Legacy of Kain Defiance: Remastered GBAtemp review
PlayStation 5
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): March 3, 2026
- Release Date (EU): March 3, 2026
- Publisher: Crystal Dynamics
- Developer: Crystal Dymanics/PlayEveryWare
- Genres: Action Adventure
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- PEGI Rating: Eighteen years and older
- Also For: Computer, Xbox Series X|S
Game Features:
Having never played any of the Legacy of Kain games to date, I have to question why. What about it has never captured my attention? What are the driving stories and tales about? Why are they remastering them? Is it time for a revival?
With the success of 1996's Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, a spin-off named Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver quickly followed it up in 1999. The Sequel to Soul Reaver, named Soul Reaver 2 landed in 2001, but it was only in 2002 that a sequel to Blood Omen was released, aptly named Blood Omen 2.
Come 2003, another spin-off named Legacy of Kain: Defiance landed and reviews were decidedly mixed. Whereas the original game was praised for, well, originality, and the two Soul Reaver titles praised for puzzle elements, Blood Omen 2 was already showing signs of series fatigue with reviews pointing out "tedious" puzzles yet compelling game play. Defiance was meant to juggle the combat of the Blood Omen games with the puzzling of the Soul Reaver titles, but was it worth the effort for Crystal Dynamics and Eidos to have remastered?
A Mixture of Game Play, Confusing Story Overall
The Legacy of Kain: Defiance HD remaster does exactly what it says on the tin. It gives the 23 year old title a fresh lick of paint while retelling the exact same story it did those two decades prior. Essentially, Kain (the vampire lord) along with Raziel (star of the Soul Reaver games) go back in time to restore Nosgoth to its former glory, banishing any wrinkles in the timeline that caused it fall into wrack and ruin.
As an absolute newbie to the series, it was up to me to play the game for what it was, a part hack and slash blood-sucking vamp game, half puzzling soul-collection simulator with paradoxical time travel and a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo I cannot wrap my head around involving the characters each wanting to become one with the Soul Reaver blade at some point, but then not, again, because they save each other from it.
There are a total of 13 chapters, and a bunch of puzzles to solve as you alternate between the two characters, which was a first for the series back in 2003. I can see how it breaks up the game into two distinct parts, and it does prevent you from getting entirely bored by one environment, by shunting you into another for a bit. The back and forth does build up the story line, and there are some intriguing moments, but nothing that captured me and enveloped me enough to keep me wanting more.
Crucially the linear corridor-style levels all look relatively similar, and thanks to no mini map and no hand holding (which is usually a good thing), I found Kain's portion of the game extremely difficult to navigate in some sections, purely because everything looked the same. The first couple of chapters fly by, but getting stuck and going around in circles trying to figure out where you went wrong and which way to proceed was constant and tiresome.
I wont sugar coat it; Kain's combat feels terrible. I'm not being unkind when I say that this particular "hack and slash" is extremely underwhelming in terms of exciting combat choices. It's repetitive, wave based, chopping at guards or archers or wizards or what the hell ever I'm directing the sword at, it's just plain uninspired.
Sure, you have some telekinetic powers to pick people up and slam them about, but it doesn't work very intuitively, and it takes a few goes to get your foes picked up and shaken, or slammed or whatever. You also have a kind of Hadouken TK blast thing too, which only comes in useful for hitting switches, or crumbling walls, if you can visually identify them.
Also, giving special moves exotically elaborate names like "Cadaverous Laceration", "Perforate Carcass", "Infernal Sundering" (whatever that means) and "Nightmare Hammer", for example, doesn't make the moves any less shit once performed.
Raziel's Part is The Better Half
Let it be known that Raziel's half of the game was notably trippy, with strange visuals throughout his platforming-focused contribution that really detracts from the experience and makes it harder to enjoy, regardless of the graphics mode you're utilising.
Where Kain is a ground-based heavy hitter, Raziel is a quicker, more balletic, attacker with better moves that involve jumping around and juggling combos. This is where it stopped being better though, because essentially the combat looks and feels identical across both characters, with almost the same moves; it's no where near differentiated enough!
I actually began to enjoy the platforming, having figured out that walls you could scale were barely different in look or texture to the rest of the now high definition bland backgrounds. At one point I stood staring at the screen, trying to identify which wall was climbable and coming to the conclusion that the developers wanted to give you as little "yellow paint" as possible to follow, so that you can eke out your own route, but there is only one route.
Collecting things, hitting switches and swimming become tiring and monotonous quickly though. It's rather disappointing all told.
