts trembling a bit and he comments on the fact that the pillars have just been corrupted by the 'past Kain' or something? My memory may be shoddy because I personally didn't finish Defiance, but I've watched it being played so I may have got some stuff wrong.
 

Darth Roxor

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Ed123 said:
Kain doesn't kill the Elder God.

Yes, yes, but he defeats him. Same shit :P


And yeah, I remembered right...

The game ends with Kain looking out on the Pillars of Nosgoth his past self had just corrupted, silently thanking Raziel for giving him hope for the future

So Vorador in Blood Omen 2 is a plot hole *shrug*
 

DraQ

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Ed123 said:
As DraQ says, Chronology is virtually irrelevent.
Chronology is relevant, however the story involves extensive amounts of time travel, temporal loops and a bit of alternative history (though I think it was mostly BO1), so the chronology in respect to the world is not the chronology player experiences playing games in order. Chronologically BO2 picks up after both Defiance and BO1 end, but causally it's influenced by Defiance.

Specifically:
Janos Audron spends his time between SR2 and Defiance lying dead. Understandably, being dead is very absorbing activity, so I doubt his busy schedule would allow him to appear in BO2 if it was set in this period. On the other hand, the last time we see Janos in Defiance is after he flies away controlled by Hylden after battling Raziel. The battle happens against the backdrop of collapsing pillars which, as we know, happened after Kain refused the sacrifice. Everything, barring Vorador being alive in BO2 fits neatly together.

Quality wise the games do different things right and wrong, there is hard to pick up any sensible trend. For example, puzzles, atmosphere and some aspects of combat (disparity between humans and vampires, vulnerability-wise, soul hunting to prevent rezzing, finishing off, etc.) were the best in SR1, but it was also fairly weak narratively. OTOH, SR2 had the best controls, while controls in Defiance were atrocious. Both later games also featured comparatively worse puzzles (culminating with jumping puzzle from Defiance rendered terribad by abysmal control scheme), but much more emphasis on story. Combat in Defiance featured a lot of pure, distilled awesome (there is no better way to describe launching an enemy telekinetically so that he pierces two tombstones in a row or remotely flinging people on your sword, decorative spikes, into each other or off the castle walls), but on the other hand humans there were just retardedly durable.

There are no clear trends.
 

Murk

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Aight, fuck it, time to replay this shit start to finish with BO1 it seems ;D
 

DraQ

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Also, the roots of the :decline: run deep:

[s]Wikipedo[/s] Wikipedia said:
IGN stated that acquiring and learning the powers of Raziel's brothers constituted part of the fun, and that Raziel's moves were well animated and articulated. Finding minimal difficulty in using camera controls, GameSpot likened them to those of Banjo-Kazooie and stated that players would want to adjust the camera deliberately to watch Raziel's movements. RPGamer called the gameplay smooth and seamless, and, although the reviewer was initially worried that the interface would resemble that of the Tomb Raider series, stated that these concerns disappeared after playing. Presenting differences between the two, AllGame echoed RPGamer's sentiment and stated that the game's puzzles would challenge "all but the most experienced gamers", while Game Informer considered the puzzles "difficult-to-the-point-of-insanity". Computer Gaming World enjoyed the devouring of souls, a gameplay element that caused Alexander Smith of the Star Tribune to compare Soul Reaver to the television series Outlander.

Website reviewers deemed Soul Reaver's gameplay too non-linear and its objectives too unclear. GameSpot criticized the warp system for using confusing symbols that did little or nothing to indicate the warp's destination, and weighed the fun of impaling vampires with the Soul Reaver against the lack of challenge presented by bosses and most enemies. Next Generation Magazine considered the game challenging due to "difficult puzzles and lack of a map", requiring the player to backtrack. RPGamer's reviewer said that the music was "more suited to putting babies asleep" and that enemies sounded like barnyard animals.
:retarded: :x :rage:
 

DraQ

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Ed123 said:
Similarly, the events of BO2 only exist because of what happened in SR2, IIRC.
In some cases indirectly - through Defiance.

In any case, going from (...) SR2 to Defiance to BO2 messes up the introduction of the Hylden.
It might be a boon granted by my super assburgers, but I haven't noticed.
Playing BO2 right after SR2, OTOH, messes up reintroduction of Janos we've left dishearteningly dead at the end of SR2.

Going straight from SR2 to Defiance just feels like too much of a leap, whereas SR2-BO2-Defiance flows better, and BO2 acts as something of an interlude with regards to the Elder God/Razzy/Guardian subplots. Besides, I can't think of a better ending to the series than:

Kain said:
"...the first, bitter taste of that terrible illusion...Hope."

