I've beaten almost 200 games so far and none of them made me feel the way Blood Omen 2 did. It's not fundamentally broken or unplayable, but it's like if you distilled the idea of having a boring game to its purest essence, then this game would be the putrid concoction that would come out of it. Anytime I picked it up, I dreaded the fact that I wasn't close to being done with it. I hate this game.
It didn't start off that way to be fair, I had fun for the first two chapters because the game does add some positive changes to combat. The sound design saw a big step up and Kain's claws felt way more impacful and satisfying than the flaccid wraith blade that Raziel used, the lock-on and dodge also feel much more responsive in this game. The biggest thing I liked though, was the lore meter which increased as Kain drew blood from enemies and with enough blood siphoned, Kain's health would increase. This seemed like such an amazing addition since it meant that enemy encounters actually served a purpose now so for once in this series, I felt motivated to fight enemies. I liked the game for the first hour, but then chapter 3 happened, took me an hour and a half to finish and it just felt like more of the same. Then chapter 4 was more of the same, then chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 etc.
Every chapter in this game feels the exact same, it's the videogame equivalent of being in groundhog's day. As you progress through the game you get these Dark Gifts from bosses and I thought they'd be used to spice up level design and offer some interesting puzzles but no, the way these are utilized is so surface-level. You see a big gap? Use the Jump spell. You see an NPC in an area you can't get to? Use the charm spell. You see a green seal? Use Telekinesis on it. It's so bland but you do these in every level multiple times and it's Boring.
When you're not doing the same thing with dark gifts for the 20th time in a stage, you're fighting enemies and almost every enemy encounter is the exact same shit. SR2 had braindead combat where you mashed the square button and could sometimes kill enemies in one swing, it sucked, but was atleast quickly over and done with. In contrast to this, Blood Omen 2 prioritizes defense since enemies seem to be infatuated with blocking Kain's attack in this game so you're best off blocking their attacks and trying to punish afterwards. If you can hold block as the enemy hits Kain 5 times, then dodge out of the way in case they do an uninterruptible/unblockable attack then congratulations, you beat Blood Omen 2 since that's what every single enemy encounter boils down to, even the final 2 phases of the final boss are beaten in the same vein of blocking 5 attacks. dodging their next attack and then attacking back. By the endgame, the game decides to break its own rules by having enemies that can't be punished even when they should be so you're best off hitting them with Immolate, one of the dark gifts that one shots enemies once the bar is full which can only be done by blocking attacks. So most of the time, you're just stood there waiting for the enemies to attack and it's Boring, yet the game has the uncanny ability to turn to being aneurym-inducingly annoying the instant you fight two or more enemies since they'll circle around you to hit you where you can't block and disengaging from combat to get a better position feels so stiff here. Keep in mind you're best off fighting and killing as many enemies as you can to get your lore meter up, and that includes watching the same blood-sucking animation over and over and over and over and over again and I think I spent almost 2 hours of my full playthrough doing nothing other than watching this animation play.
When you're not fighting enemies or using dark gifts, you're flipping switches. SR1 had a hard-on for block-pushing whereas BO2 seems to have a fetish for having you flip switches. Blood Omen 2s idea of good level design is by having a locked door that you need to turn the only switch in the room to open and you do this ad nauseum throughout the game, to call this game's level design amateurish is selling it short. The game does try to have puzzles, and some are okay, but they're extremely few and far apart. The game even has a few block pushing puzzles and they're somehow worse here than in SR1 since you're only able to push them forward and backwards from where Kain is standing. But that's the jist of BO2s gameplay, it's basically like 17 hours of unnecessarily long combat encounters and laughably banal puzzles. It's insane how this game manages to be the longest LoK game by some margin yet is the most empty and desolate in its gameplay.
But okay the gameplay is a travesty but gameplay always felt like an afterthought when compared to the polish and care that goes into the plot of these games so how good is BO2's story? Well, BO2 decides to take the series in a bold new direction by being the only LoK game to have an underwhelming plot. It's set in an alternate timeline and I never got over the dissonance that's felt between this game and the other entries so it was hard to get invested. I also don't really care for how they're treating Kain's character here, I hate the idea of him getting usurped after BO1s ending because to me it just lessens the impact of the first games ending, other than that Kain just doesn't do much here. He spends the whole game doing what the resistance tells him to do like he's an obedient errand boy, even getting betrayed in the process. Characters like Janus and Vorridor make a return here but it's never explained how they're alive so their appearances are more confusing than anything and in terms of graphics, dialogue and cutscene direction this game is uncharacteristically weak when compared to the rest of the games. A lot of the designs look so strange with Kain looking like a rodent and Vorridor looking like a reptile and in cutscenes the models are so wooden, which is made blatantly apparent when contrasted with how expressive SR2s characters were. The shakespearean dialogue of past games is heavily decreased here. Dialogue as a whole is just lesser here, there are no vista markers that have Kain comment on his situation and it's a damn shame because their addition could've really helped these areas not feel as vacant as they end up being.
