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| Legacy of Kain: Defiance Cover |
Legacy of Kain: Defiance
Is a 2003 action adventure video game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive for PlayStation 2 (PS2), Xbox and Windows. It is the fifth and final chronological game in the Legacy of Kain series.
This game continues the journey of the Vampire lord Kain and his lieutenant turned wraith Raziel. After having Raziel killed to be revived by the Elder God as a wraith during the events of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.
Kain travels backwards through time and is followed by Raziel into Nosgoth's past, uncovering the conspiratorial events that led to the land being doomed to an eternity of corruption. After establishing his free will by refusing to kill Kain when prophesied, Raziel discovers that Moebius the Time Streamer had originally manipulated Kain into igniting a genocidal war against Vampires until he was the last of his kind.
The gameplay of Legacy of Kain: Defiance begins with players controlling Kain, but at set intervals they will acquire control of Raziel and play as him for a time before switching back to Kain. Both possess similar powers, including climbing walls, gliding in mid-air and phasing through certain gates.
However, both also have abilities exclusive to them: Kain can jump large gaps, transform into a swarm of bats and cannot swim, while Raziel swims and can shift into the spectral realm to bypass enemies and obstacles before finding an appropriate place to shift back into the material realm.
Kain is also able to use his telekinesis to pick up enemies and either throw them into obstacles or pull them towards him, an ability Raziel lacks at first and must acquire during the course of the game.
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Reception
The PlayStation 2 version received "generally favorable reviews", while the PC and Xbox versions received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.
"As well as being able to play as both Raziel and Kain and the new combat system revolving around various combos and spells unleashed by the Soul Reaver. The differences in their gameplay, with Kain's quests revolving around combat and Raziel's around puzzle solving, were also enjoyed."
Douglass C. Perry of IGN
However, the poor collision system, auto-locking combat view and awkward camera controls were criticized for making combat difficult as the player would target enemies that could not be seen. Perry also noted the graphics for the Spectral Realm were distracting and made combat difficult.
Despite the praise for the combat system, the similarities between the controls for Raziel and Kain were cited as the game's weakest point, to the extent where abilities either of them possessed in previous installments were dropped to make them play almost identically. The need to backtrack without the assistance of a map or clear objectives was also criticized.
Tariq Baker of GameSpy
Overall, Baker said the combat system and graphics were well done, but the game's reliance on puzzles and backtracking was a weak point.
Joe Rybicki of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine praised the game's plot, voice acting, animation, character design and architecture, and said that it had "loads and loads of atmosphere", but called it "a terrible, terrible game", due to his belief that its gameplay is "so appallingly unimaginative, so awfully monotonous that by the end of it, I was wondering why they even bothered making a game out of it".