:love:
That's may be why I never bothered obtaining a copy of BO2 in one way or another.
:smug:
 

TsongaKralj

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Darth Roxor said:
Actually, Vorador being alive is not that much of an inconsistency, I think. After all, Moebius dies in Defiance, so he never gets the chance to behead Vorador.

Although doesn't Defiance end the moment Kain refuses the sacrifice at the pillars? Because if so, then it is rather inconsistent.

*shrug*

Blood Omen 2 is a spinoff anyway.

Actually Vorador being alive in BO2 is a big plothole which was supposed to be explained in Defiance but ultimately wasn't so that remains the biggest plothole in the series.

In Defiance Moebius stil captures and later beheads Vorador then goes on to be killed by young Kain as in BO1 and than is brought back to life again by Elder God and then finally meets his permament death when Raziel stabs him in the spectral realm and feeds his soul to the EG.

So Vorador's still supposed to be dead yet in BO2 he's alive and kicking and even the one who made Kain's vampire army so it's assumed by most LOK fans that Kain is the one who somehow resurrected Vorador who in turn made vampires for him to conquer Nosgoth.

As for Defiance ending and young Kain corrupting the pillars:

What is important at the end of Defiance is that Kain is now finally healed of Nupraptor's curse through purified Soul Reaver,finally knows who the true enemy is and has the means to fight him.The reason is that this time Raziel absorbed spirits of all former balance guardians in the Spirit Forge thus forming the Spirit Reaver so when he got absorbed by the Blood Reaver(which is his cycling destiny)this time around it cured Kain of his corruption,enabled him to see and hurt Elder God.

As for young Kain corrupting the pillars by refusing to sacrifice himself,it is strongly implied(in later sequels,not in BO1) that his sacrifice would have changed nothing.Pillars of Nosgoth are what's keeping Hylden trapped in the demon dimension vampires banished them to and they are meant to have vampire guardians(not human) otherwise they will crack and Hylden will be free from their prison.So if Kain sacrificed himself at the end of BO!,as the last vampire that would have meant extinction of his race and Hylden would have conquered Nosgoth.So basically if Kain dies,Nosgoth dies as well.

Janos said in SR2-"by killing us(vampire race)humans are slithing their own throaths"-meaning if they exterminate vampires nothing will hold Hylden from returning to Nosgoth which would have meant doom for humans.

Yeah,the story kinda gets too compicated for its own good and as I said BO2 fucked up things quite a bit but overall for a video game it's still an excellent story and voice acting is the best ever done in a video game IMO which really helps bring characters to life,especially Simon Templeman as Kain is amazing in each part of the series.
 

Reject_666_6

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Here's two short articles about some cut content by a guy who's been pestering Crystal Dynamics for years to get some information from its employees. The first one is about Vorador, and it's basically what TsongaKralj said earlier (SPOILERS):

The Resurrection of Vorador

Perhaps the single most common question among fans of the series who played Blood Omen 2 was regarding Vorador's presence in that game, as he had been beheaded by Moebius near the end of the first Blood Omen.

The original design of Defiance included a chapter regarding Vorador's resurrection, which would have mended the continuity between the two Blood Omen titles and also made it possible for him to appear in future games in the series. The specifics of this part of the storyline are currently unknown.

It is believed that this chapter was removed during the rewrite which also eliminated A Return to the Soul Reaver Era. If so, then similarly there was never any dialogue written or recorded for the story of how Vorador was resurrected.

The second article is in reference to the italic part from the first article:

A Return to the Soul Reaver Era

The most significant planned element of Defiance which is not present in the final game is this final chapter in which Kain would have returned to the ruined Nosgoth of the future in which Soul Reaver was set.

It has not been revealed what his task there would have been, but it is logical to assume that the future era was where Kain would have finally redeemed the world which he had doomed at the end of Blood Omen. It is also likely that it is where his final battle with The Elder God would have taken place, as hinted at by their dialogue in the closing sequence of the retail game.

This chapter was deleted very early in the production process when it became clear that it could never be finished in time. No dialogue was ever written or recorded for it. It is believed that a prototype of The Sanctuary of The Clans was created with the Defiance game engine in mind, but no imagery of it has been released. It is unknown if concept art or models exist for any of the other areas of the future Nosgoth.


Also, it would be really cool to have a sequel to the series with Janos Audron as the playable character, set sometime after his final moments in BO2. He's never explicitly killed, and Kain was already in a similar predicament in Defiance and lived to tell the tale.
 