I wasn't even going to originally play BO2 because I was aware of how this game is viewed by the fanbase but curiosity got the better of me and I ended up suffering through it despite wanting to put it down multiple times. If I could turn back time like I'm Mobius then I would because this game did nothing for me, you're better off just watching a plot recap and skipping straight to Defiance. This is probably the worst thing I've ever played
It didn't start off that way to be fair, I had fun for the first two chapters because the game does add some positive changes to combat. The sound design saw a big step up and Kain's claws felt way more impacful and satisfying than the flaccid wraith blade that Raziel used, the lock-on and dodge also feel much more responsive in this game. The biggest thing I liked though, was the lore meter which increased as Kain drew blood from enemies and with enough blood siphoned, Kain's health would increase. This seemed like such an amazing addition since it meant that enemy encounters actually served a purpose now so for once in this series, I felt motivated to fight enemies. I liked the game for the first hour, but then chapter 3 happened, took me an hour and a half to finish and it just felt like more of the same. Then chapter 4 was more of the same, then chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 etc.
Every chapter in this game feels the exact same, it's the videogame equivalent of being in groundhog's day. As you progress through the game you get these Dark Gifts from bosses and I thought they'd be used to spice up level design and offer some interesting puzzles but no, the way these are utilized is so surface-level. You see a big gap? Use the Jump spell. You see an NPC in an area you can't get to? Use the charm spell. You see a green seal? Use Telekinesis on it. It's so bland but you do these in every level multiple times and it's Boring.
When you're not doing the same thing with dark gifts for the 20th time in a stage, you're fighting enemies and almost every enemy encounter is the exact same shit. SR2 had braindead combat where you mashed the square button and could sometimes kill enemies in one swing, it sucked, but was atleast quickly over and done with. In contrast to this, Blood Omen 2 prioritizes defense since enemies seem to be infatuated with blocking Kain's attack in this game so you're best off blocking their attacks and trying to punish afterwards. If you can hold block as the enemy hits Kain 5 times, then dodge out of the way in case they do an uninterruptible/unblockable attack then congratulations, you beat Blood Omen 2 since that's what every single enemy encounter boils down to, even the final 2 phases of the final boss are beaten in the same vein of blocking 5 attacks. dodging their next attack and then attacking back. By the endgame, the game decides to break its own rules by having enemies that can't be punished even when they should be so you're best off hitting them with Immolate, one of the dark gifts that one shots enemies once the bar is full which can only be done by blocking attacks. So most of the time, you're just stood there waiting for the enemies to attack and it's Boring, yet the game has the uncanny ability to turn to being aneurym-inducingly annoying the instant you fight two or more enemies since they'll circle around you to hit you where you can't block and disengaging from combat to get a better position feels so stiff here. Keep in mind you're best off fighting and killing as many enemies as you can to get your lore meter up, and that includes watching the same blood-sucking animation over and over and over and over and over again and I think I spent almost 2 hours of my full playthrough doing nothing other than watching this animation play.
When you're not fighting enemies or using dark gifts, you're flipping switches. SR1 had a hard-on for block-pushing whereas BO2 seems to have a fetish for having you flip switches. Blood Omen 2s idea of good level design is by having a locked door that you need to turn the only switch in the room to open and you do this ad nauseum throughout the game, to call this game's level design amateurish is selling it short. The game does try to have puzzles, and some are okay, but they're extremely few and far apart. The game even has a few block pushing puzzles and they're somehow worse here than in SR1 since you're only able to push them forward and backwards from where Kain is standing. But that's the jist of BO2s gameplay, it's basically like 17 hours of unnecessarily long combat encounters and laughably banal puzzles. It's insane how this game manages to be the longest LoK game by some margin yet is the most empty and desolate in its gameplay.
But okay the gameplay is a travesty but gameplay always felt like an afterthought when compared to the polish and care that goes into the plot of these games so how good is BO2's story? Well, BO2 decides to take the series in a bold new direction by being the only LoK game to have an underwhelming plot. It's set in an alternate timeline and I never got over the dissonance that's felt between this game and the other entries so it was hard to get invested. I also don't really care for how they're treating Kain's character here, I hate the idea of him getting usurped after BO1s ending because to me it just lessens the impact of the first games ending, other than that Kain just doesn't do much here. He spends the whole game doing what the resistance tells him to do like he's an obedient errand boy, even getting betrayed in the process. Characters like Janus and Vorridor make a return here but it's never explained how they're alive so their appearances are more confusing than anything and in terms of graphics, dialogue and cutscene direction this game is uncharacteristically weak when compared to the rest of the games. A lot of the designs look so strange with Kain looking like a rodent and Vorridor looking like a reptile and in cutscenes the models are so wooden, which is made blatantly apparent when contrasted with how expressive SR2s characters were. The shakespearean dialogue of past games is heavily decreased here. Dialogue as a whole is just lesser here, there are no vista markers that have Kain comment on his situation and it's a damn shame because their addition could've really helped these areas not feel as vacant as they end up being.
I wasn't even going to originally play BO2 because I was aware of how this game is viewed by the fanbase but curiosity got the better of me and I ended up suffering through it despite wanting to put it down multiple times. If I could turn back time like I'm Mobius then I would because this game did nothing for me, you're better off just watching a plot recap and skipping straight to Defiance. This is probably the worst thing I've ever played
Hejin
5 months ago