GOG finally has Blood Omen! - gog.la/HeartOfDarkness THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo Near three years after this video and the rights legal hell ended. I'll get to the rest of the games one day.

As I surveyed the area, I noticed an old fool inhabiting the town square, rambling on about something. There was nothing else in the area so I indulged my curiosity. The man, who called himself Mandalore, was spouting nonsense about an artifact he called the "Blood Omen". He would soon discover my sacred nobility, for I rewarded him handsomely with a subscription.

The "Evil Ending" is also the canon ending since it's the one 'Soul Reaver' picks up from.

10:18 The skeletonized body of MandaloreGaming was found in a forest near his home only a few days after this conversation

I literally used to open the inventory and cycle through all the items just to hear Simon Templeman say their names over and over. THE HEART OF DARKNESS... THE PENTALICH OF TAROT... THE SOUUUUUWL REAVER...

I love how the video glossed over how Kain got his revenge against those who killed him like 10 minutes after becoming a vampire; and the rest of the game is "well, I might as well find the necromancer who cursed me, kill the evil monsters who stand in my way and incidentally start restoring the land back to balance"

>Legacy of Kain Oh boy, I can't wait to play as my present self killing my past self with my future self in a room that symbolizes us killing each other.

The voice acting in the whole series was amazing. I was extremely impressed as a child; it's completely different than anything I had seen before in games.

Just want to acknowledge that even in spite of its age, this video uses the chapters feature. The dedication is not unnoticed, good job

"Sometimes they get stuck inside you and you have to wiggle out of them" - Mandalore 2018

Good to see you're taking your meds again Sseth

Years later and I'm still hoping you cover more Legacy of Kain games.

Want to mention - paired axes with flesh armor is epic combination. Since you cant drink stuff while whirlwind attack, you become surrounded by whirlwind of blood, that slowly being absorbed by armor.

Voice acting that is both hammy yet good. It's a weird duality.

My friend! How did you not mention that you can even beat bosses with mind-controlled late-game enemies? I really enjoyed fucking around in this game as the many different enemies i could mindcontrol and play as until they died. One time i spend 3 hours as one of these red knights with two-handed swords and beating up that strange commander in his castle. Was incredible and i miss games doing this.

The quality of Kain saying _"I will not deny you!"_ is just so excellent. Operatic and fun and full of confidence of performance. I wish villain characters and anti-heroes were brought back in this fashion. I like that Kain's existence may suck (haha) now but the game goes out of its way to make it fun and dramatic for you. That levity of experience and sheer drama is forgotten by games today. It's a damn shame.

Game has finally been freed from it's legal disputes!

Usually when I see reviews of older games mentioning the voice acting is high quality, theres a rose colored glasses filter going on that they seem to hear and appreciate the voices more than the actual quality it brings out, this was nothing like that. those lines were amazing, the tone he spoke them with spot on & sounded very fitting. Good stuff.

" _Rumored to have been ripped from the greatest vampire to ever have existed - Janos Audron - The Heart of Darkness restores vampiric Unlife._ - " _Life, is precious._ " _Janos discovered --- as it was torn, throbbing and bleeding from his own body._ " I adore, Legacy of Kain. The voice acting, the writing style, the story. Everything about it. I watch, rewatch and rewatch again the cutscenes to the point that I know just about every line in my head. So I enjoyed this video, it was a very nice one!

Finally on GOG! :D

Simon Templeman's voice acting is on point. Sometimes, I just load up a game near completion, then I open up the menu, & listen to him describe all the different stuff he has collected, & learned throughout the game.

>Next video is on "a card game" Hype for Yugioh Forbidden Memories

Tony Jay also played Mithras in Sacrifice and Megabyte on Reboot. He was the man. RIP Tony Jay.

When I play Dragon Age, I can't help but think of Loghain as Kain before he becomes a vampire. End of the game you can have him do a blood ritual that kills most people. Wouldn't you know it? Drinking blood, he's just fine. Can't imagine why. ;) Warlord 2.0 Still waiting for a final installment, though reboots seem to be all the rage these days.

I would love to hear your take on the rest of the series, Legacy of Kain is one of my all time favorites, mostly because of the elaborate story and voice acting. I really love Kain as a character, he is so interesting and different from other protagonists, not a standard brooding antihero he is truly a pompous self-absorbed asshole of a villain, but considering the stupid amounts of power he keeps acquiring it makes sense for him to indulge his ego in this way. I really appreciate your uploads, keep up the good work.

you truly are an artist never stop what your doing man, Great content

10:15 jumpscare warning. 3 spoopy 4 me

3:50 And one very annoying drood

"The only gypsy magic you learn is being able to transform into a poor migrant" 😂

Time fades even legend, and the origin of the Soul Reaver has been lost long ago. But its purpose remains - to feed on the souls of any creature it strikes. Kindred, this blade and I.

