Screenshot thread

[Viata]

Legacy of Kain is probably the best vampire video game series. Only people with shit taste have never heard about it.

 

[Sigourn]

It's a great game for sure. The latter LoK games don't stand a chance when it comes to atmosphere. Plus it's best if you ignore their existence when it comes to the plot.

 

[DeepOcean]

Legacy of Kain is probably the best vampire video game series. Only people with shit taste have never heard about it.

Wish the rest of the games of the series kept the same gameplay and art as the first Dark Omen: Legacy of Kain, the first Legacy of Kain is a fucking classic with awesome gothic feel. Soul Reaver feels like a linear, endless box puzzle with shit early 3d graphics, Soul Reaver 2 is a bit better but still not that great, Defiance is a fucking disgrace. Dark Omen 2 is any good? I always preferred Kain, he was the based alpha while Raziel was a little too whiny for my patience.

 

[Viata]

First game is indeed the best one. But damn man, I really love the first Soul Reaver, but holy shit those box puzzle were annoying as fuck. It's one of the reason I hardly feel like replaying this series.

 

[yellowcake]

 

[Beastro]

That deflecting shield and mass madness are the absolute bonkers as far as spells go.

LoK is one of those rare games where it gives you OP stuff, then decides to keep giving you increasingly OP stuff for you to have fun with.

Replaying it a couple years ago I quickly realized it's best to either go with spells or cards as your back up, as using both negates the others limitations

Soul Reaver feels like a linear, endless box puzzle with shit early 3d graphics

I didn't mind it, and actually enjoyed the late 90s graphics as I'm quite fond of them. What I appreciated in SR1 was a perfect design philosophy blended with the story that allowed for challenge in a game where you cannot die (The only incongruous crucial element was how the fast travel system fit into the world). Something that surprisingly doesn't have as much tedium as you'd expect. It's the first of the modern generation of games we've lived with since, but one wonderfully designed to play to those strengths and negate their problems.

The only big issue I had with the game was the platform jumping before fighting Rahab. I dunno if it was my controller or all controllers in general, but the Steam version was fucking up giving me a delay, that up until then and afterwards was simply annoying, but in that part that required tight jumping made me fall off and redo it a good dozen times or more.

As for the box puzzles, I didn't mind them because I didn't find them too much of a bother, though I can see why others would. Even then I find a connection with them and LoK's obsession with switch puzzles. Without the switch puzzles to give you immdiate objectives to work on all LoK is is wandering through areas to get to other areas given how crude the combat is.

OTOH,

Soul Reaver 2 is a bit better but still not that great

I disagree. Going from the first to the second hit me hard. It was clear in the meanwhile an era had passed and the second game was in a new one. The closest thing I could compare it to would be playing Everquest and then going into World of Warcraft. Suddenly the story and the gameplay were in disconnect (The checkpoints and their ad hoc explaination for them existing) and some of the spirit of the game was off.

In the end though, I found the backtracking and linearity to SR2 far worse than SR1's problems. SR1 had a lot of hidden optional stuff to seek out and explore while SR2 was a line you ran back and forth across slowly getting more and more added to walk along, all with the same respawning enemies along the way. SR1 gave you a projectile mid-game to just shoot enemies out of the way if you didn't want to bother with them, it was harder to avoid SR2s hordes. Going back and forth across that in between plot points I found a hell of a lot more tiresome than a doing a brief box puzzle here and there that took a couple minutes. I could replay SR1. SR2 would be the one I'd hesitate with and prolly would just watch Youtube for the cutscenes.

 

[DalekFlay]

Legacy of Kain is probably the best vampire video game series. Only people with shit taste have never heard about it.

They've always been too console-y for me, though I've only tried a few. Bloodlines would be more my favorite vampire thing, by a mile.

 

[DeepOcean]

First game is indeed the best one. But damn man, I really love the first Soul Reaver, but holy shit those box puzzle were annoying as fuck. It's one of the reason I hardly feel like replaying this series.

Greatest thing from Soul Reaver was that intro and THAT music, damn, that narration of Raziel while he goes down makes you really pumped for some revenge and kick some vampire ass then...

Spoiler

Me: Kain! You fucking asshole, I will kick your ass... What, where is Kain?

Old God: You are my angel of death, dude, you gonna murder those vampires so hard then eat their souls. They gonna pay for what they done to you.

Me: Angel of death? Good, yeah, that is pretty metal, dude, I'm in!

Old God: Yeah... go over there and Kain will be over there...

Me: 2000 box puzzle rooms and instant dematerialization platforming with poor controls later...

Me: I gonna kill Melchiah, this motherfucker will pay up!

Melchiah: Hi Raziel! Brother, gonna kill you so bad.

