I know most people want to see Blood Omen 1 and Soul Reaver 2 here next, I know i want to see Soul Reaver 2 as its the only missing game of the series I need to have all the series on PC. I feel I must give some love to the black sheep of the series Blood Omen 2.

While the game does have some glaring storyline issues. (which is not as bad as it once was since LoK: Defiance cleared some of them up) I still actually find that Blood Omen 2 is actually one of the more fun games in the series to sit down and just play.

The PS2 and Xbox versions of the game were plagued with so many bugs it was ridiculous. I've owned well about 7 copies of the game over the years and have beat the game on every gaming machine it was on. I've beat BO2 about 13 times and have start and stopped countless other play throughs. But I have had little to no trouble with both the Gamecube and PC versions of it.

Taken as a game on its own, and not held up to the inconsistencies with the rest of the series. Blood Omen is well "above average" as far as a game goes. The storyline and scripting on its own is great. The voice acting is superb. The visuals were great for their time. I still think the settings especially in like the city areas are very atmospheric. The music is great. Kains Blood Omen 2 theme (resused for him in Defiance) is outstanding.
The gameplay is fun and highly satisfying with so many ways; some funny, some brutal, throughout the game to kill your foes.

Not to mention the game even though linear still gives you 20-30 hours of playtime.,That's ALOT for a Action/Adventure title. Soul Reaver 2 barely makes it to 9-10 hours and Defiance goes only to 15. Plus it can have some fun replay, with the ability to replay wearing Kain's BO1 Iron Armor and wielding the Soul Reaver.

I will always stand by this in the Legacy of Kain series. Soul Reaver 2 is probably my favorite to experience the story, it is so perfectly balanced and presented it's a joygasm for the ears and mind. But Blood Omen 2 is actually the most fun to just play. You're Kain, you're a badass vampire, now go kill stuff.

I hope we see it here on GoG this year. I don't think it will take much to get it working, I think I did very little, installed, applied its patch, set it compat to windows 98(so it uses only 1 core) and works perfect. It will be an instant buy for me as long as I'm not broke.

I want to see the entire series here, at GOG.com :D, including Blood Omen 2.

I still have this game for PS2 like new (as all my favorite games from the past), and I liked a lot (maybe I was one of the few). Except for some little inconsistency in the story and what we saw in Soul Reaver 2, I really like it.

As long as it's not overpriced I probably would get it if it came to GOG and give it another shot, lord knows I did it recently with Ultima 8 despite swearing up and down for a long time that if it came here I wouldn't waste my money on it and I'm kinda glad I did, probably because the completionist in me felt compelled to get it since I already had 1-7 and UW 1+2. Now it's not a great game by any stretch of the means but it's not as god awful as I remember outside of the fact that all the traps are rigged with explosives and a few other short comings.

So I'm sure I may have the same reaction to Blood Omen 2.

Yeah I think a lot of people if they take step back from the game and take it more as a game on its own rather than a vital part of LoK and aren't plagued by the console version glitchfests. A lot more people would love it.

I do know the game on the Gamecube Nintendo never had any LoK games other than that one and for many gamers on the Gamecube it was the one and only one they played and they tended to like it.

I typically had the same reaction as others when I very first played it on PS2 (the worst version to play) Basically what the hell did they do?! The story has major plot holes, Carol Wolf while very good writer is not as good as Amy Henning so the script was good but not the shakespeare quality you find in Soul Reaver 2. The graphics look nothing like any other entry in the series (being left over pieces of a canceled Chakan reboot) and gameplay wise it really wasn't like either Blood Omen or Soul Reaver.

It was such a sore spot as LoK having just got done with Soul Reaver 2 was at it's peak of interest, so much speculation and buzz as to what was going to happen to Raziel and Kain. it clouds the judgement of LoK fans as to the true quality of Blood Omen 2. I dunno why I was more forgiving and stubborn and really found a love for the game, where most others didn't.

Same. I loved every bit of blood that flew in this series. Yes, even the tainted blood :) The PC version is bugged as well, even v1.02. It frequently crashed to the desktop with no error messages. I tried to run it again today, and it froze the whole system. So yeah, like I said, bugged.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see it here, hell, it's a part of my favorite series.

Are you making sure to run it with only 1 core? I was having issues till myself until I was disabling all but 1 core for the game. You can do it manually by:

Start the game -> Ctrl + Alt + Del -> Start Task Manager -> Processes -> right click on game.exe -> SetAffinity and uncheck all but 1 of the cores. If done this way you have to do it every time unless you make a bat file to do launch that way.

Or

I do believe setting it to compatibility mode windows 98 will do it to. I'm pretty sure if you set it to windows 98 compat mode, admin rights. You can got check it and it'll be using only 1 core.

But no I"m not saying there is no bugs in PC BO2, but I have been through it a few times on XP and Windows 7 on different machines and have far far less trouble. And I stopped getting freezes when I did the above.


Basically set it to use one core and when playing make many save games so if there is any unfortunate save issues you'll have back ups. I've learned that with my dealins with BO2 all around no matter what system you play it on.

BO2 got a lot of flak for dumping the cool bits of BO1, and for bringing back Vorador.

Personally, I feel in many ways it a better game than SR2. There, I said it.

Now, before I get tarred and feathered, take a second to think about it.
BO2 had much better, tighter combat. It's not Defiance, which went over the top with it (especially the aerial combat), but it's miles ahead of anything either Soul Reaver did.

Also: the setting. and, in particular the NPCs. BO1 started out as an RPG-adventure--essentially, a Gothic Zelda. SR (both games) and Defiance dropped the premise entirely, focusing on the story. (Well, SR1 did have exploration, still, but that got dropped by the time SR2 was released). BO2, otoh, took a stab at putting some of that back into the game. Meridian wasn't JUST all dungeons and enemies (though admittedly, it was 85% that). But it also included bits and pieces of a living city, and the wetting of giant steampunk machines was simply spectacular.