Hey hey people, Mandalore here

Thank you for highlighting one of my old school favorites in Blood Omen. Yes, the voice acting (with Simon Templeman doing a bang-up job as Kain) and dark tone made it stand out for its time. The only two regrets I have about this series is a) how convoluted the time travel element made later games and b) how the story remains unresolved.

The closest thing to a Elric of Melnibone videogame.

Please do entire series, we will love you long time.

Legacy of Kain is an interesting series when you consider how much of it was a happy accident. For starters, development switched hands from Silicon Knights to Crystal Dynamics after Blood Omen. Whatever plans there were the for the rest of the series, including that twist final boss, were unknown to Crystal Dynamics who just had to piece ideas together. Soul Reaver wasn't originally even planned as a Legacy of Kain game, something that is usually a recipe for disaster. But it helped that even though that game and its sequel switched to a new character named Raziel, the series still had the awesome dialogue that fun to listen to in the original so Raziel avoided being a boring character. Also helping things is that given Blood Omen's ending, making Kain a full blown villain for the sequel was the logical next step. Soul Reaver was originally intended to be the end of the series, but not all the planned content for it could be finished in time, including its final few levels. As a result a more complex plot was written involving time travel and Kain having this grand scheme instead of just being a straight up villain. Blood Omen 2 was also not originally intended as a Legacy of Kain game, and unlike Soul Reaver that did not work out for the better, turning it into the black sheep of the series. In terms of plot you can actually skip the game, there is nothing essential explained that isn't also explained in Defiance. And why does Kain need people to explain abilities to him in this game, everywhere else he doesn't need people to explain items and abilities, he can do that himself. Defiance was better received than Blood Omen, but not well enough to continue the series. Which is a shame since it did nicely conclude some major plot points and from where it ended its sequel looked promising, at least in terms of writing. Unfortunately, Defiance's writing and dialogue were about all it had going for it. Mechanically it was mostly a generic Devil May Cry clone that offered next to nothing in terms of gameplay you couldn't get out of better hack and slash games like the previously mentioned DMC or Ninja Gaiden. As such it wasn't able to sell well enough for a sequel to get greenlit. I had hopes of seeing the series cliffhanger finished, but given all we got is some generic MMO, that is probably never going to happen. From what I have heard about the other planned entry in the series, something that was announced in 2011 and cancelled, it's probably for the best the series doesn't get picked back up. That game had none of the feel of the original series, not to mention the series iconic characters were nowhere to be seen in its footage.

Such great content - research / delivery / editing the whole package. I've watched a lot of your reviews and each one is excellent. Cheers.

Tried this after seeing the video - the in-game menus are fantastic, everything is animated beautifully.

"Paid for by the many members of the merchant's guild."

"Of all the methods I employ, this is by far the coolest"

One of the greatest hidden gems of the playstation era. I would almost call this more of a dungeon crawler/action rpg.

Loved this game when it first came out. Still remains in my top 10 favorite of all time. Couldn’t help but imitate Kane’s voice. Then when dragon age origins came out, so many memories flooded back when I first heard Loghain talk. Over all, good review 👍🏻

Me:*Notice Blood Omen Review by Mandalore* STATUS OF THE NUT:BUSTED

I sense... Rules of Nature!!!

I've written an entire guide on Legacy Of Kain's story line. I think it's one of the most complicated and best storyline in video game's histoty.

I love your use of Grabbed by the Ghoulies music during the credits. Underrated game with an underrated soundtrack PERFECT for Halloween.

A warrior sentenced to hell, then brought back by a necromancer? ...man, i have JUST started replaying Revenant! Now that's a review I'd love to see here.

That graveyard, the runes, when translated with the user guide, gives the devs names. Also there was a major glitch that affected diagonal things. In fact the wolf dungeon had to be re-designed after a endless jump glitch was discovered with the diagonal jumping.

i looked up 'loreal werewolf' i found literally nothing of interest

Alright Mandalore, what madness have you brought us this time?

11:23 thanks doc

Great video as always!

