Necromancy is something that plays a major factor in the world of Legacy of Kain, and ironically, it also has played a massive part in seeing the franchise once again hit the day light. Following the remaster of the Soul Reaver series, Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered aims to follow in its resurrected shoes and finish off the story of Raziel and Kain in a power pairing for the ages.
It’s been 23 years
Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered picks up right at the end of Soul Reaver 2, just after Kain managed to cause a Paradox by not allowing the Soul Reaver to absorb Raziel, separating the pair once again. Kain is trying to track down Raziel following the dubious advice from Moebius the Time Streamer. Meanwhile, Raziel is trying to find a way to change his destiny to become the wraith of the Reaver, 500 years in the future, at the same time as the events of Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen.
The game certainly doesn’t lend itself well to newcomers; it requires knowledge of what happened in all the previous games, including Blood Omen 2, which has yet to see a remastered release. It presents that juicy vampiric conspiracy that fans of the series have come to know and love, and it offers a satisfying conclusion to the events of the Soul Reaver and Blood Omen storylines.
The story is presented mostly through in-game cutscenes, with the dialogue being beautifully spoken by the original voice actors who do a fantastic job of really painting a picture and encapsulating their role. The balance of cutscene and gameplay has been adjusted from Soul Reaver 2, presenting a much healthier intermingling of the two while still holding onto the strong story element the series started to lean into with that game.
I loved the drama and just how well written the story was. As mentioned, it requires knowledge from Blood Omen 2, which was a game that was developed by a completely different team, so it’s a testament to the writing skill that they managed to rewrite their vision to include the events of that game in a natural feeling way. If you’re a fan of wibbly wobbly time travel stuff, vampiric blood suckers, and evil mages, you’ll find much to love when you finally have the knowledge to play The Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered.
Trouble and Make It Double
The Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered is a 3D action title much like the previous Soul Reaver. It’s closer to Soul Reaver 2 where there is a stronger focus on combat, but it feels much less linear, allowing you to explore the realm of Nosgoth a little more freely. It is spread between chapters, so there isn’t a giant world like the previous games though. This keeps the pacing of the story nice and tight, with little downtime where you’re lost or have the chance to forget what your current objective is.
The major difference with Defiance is that the developers seem to have taken a few hints from the character action genre. You can juggle enemies in the air and have several combos that you can unlock through your trials and tribulations at the hands of the many different foes you’ll come across. They’ve also improved the multi-enemy combat from the previous games, making it feel more fluid and free rather than the rigid combat prior.
While on paper this sounds like an amazing mix of Vampiric action, sadly the game doesn’t quite stick the landing. Every enemy feels like they lack feedback and don’t actually feel that fun to fight. This is a problem that has plagued the entire series, and while this is the best combat has been, it still lacks, for want of a better word, bite. It just feels a little too floaty, and the combos are quite limited, so you won’t be going in with Musou levels of combos to throw out. Couple that with the fact that enemies respawn often and have very little diversity, and it creates a combat loop that is sadly lacking for portions of the game that add up to over half the runtime.
Tomb Raider
Exploration on the other hand manages to pick up a healthy middle ground from the previous Soul Reaver titles. Raziel can jump between the Physical and Spectral realms to help get around and solve puzzles, and Kain has a range of shapeshifting abilities to help him do the same. The levels are all a joy to explore and have some beautiful, enticing ruins to stomp around while trying to find your way forward or some of the collectables strewn around the place.
I do feel I need to point out that during the game, you’ll switch between Kain and Raziel for a chapter each. Kain’s levels are very combat-heavy, whereas Raziel leans more on puzzle solving and exploration, so you are likely to lean more towards one character than the other. Fortunately, playtime between them is roughly equal, so you are never one character for far too long before you’re back with the other.
Rise From Your Grave
Now while I’m talking about The Legacy of Kain: Defiance, the main focus here is on the extra word in the title, Remastered. The game has been lovingly remastered by the same team behind the Soul Reaver titles. This means you have genuine series fans behind the engine, tweaking what needed to be tweaked, and the proper care and attention paid to the title, at least for the most part.
The quality of life improvements here are mostly around a new behind-the-character camera angle, which is honestly great and breathes new life into this corpse, though there are several sections where I feel the fixed camera still wins out. Fortunately, you have the option at any time to press a button and switch between the two. Like our spectral protagonist, you can have the best of both worlds.
Another new feature included is the ability to point yourself in the right direction. The game features a ton of backtracking, and with this new “compass”, you can keep yourself on track and negate one of the most aggravating features of the original. There is also a map you can check, another feature the original game seemingly overlooked to its detriment.
Further additions come in the form of new skins for Raziel and Kain, which are fun to unlock even though they do stick out like a sore thumb. There’s also a slew of bonus content, such as concept art, old cutscenes, and even scrapped versions of levels to have a look around. For the most part, this is an ideal way of presenting a lovingly crafted remaster.
There are also some extras in the form of some comics to read and a demo of a cancelled Legacy of Kain title. This sounds good, though you are reminded very quickly that you can only access these if you purchase the Deluxe Edition of the game or upgrade to it; if not, you’ll just be left with the text grayed out and a screen reminding you of your frugal and cautious nature.
You Look Good For An Oldie
Visually, the team behind The Legacy of Kain: Defiance has leaned into modern standards with impressive results. While they leveraged AI-assisted tools to upscale and enhance some in-game textures, they had artists review the results to ensure they carefully preserved the original art direction. That said, it doesn’t always hit the mark; some sections have a completely different tone than in the original, with more muted colors compared to the more vivid ones on display here.
Fortunately, the developers have thrown in the ability to switch between the Remastered and Original graphical styles at the press of a button. I would kick myself if I didn’t mention that the art direction in the game is that strong, and enough work has been done that I was playing for a while on the original graphics, and it was just as impressive as the Remastered stuff, especially with the new behind-the-character camera.
The audio is absolutely godlike. The soundtrack, as always, is just a chef’s kiss masterclass of tension, slow build, and dramatic crescendos. Every track just perfectly fits the stage or the scene and sounds masterfully crafted. Some outstanding stuff here, which is par for the course with the series.
I could honestly listen to the voice actors for Kain and Raziel just reading off the dictionary at random and be happy with it. I feel voice acting for video games really came into its own with titles like Metal Gear Solid and The Legacy Of Kain: Blood Omen, and it is such a testament that even 23 years following the original release of Defiance, the voice acting is still at the top of the mountain.
Performance on the Nintendo Switch 2 was mostly fine, though I feel I have to mention that the further I got into the game, the more I started to experience hard crashes, and they got more common the further in I got. Fortunately, there is a generous auto-save system, so I never lost much progress, but it was a bit nasty regardless. I tested this with the boosted feature on Switch 2 and without, and having looked around, it seems crashes are a common issue with all versions of the game.
Verdict
On paper, Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered, much like every title in the franchise, doesn’t seem too special. Average gameplay is once again a plague on the stronger aspects, but it all just works together and presents an honestly outstanding title that is better than the sum of its parts.
Some excellent quality of life changes, extra content to dive into, and a flawless framerate with beautiful HD textures manage to edge out some of the nastier aspects of this remaster, including its propensity to crash towards the later stages of the game. I now wait with bated breath for Blood Omen 1 and 2 to get equally as tasty remasters. Vae Victus.
LEGACY OF KAIN: DEFIANCE REMASTERED IS RECOMMENDED
If you would like to see more Adventure games, you may be interested in our review of Damon and Baby.
Many thanks go to Crystal Dynamics for a Nintendo Switch review code for Legacy of Kain: Ascendance.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
