Legacy of Kain: Defiance

Well, the second soul reaver game was a disappointment, so much so that I feel this maligned final chapter in the legacy of Kain franchise is not only an improvement, but also is a return to form in terms of quality despite me being aware of its flaws.

I should get the biggest issue out if the way, the controls are a bit unpolished here, mainly the platforming sections where both Kain and Raziel have inconsistent jumping. This wouldn't be much of an issue were it not for the fixed camera angles which makes it hard to determine where they're going to land. Thankfully these stages are few and far between as I would otherwise have less kind things to say about this game. Another less aggravating issue is that the game is rather easy, besides these platforming stages, I can't imagine many players having many issues with progressing on the game as enemies are easy to defeat even in massive waves. Admittedly this could be due to me collecting the powerups in the game which quickly allow our two heroes to overpower their enemies and are relatively easy to find (for the most part) but a higher difficulty option would've easily solved this issue.

Negatives out of the way, we have yet another compelling story from the franchise which wraps up the storylines of both our heroes, specifically the cut content from the first soul reaver game which finally appears in this game albeit with different circumstances to accommodate for events from the second soul reaver game. Raziel’s gameplay is the same as the previous two games as he once again retains his powers from the first game but unfortunately loses his elemental powers for his reaver from the second game that he needs to get back. Kain on the other hand has more combat heavy gameplay as his gimmick is fighting off enemies without dying of starvation which will happen of you fail to feed on the blood of his enemies. It's a neat mechanic that does a good job in separating our two heroes from each other as they progress through their storyline. The voice acting is once again top notch, Tony jay being the highlight once more as the elder God who thankfully has a much larger role in this game compared to his earlier appearances (I won't detail how due to spoilers.) I also appreciate that they've scaled back the environments as I felt they were too spacious in the second game as were most environments from around this time.

It's a bit all over the place, however there's plenty to enjoy here provided you can overlook those awful jumping sections and camera angles.