Systems in the Game Feel Imbalanced
Throughout Kain's side of the escapade, you have what is called a "blood hunger" constantly biting at the back of your neck, so you essentially need to suck captives or thwarted enemies dry for health continuously on this restrictive timer mechanism. If you run out of blood: Boom! You become a cloud of bats. Die, you explode into a colony of bats, and fall in water, you guessed it, a bunch of freaking bats.
Equally, Raziel has a soul hunger. This mechanic just feels like it pressures you keep moving throughout the game, as if being chased up and across various platforms by rising threats wasn't enough, you need to keep yourself fed. Raziel's design is my favourite of the two, with his emaciated skeletal look with more interesting colour palette giving him a truer feeling of adventure and survival. I think I can see why the Soul Reaver games did better than the Blood Omen ones, and why I remember my friends avidly playing it on their Dreamcast; Raziel is more visually interesting, more dynamic and more cranial than the purely mindless hacking and slashing with Kain.
The duo can learn shared attacks, and both have individual techniques to acquire too, but I don't understand why in the fifth game they're still learning these basic techniques like uppercuts? Surely they're badass after their previous outings by now? Oh, also both can gain elemental powers too which add a short lived burst of dopamine and can affect entire groups of enemies rather than one at a time.
Speaking of which, I noticed that during combat each enemy waits for the other to do their thing before attacking, which means you never get attacked by two or more enemies at the same time. One literally watches and waits as you slay their work colleagues before attacking the exact same way the one who just dies did. Combat in this game is so lackluster it's laughable.
There are skins to unlock within HD mode for each character too, some look really cool such as the keeper of secrets for Raziel and even his beta and concept designs, others include the the Hylden warrior, for example. Kain's armor sets look a million times cooler than the garments he's been given to wear as standard, it's just a shame these skins don't work when you switch back to the classic, PS2 graphics mode.
Along your gothic quest, you have a constant sword/wraith or health dilemma. Do you feel yourself, or do you feed your blade? Feeding yourself keeps you alive and kicking, but feeding your brand the blood/souls of your kills powers it up somewhat and delivers quicker kills. This is a decent mechanic, but again it feels a little imbalanced at times. For example, why not just automatically give half and half? Or why not give yourself the blood to stay alive and sated until you're full, then give the rest to the sword as a kind of power up bonus? I guess it's resource management, and you could have a badass sword/wraith with next to no health left, so you only have yourself to blame when you die.
The leveling up is kind of odd too, with what seems like an arbitrary numbers system hidden in the menus, and no relation to that in general gameplay. I had no clue that I was leveling up, nor that I needed X amount of XP to level up to the next level and unlock the next special move. I appreciate fans are saying that the menus now look ten times better than they ever did, more clean and concise, but I still never felt any need to be in there enough to absorb all the stuff it contained. Perhaps I'm missing something big here, but I just killed, automatically learned new moves every so often and moved on. No drama.
HD Vs Classic Comparisons:
This HD remaster has two modes by tapping the R3 button, one that looks exactly like it did on the PS2 and ones that has higher resolution textures, enhanced models, a smoother frame rate and a better camera system, something that the original release was panned for. Here are a couple of quick comparison shots to give you the general gist of how it looks:
(Remastered graphics on the PS5 Pro show similar colour palettes, but more intricate detailing and better materials.)
(Classic: Has the typical PS2 look to it. Kain's model is notably different in the face, but generally textures look far better and models look to have a higher poly-count in remastered mode)
(PS5: HD HUD takes up less screen space, textures are sharper but feels washed out)
(Genuinely not that much difference in either mode. Classic mode looks dimmer and flatter, while remastered looks a little washed out but with greater detail across the general picture.)
Technically the game runs well, with a nice solid frame rate and far better performance than it would previously have had on PS2, Xbox or PC, but there are still pop in issues in the periphery and terrible CPU controlled enemies. Perhaps more effort should have gone into enhancing what was wrong with the game fundamentally (remake over remaster), rather addressing minor quibbles and giving it a spit and polish texturally.
Riding on The Success of SR1+2 HD Remaster
If you ever were a fan of this game, then this might be for you because it continues the story and expands the universe somewhat, improves the issues the OG release had with camera angles and fixed the menus that were previously noted as being cluttered an confusing. Otherwise, I cannot find enough redeeming features to give this any sort of recommendation to newcomers. I didn't personally enjoy the story or the lackluster combat or "exploration". Nor did I like the systems and mechanics under the hood or even the remastered textures plastered over the top of it.
In summary, I found this game boring with uninspired and monotonous combat, and in my opinion it was totally unworthy of the time and expense of being remastered at all.
Verdict
- Updated graphics and frame rates
- You can switch between old and new GFX
- It's still plays like a mediocre 23 year old game
- Repetitious & uninspired combat
- Overly simple puzzles
- Horrible level design
- Bonus content is naff