Me: Ughhhh! Brother, you look like a steak I forgot out of the refrigerator last week. Did you notice that? I think that is pretty important stuff to talk about.

Melchiah: I'm a God of the rotten steaks, you punny creature.

Me: Dude, I was planning on killing you because you turned me from a chad dude with cool wings and stuff into an emo Skeletor without a jaw, you know, but you look like a rotten sausage with legs so on the great schemes of things you are more fucked than I am, how about we talk more about that? I don't want to kill you.

Melchiah: Die!!!!!

Just, a few, just... a few more box puzzles later... just a few, yeah, what the fuck am I doing with my life?!!! Is life an endless box puzzle and I didn't notice? Why people can't have normal doors for things here?

Me: Kain, finally I found you!

Kain: You fool, I will use my power of instant defeat by cutscene so you need to buy the next game! HA!HA!

Me: I feel empty.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Calling Soul Reaver 1 linear is not really fair, because it has plenty of optional content that you'd never see if you only followed the main storyline, including but not limited to the human citadel and the ruins of Nuprator's Retreat.

I'd also put it about on par with Blood Omen 1 when it comes to general atmosphere etc. The "post-apo fantasy" feel they took for it was really damn good, as were the degenerated vampire clans. Zephon's citadel is a level I'm particularly fond of when it comes to its ~deep lore~, how the vampires overran a human wunderwaffe and changed it into their own domain.

 

[HansDampf]

Spoiler

I don't really like this episode. There isn't much variety. Boring overworld map. And too many levels use colors and background patterns that genuinely hurt my eyes.

Like this...

Spoiler

DEAR BILLY
you fell for my android
duplicate ploy in the mangling
machine and now youve fallen
for it again
im blowing up the universe not
the stupid galaxy
this was just a big distraction
dodo
tag youre it
mortimer
ps gannalech is how these dumb
shikadi pronounce grand
intellect
or didnt you notice that mister
three fourteen

Spoiler

Episode 6 looks much better.

Wait. I can read this now.

Spoiler

to serve man

Spoiler

ok
key gem

BASA

danger

 

[Curratum]

Dat Monkey Island reference in Keen... Hadn't played MI when I first played Keen, didn't catch it then.

Also, no matter how much haters want to hate on Dragonspear, it had some real nice dungeons:

 

[Darth Roxor]

 

[Baron Dupek]

A bunch of screenshots from last month and two. Contain such examples like Star Trek Elite Force 1 (sequel is a decline tbh, fighting space bugs and space elves - two of them - gets old fast), Cold Zero - Last Stand (though it was German game, turns out it was from Potato, and devs are still alive, they released some game recently), Ashes 2063 + Dead Man Walking DLC, GTA Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories...

when u see it

BLue Oyster Club, how familiar

I'll pass over used goods

pity that you can't play female character in sequel, and snarky on top of that

VCS was neat but LCS was... not great

gee I wonder why you can't buy VCS anymoree these days

 

[Kabas]

LoK is one of those rare games where it gives you OP stuff, then decides to keep giving you increasingly OP stuff for you to have fun with.

Honestly, i feel like half of the stuff i am getting are not really necessary to complete the game, but it's still cool to have nonetheless.

Dissecting the soul from the flesh of your enemy. A spell worthy of the necromancer indeed.

Spoiler

There was a part earlier with these spiky guys shooting at me where i could probably bypass them all by using mistform. Now that i realised this i feel like an idiot for wasting all those lightning bolts on sniping them.
Also, the flesh armor blood absorption ability doesn't seem to be working with the cauterising fire sword. Makes sense now that i think about it too.

 

[Beastro]

Honestly, i feel like half of the stuff i am getting are not really necessary to complete the game, but it's still cool to have nonetheless.

Dissecting the soul from the flesh of your enemy. A spell worthy of the necromancer indeed.

Spoiler

There was a part earlier with these spiky guys shooting at me where i could probably bypass them all by using mistform.

Spoiler

It isn't. It's there for you to have fun with power tripping like Kain, getting a taste of what makes him now love being a vampire despite only recently becoming one.
Now that i realised this i feel like an idiot for wasting all those lightning bolts on sniping them.
Also, the flesh armor blood absorption ability doesn't seem to be working with the cauterising fire sword. Makes sense now that i think about it too.

Lightning Bolt remains good until the end in places given its efficiency (You mana regens quicker, but newer spells keep taking more and more, LB balances out through endless spam). Also given that you keep needing to use it for puzzles and spell slots are limited you can find it of use still when your other spells equipped. That's an odd thing I found replaying the PSX version with a long load times, it forced me to gear swap as little as possible and go with what I had easily available.

