Back in the days I mostly was concerned about getting the beginning of the Kain and Raziel's stories. I began my Legacy of Kain experience with the very last game, Legacy of Kain: Defiance. Other fans of the series often started their experience with either Soul Reaver 1 or 2 and therefore were partial towards these two games. They also tended to criticize Blood Omen 2 a lot. Legacy of Kain: Defiance alone however left many questions unanswered. I wanted the answers, so I looked for them and eventually found out there were other games in Legacy of Kain series. Gradually I found and played Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2, eventually I found Soul Reaver 1 as well. Finally, after a long search I found the very first game: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.
While it was not my first top-down view 2D game of the 90s, the game overall looked rather archaic and did not leave a very strong impression on me. It did somewhat help me to understand the whole overreaching plot of Legacy of Kain series, but I thought little about this game itself. Back then it was nothing more than a gimmicky prequel to Legacy of Kain: Defiance. That was partly because fans of the series online 'spoiled' most of the plot twists of the original game, partly because my English language ability was still not good enough to follow through and fully appreciate the dialogues of the game. I could understand the basic idea of what they were talking about, but nuanced fine details of their conversations did elude me. I was still in my teens (16 something, I think) when I played it back then, that could have been the reason as well.
Watching it again many years later from Australia with much better language ability and also being much older myself I could finally understand the whole game a lot better. I fact now I could see how this game is actually much better and more sophisticated than any of its 4 sequels. Not from a perspective of how the game looks, but rather from perspective of the story and to some extend even game mechanics.
Occasional genericness and inconsistence of dialogues of Soul Reaver 1 and 2 is much clearer to me now.
Dialogues of Blood Omen are not only a clear notch up all of its successors, who themselves are many notches up of your average video game, they are in a league of their own.
Also, Vorador's character was completely messed up in later games. His role in Legacy of Kain: Defiance is that of a mere custodian of Janos Audron body. In fact, his Defiance self is pretty much the opposite of his Blood Omen's self in all aspects of personality. Because of that I cared too little for the guy to pay him enough attention in Blood Omen, sense for his role of slaying 6 of the Pillar Guardians.
The biggest difference however that in all later games characters mostly acted like they wanted to save the world. Kain too was somewhat concerned for the fate of Nothgoth as was at least implying that he refused the sacrifice because he through that might not be the best way to save the world. The whole game was reframed as a battle between evil Elder God and his cunning servant Moebius on one hand, and Kain together with Raziel on the other. Soul Reaver 2 is particularly very heavy on that, even more so than Defiance I would argue. Defiance rekindled the idea of Raziel's revenge, but this time it was against the Elder God instead of Kain, I started from this game so that reflected on my overall view of the series. In the end Raziel chooses death and chance of revenge against the Elder God over the eternity of listening to his annoying voice.
Blood Omen however makes all the characters more selfish and honest with themselves, while simultaneously cleverly deceptive with you at times. Kain may be resurrected by Mortanius to kill the members of the circle, but his dialogue is mostly about his personal subjective observation of people and events around him. It feels a lot more of a journey of world and self-discovery than that of a messianic hero, concerned with the fate of Nothgoth.
Not to mention the form and style of speech in which Kain expressed himself. It is unparallel in any other game, including its 4 sequels. Perhaps it is not only to make his sound aristocratic, but that could possibly reflect how actual aristocrats can speak at times.
Overall, however, the original Blood Omen is the world without heroes or villains. It is a world full of selfish people who are doing their selfish things all over the place. There is no one cause to which everyone is bound or connected. No god. Just people. Some of these people wield significant power and could manipulate nations and even time. Yet they are still fallible and selfish human beings. Many use their powers to cause great pain to others for the sake of their amusement.
Only I am infallible. I will not use my powers to harm myself, only those around me. Which is as good as infallible from my point of view. Hahahahhah.
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