Dire Roach

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So I just finished SR1. Fucking awesome game! I had played BO2 before because I had no idea of the order in which the games were released, but... wow. The difference in the inspiration and passion that went into making these two games is remarkable.

The only thing that irked me about SR1 was how some of the puzzles were so difficult to figure out because the game doesn't clearly inform you about some things you can do or interact with. The most glaring examples are in the cathedral, where I figured out by accident that you can open lids and push broken pipes that are pretty inconspicuous-looking. It felt like the equivalent of pixel-hunting in a 3D environment. I also found out about the swimming high jump move by luck, since the game only tells you about it when you swim next to a waterfall at the entrance of the drowned abbey.

P.S.: it's pretty hilarious how it seems like they blatantly they ripped off Raziel's design from Starcraft's dark templars.
 

Dire Roach

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PERSONAL BLOG UPDATE

I finished playing the whole series yesterday; feels good, man.

SPOILER-HEAVY RANT HO, SHIELD YOUR EYES
  • -Blood Omen 1 has by far the best atmosphere of the series due to the amoral grimdark way in which the story is depicted. Amy Hennig + whoever else was responsible for writing the rest of the series fucked this up big time by making the vampires a "race" of good guys who were cursed into being a bunch of suicidal emo faggots. IMO, Kain and Vorador were supposed to be supremely selfish undead assholes who exploited a dying world for their own amusement instead of some divine agents/saviors.

    -Soul Reaver 1 is my favorite game in the whole series. It was amazing in pretty much every aspect except maybe combat, but even its simple system was still better executed than every other game except maybe Defiance. There is no single cutscene more awesome in the series than SR1's intro.

    -Soul Reaver 2's cutscenes were the best part about it, especially those that featured Moebius or Kain. The way they used facial expression technology, coupled with the already acclaimed voice actors and direction, was probably the greatest I've ever seen of any in-game non-prerendered cutscenes. Here's a good example. Unfortunately, SR2 seems like a textbook case of decline in gameplay due to a focus on developing its graphics. I imagine it was thanks to the pressure of improving the graphics to be on par with other PS2 games that it turned out to be so short, in addition to the total lack of exploration elements (stronger sense of linearity, no secrets) and boss battles. SR2's combat felt cheap since you had to beat every enemy with the same sequence: dodge, combo, wait till they stand up, repeat until dead. Also, the puzzles seemed to be a lot easier after having played SR1, especially since so few of them involve the terrain distortion effect of the spectral realm.

    -Blood Omen 2 is great for its... uh... boss puzzles maybe? I liked the "blood lore" mechanic, though, because it encouraged you to kill and drain every living thing in sight.

    -Defiance is the first game in the series that finally has some decent, non-clunky, fast-paced combat, even if it's just a ripoff of other typical PS2 melee action games. Also, it's funny how Kain's/Raziel's telekinesis/force bolt abilities were emphasized for combat use so that it makes them play like Jedi knights. Boss battles were not too great, though, since they behaved mostly like regular enemies except with a big health bar and a couple of un-dodgeable attacks. The camera was shit because the movement controls were relative to its changing angle and position, which contributed to turning the few relatively simple jumping puzzles into a nightmare. The other feature that made jumping puzzles unbearable was the inclusion of deadly pits, such as water for Kain, which meant that if you fell, you had to endure a loading screen and restart from the last checkpoint. Also, wtf happened to Raziel's immortality? Falling to zero health in the physical realm means you get a loading screen just like Kain instead of automatically shifting to the spectral realm like in the SR games. Why didn't they recycle SR2's system that simply teleported you back to the last checkpoint when you got killed in the spectral realm?

Here's one big thing I don't understand about the plot: it seems vampires were a thriving race at several points in history AFTER they had been cursed by the hylden, but where the hell did they all come from? Defiance explained that the curse made vampires unable to reproduce, yet that didn't stop them from creating more of their own using humans. According to BO2, Vorador is apparently the one responsible for making new vampires but he says it takes a lot of time and energy. Kain's creation is explained in Defiance but the circumstances can't exactly be repeated.

In conclusion, I think it's best if Crystal Dynamics/Eidos just leave the story end as it was left in Defiance. Faithful remakes of BO1 and SR1 are welcome, but any new game would probably just end up being an awful God of War clone.
 

Reject_666_6

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I'm not sure what you're asking, exactly. It's explained here at 3:34. Since they were cursed with sterility, they came up with a magical way of making new vampires from humans. Vorador was the first, which implies that there were more made. They could have made a lot of them that way, since the ancient vampires were stronger than the former human vampires, so maybe it didn't take that much time/energy for them.