I found it helpful to load it up, spell shield and then either the mass madness or a blood leech spell depending on what new spell I got that the game forces into the fourth slot that you can't change.

Spoiler

That armour is useless. You think it would have more utility, but by the time you get it the game really starts to fill the game up with poisoned blood enemies and less people, and at least with the PSX load times, I found myself unwilling to switch to it whenever people were around. The Bone armour is much the same.

 

[Kabas]

Well, i found myself to be the opposite thanks the patched pc version fast loading times. I am constantly switching my weapons and spellslots, though the shield and inspire hate(that mass madness one) remain always. I am also trying not to hoard items, sometimes using stuff like slow time or that putrid acid just for the heck of it.
Power tripping like Kain is a good choice of words to describe the whole game.

Spoiler

About the flesh armor, already kinda figured out that it loses a lot to the chaos armor. Shame, because i like it looks the best.

 

[Beastro]

I am constantly switching my weapons and spellslots, though the shield and inspire hate(that mass madness one) remain always. I am also trying not to hoard items, sometimes using stuff like slow time or that putrid acid just for the heck of it.

Shield and hate are awesome, but I saved them for mass battles. Both have their mana cost lower later on, but hate still eats quite a bit.

The thing I found is if you use em too much the game becomes a cake walk. I guess that is what boils down to my continued use of LB. I wound up getting so may slow times before I found the forge they would have made the game even easier.

BTW are you aiming to find all the secrets? If you are make use of the short load times and keep check secret total after finding each one. I ran into a problem with the PSX version where I triggered every one, but not all got counted, which given the loads times I didn't notice not checking the total often.

Also keep an eye out for the werewolve ruins (Hint: You can find them after you get Mist form). They're a nice challnage compared to the rest of the game.

Power tripping like Kain is a good choice of words to describe the whole game.

Although LoK and the first Souil Reaver were made by different poeple they share the same spirit of design. One part of it is integrating the story with the "feel" of the game and expressing it through gameplay.

In LoK you're reveling in the power you're given and keep being given that plays out through the story where Kain's snobbish aristocratic attitude gets inflated and his reaction to later story twists is fury rather than introspection and humility. In Soul Reaver it's more overt where the shifting between worlds and other gameplay elements tie together to really put you into the shoes of an unstoppable spirit of vengeance that no matter how many times is defeated can simply shift back into the material world and continue attacking you until it wins. Soul Reaver is the prototype of the modern game where you can't lose, but it works because it explains why you are undefeatable and finds ways of giving you challenges and setbacks without having to rely on death as a defeat mechanic.

In both you don't need much story to explain these things because you are actively living out these aspects of the characters.

That was dropped with SR2. The Soul Reaver becomes a back up weapon, rather than the ultimate one that you struggle to not get hit to keep around while other things are put in simply to unlock new content unrelated to the setting. In SR1 you get the ability to climb after defeating the spider vamps, you get swimming after defeating the aquatic vamps, their abilities you struggle against are then given to you; in SR2 you get different soul reaver attunments after completing ruins that are just there, amusingly retroactively explained to have been built specifically for Raziel to complete by the Ancient Vampires that becomes more concrete than a simple prophecy later on.

 

[Kabas]

BTW are you aiming to find all the secrets?

No, i am a filthy casual. I do like searching for them however and i occasionally return to the previous locations if i remember them having a blocked cave or a suspicious waterway. Checking the overworld map helps in figuring our where might the possible bonus locations. I found some egyptian looking room beneath the stonehenge island using this method.

Also keep an eye out for the werewolve ruins

You got me curious here and i lost to the temptation of glancing the wiki.
...Oh
Going to re-visit that egyptian dungeon now and try to figure out how to leave the first room on my own. Or i will die from embarrassment.

 

[Beastro]

You got me curious here and i lost to the temptation of glancing the wiki.
...Oh
Going to re-visit that egyptian dungeon now and try to figure out how to leave the first room on my own. Or i will die from embarrassment.

That's the place. There's a lot more to it.

A tip:

Spoiler

I forget if it requires a switch, but when you enter that room check the southern part of it, there's a door.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Typical friendly visit to Pirate held starsystem.

 

[spekkio]

Legacy of Kain - Blood Omen

My old screenshot:

 

[SerratedBiz]

Typical friendly visit to Pirate held starsystem.

For you poor schmucks who've never played it before: Space Rangers II.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Typical friendly visit to Pirate held starsystem.

For you poor schmucks who've never played it before: Space Rangers II.

For my own sanity I'm going to find Pirate faction removal mod for my next playthrough.

 

[RK47]

 

[Tytus]

A playthrough before Bloodlines 2?