You even put the song in the captions… goated I been fw your videos since I was 13/14

There is a magical operation of maximum importance -- the initiation of a new eon. When it becomes necessary to utter a word, the whole planet must be bathed in blood...

9:04 I did not expect that. LOL. Great review, as always.

I always love these trips to gaming past with Mandalore.

Finally on GoG! And maybe, just maybe... one day there will be a glorious remaster.

I see Sseth took his adderall

Still clinging to hope it will drop on GOG someday.

10:20 Mandy screams like a little girl and I love him for it.

Nosgoth was amazing, just needed some more work. I miss it :(

THIS IS ONE IVE BEEN WAITING FOR So when’s LoK Soul Reaver

I loved this game. It was one of my favorites from the original Playstation. I don't feel like it gets enough respect for how great it was. I loved the whole series too. I wish they would bring it back.

Please do the entire series, the story and voice acting is top notch

Usually when I subscribe to a review channel it ends in me only watching reviews for the games I'm personally interested in... but Mandalore man I don't know how you do it, you make me personally interested in every game you review

10:20 Quality scream

Any video featuring Tony Jay VO is 5 stars in my book

I've never seen your channel before but this video randomly popped up in my recommended and I got super excited thinking this was a review on a remaster for the games. I want one SO bad! But I stayed anyways and I love the review, you got my sub :)

Oh man, you really got my hopes up when I saw you did this video. I thought gog already made a port. Still love you did a review on a game from one of my favorite series.

Wonderful game, great to see you cover it. Any game with the voice talent of Simon Templeman and Tony Jay together is a gift from heaven!

One of my Top 10 all time favorite game, spent some many hours on it. Easily my favorite in the franchise. I wished we could have a remaster or a pure remake for this someday.

I love this game. Finding the soul reaver and one shotting demons was so satisfying. Finding all the armors and deciphering the books to find all the magic was awesome.

I love that you did this game. It was one of my fav PlayStation launch titles that I remember getting when it first came out in the United States as a kid. It was def a new take on Zelda for me.. and I loved it. My one big gripe with this game is that I could never understand the voice acting without subtitles, it was so hard to understand anything the people were saying

Instant like cause of Rules of Nature. As always, these reviews are a treat, thanks!

For the longest time, I have been looking for this game. (Memory loss so the name escaped me) All I remembered was getting stabbed in the beginning of the game. Thanks a lot... and I cannot play it anyways haha

Your vids are glorious keep up the great work

Mandalore you don't know how happy it makes me to see this. The Legacy of Kain series is one of my all time favorites and Soul Reaver specifically is the game that both inspired me to want to make games -and- want to be a writer. I seriously hope that one is on The List, too.

It's funny. Despite the fact that some of my teachers in college worked on these games, I've never played one. Thanks for giving me a glimpse of what I've missed out on!

*AND THEY RUN WHEN THE SUN COMES UP* *WITH THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE*

I appreciate the fact that you cut "Rules of Nature" juust before the "ALIVE" part. Fitting.

I like your review and your humour as well, keep the good work bro, subbed and liked

“Woe to The Conquered” Everything in this series has so many quotable scenes.

Suffering to the Conquered, brothers.

Love this game. The music, voice acting and script are very good. It is also quite lengthy, especially if you want to explore everywhere and find all the secrets. An all time favorite of mine.

Thank you mandalore-chan!

This game is a 10/10. Bloody classic.

*”Vae Victis!”*

This was the 1st game i played on the PS1 and i immediately fell in love with it. The atmosphere was so captivating.

MY DUDE Thanks for the vid

LoK is one of my favorite series of all time. Playing this back in 1996 was a revelation in all regards.

I almost broke my friggin finger clicking this video. LOVE the legacy of kaine series💖💖💖💖💖

Love your content, keep it up man.

Oh man...A Mandalore review and a Ross's Game Dungeon video in the same day, this will be good!

I actually played this recently on Mednafen. Such a gem of a game.

I wana buy you a beer, Mandalore. Thanks for being the best.

Great video you got my sub. Never played this game growing up I started with Soul Reaver. Recently went back and replayed and it’s become one of my favorites.

Very good video, as always, maybe I will check out that game at some point!

Amy Hennig was part of this game, I think she mentioned being an assistant to the main writer at some point and she was the one who wrote the remainder of the Legacy of Kain series.

Holy shitt dude that skeleton moment was top tier. Frollo was also in armed and dangerous, a really really good game.

This is so well timed! I wish I caught it on Halloween.

Hell-O! I'm a new, proud subscriber. Great content, bud :3