But I don't think it's such a difficult process. The ancients made Vorador and probably many more, Vorador made Kain and who knows how many more, Kain made the Sarafan priests and each former Sarafan including Raziel made his own goddamn clan. In SR1, vampires were a dime a dozen.
 

Dire Roach

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Reject_666_6 said:
Since they were cursed with sterility, they came up with a magical way of making new vampires from humans.
The problem with this is, if they were able to come up with a way to transform humans into vampires, didn't that simply defeat the curse of sterility, therefore allowing them to repopulate back to an ideal number? Yes, the humans eventually rebelled and started the Sarafan order because of this and nearly wiped them out, but if vampires are so much more powerful than humans, how the hell did they allow this happen? The rebellion sparked by the death of William the Just were just a bunch of peasants yet they also managed to pwn the vampires out of existence while Kain was away.

Vampires at the time of SR1 were plentiful thanks to all the centuries (or millennia) of uncontested power and complete domination over the humans Kain enjoyed. But apparently Kain's method of making vampires was equal or worse than Vorador's since every new vampire made was weaker and uglier than the previous one.

...Vorador made Kain...
Ummm nope. Now that I think about it, Mortanius must have been pretty damn crazy thanks to Nupraptor's curse to take the risk of using the heart of darkness like that.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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Dire Roach said:
The problem with this is, if they were able to come up with a way to transform humans into vampires, didn't that simply defeat the curse of sterility, therefore allowing them to repopulate back to an ideal number? Yes, the humans eventually rebelled and started the Sarafan order because of this and nearly wiped them out, but if vampires are so much more powerful than humans, how the hell did they allow this happen? The rebellion sparked by the death of William the Just were just a bunch of peasants yet they also managed to pwn the vampires out of existence while Kain was away.
Tony Jay helped.
 

Reject_666_6

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Dire Roach said:
The problem with this is, if they were able to come up with a way to transform humans into vampires, didn't that simply defeat the curse of sterility, therefore allowing them to repopulate back to an ideal number?

Well, the vampires of the old days and the ones made from humans are not really the same thing. I can't exactly tell you how, but one obvious thing is their wings and their increased strength.

And yeah, I forgot about Mortanius. :M
 

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Reject_666_6 said:
Dire Roach said:
The problem with this is, if they were able to come up with a way to transform humans into vampires, didn't that simply defeat the curse of sterility, therefore allowing them to repopulate back to an ideal number?

Well, the vampires of the old days and the ones made from humans are not really the same thing. I can't exactly tell you how, but one obvious thing is their wings and their increased strength.

And yeah, I forgot about Mortanius. :M
The main blow to the vampires was that their new existence was completely against their religion, and that with no vampires born, the Pillars chose human Guardians. One of the things that makes Kain so important is that he's the first vampire Guardian in ages.
 

Andhaira

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Ah, the Legacy of Kain series. I played them when they came out and liked Bloodomens the best.

Amy Henning is a BITCH. She aquired the rights to everything and fucked up the story big time. Worst of all, she shifted the gameplay towards a puzzle oriented style, instead of keeping it action adventure. Also, she put you into the shoes of a 'good guy' and even went so far as to make Kain a good guy, when in fact, he really wasn't.

We need a reboot of the series. Remake Bloodomens and take it from there.
 

Dire Roach

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Reject_666_6 said:
Well, the vampires of the old days and the ones made from humans are not really the same thing. I can't exactly tell you how, but one obvious thing is their wings and their increased strength.
But the human vampires, assuming they would live long enough, would eventually "evolve" into the form of original vampires, wouldn't they? Was Raziel the only one who ever happened to sprout wings? Hmm, now that I think of it, his wings actually looked quite a bit like a hylden's, so I guess that was probably due to the whole prophecy thing.

In any case, the quip I have with the story is more related to how Janos suddenly came up with a way to turn humans into vampires, but this method was strictly kept secret between him and Vorador (and perhaps later Kain) and never really explained much throughout the series when it was actually pretty damn important.

P.S.: Fuck, I just found out Tony Jay died in 2006. :cry: And I never would have guessed Michael Bell was just 5 years younger than him.
 

Murk

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There's a PC version. Soul Reaver 1 is extremely fun, and has much more varied gameplay than any of the others. Damn grim and dark setting too, and has one of my favourite moments - grabbing a vampire and walking into the sunlight with him.

Also, the world is open and semi-persistent (some areas become closed off I recall but you can revisit older areas) unlike the stage-based game play of SL2 and Defiance.
 

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