What I'm trying to say is, we all know LoK is all about THE STORY. that's the reason the series hasn't been revived yet--the gameplay was never anythign to phone home about, (which is why They.Kept. Changing. It. In. Every. Single. New. Iteration. Of. The. Series.). And, naturally, because of this, SR2 is praised, and BO2 is damned. But, as a standalone, on every single level (except STORY--which is the most important from an LoK perpective), BO2 can stack up to, and in many areas, even surpass SR2.

that being said, I will not be happy untill we get a release of BO1, because that game is better than all other LoK games combined.

The problem (at least for me) was at the time that it was made by a different team and on a different engine. I remember at the time thinking all those differences were down to somebody who had no clue of the game (series) taking over. The BO2 engine just looks ugly, too square or something and they even still have the car controls in place from the racing game it was made for. The story didn't hold up much for me either as there was a lot of new characters and it seemed to fly completely in the face of the history set up in Soul Reaver. Suddenly there's a few hundred years before Kain makes his (REAL) Lieutenants and we aren't even given an explanation as to what context we should be looking at the game in.

That being said Defiance was far and away the most disappointing game in the series for me. "Let's make it like Devil May Cry only without even half the moves" they said. "Let's make it seem really low quality by making everything smaller and by adding false walls", they said. "Let's make the player reacquire all the Reaver enhancements from the last game (which means this is the 3rd time in a row I have to get that fshgjnhylkvujhiklhujgoius Fire Reaver!!!)", they said. "Let's make none of the Reaver upgrades seem to have any difference other than as different keys", they said. "Let's not even tell the player why he has to reacquire all the Reavers again and the let's spit in their face by telling them in a press release after that the explanation was left out so that new players to the series wouldn't get confused", they said.

I've just bought Soul Reaver (for the 3rd time) from Gog. When the other games in the series come out I'll probably buy them too. Thinking about all this again has really made me question whether or not I'd be able to give BO2 a bit more love this time around. I just hope the rumours of them making a new one are true.

If you can just step back and look at Blood Omen 2 as either

A. An altered timeline created by the events of Soul Reaver 1, 2, and Defiance.
(one of the only things Defiance did well was help explain Blood Omen 2) This is what the game really is now. When it was released we didn't have the plot fixes of Defiance so it was just a big mess of plot holes and an outrage to LoK Fans. Now that we know it's actually an altered timeline, not the original timeline, not Kain's original path its plot holes are no longer plot holes just a different flip of the coin than the original time.

B. Or Just play it and enjoy it a just a game, try not to link it to the series directly. Like many Gamecube players did back when it came out for them as the only LOK game they had.


If you view BO2 in one of these ways it will help you enjoy it. Also keep in mind that Blood Omen 2 doesn't really focus on storyline like the others. It's there, it's decently scripted very well voice acted but the gameplay actually takes center stage. The various weapons and abilities and ways to kill people. Its really quite fun.

I intend to replay it again. I've lost count of the amount of times I've played it, but I'd say it's safe to assume at least twice per platform that I have it on. So, that would be a minimum of 4 times. I'd imagine at least half the times I played BO2 were after Defiance. But I intend to play it again now, when I'm older to see if my adult brain isn't more capable of fixing it together.

But what always and still bugs me, why not just explain somewhere, somehow that you are living a different history in BO2. That and take the maps of England and Ireland out of it. I mean, first they invent Meridian which isn't on any map I have (seriously, I have looked at maps of Nosgoth to find it) then they add real life islands to a fictitious land.

the Blood Omen 2 events are the result of the history shuffle at the end of SR2, Kain mentions them, so it was explained how it fits in. Instead of Kain raiding the Sarafan Tomb and getting his lieutenants, he (very likely) raises Vorador instead to get an army fast to counter the Hylden Lord´s rise to power. As the HL wasn´t part of the original timeline, Kain had time to raise the Sarafan brethren over time.

But this theoretically puts back Raziel's conversion. This doesn't seem to be possible as nothing happens to Raziel. What it seems like to me is somebody tried to shoehorn an extra few centuries into the story before Raziel came along so that they could keep the BO and SR storylines separate. Just like they tried to shoehorn in a love interest into the life of a creature who doesn't reproduce sexually and is selfish to the point of no return.

I realise that I may be hijacking this thread a bit so next time I will try and say something a bit more positive about the game. :)

Those shoehorned 500 years were mentioned throughout Soul Reaver 2 first, before BO2 was released, so I don't know about that.

Huge spoilers people.

One thing to keep in mind is Raziel is immune to Paradox, Kain discovered this and used this to change history. Raziel and his twin soul, the Soul Reaver being intertwined give him a unique nature allows him to have real free will. The timeline as they state again again hate paradox and will do everything it can to fix it. So while the change in the timeline may screw up the original plan for Raziel, Raziel isn't effected by it.


So Blood Omen 2 can still occur even though Raziels future has been changed or eliminated.

There is also a large amount of time between Blood Omen 1 ending and Soul Reavers beginning. It's like 1500 years or so. Blood Omen 2 takes place 400 years after the events of Blood Omen (and Defiance for that matter) and it's altered.

Even in the original Blood Omen there is vast time differences. THe opening movie of Vorador attacking the circle of nine was 500 years before Kains initial adventure. (And to be technical it was 5000 years according to Silicon Knights, but Crystal dynamics goofed that up in Soul Reaver 2 and made it 500 and since 5000 only appeared on a Q and A with SK then it was forever changed in Canon.

Have you ever seen Back to the Future Trilogy. Where Old biff goes back and changes things, which creates an alternate timeline? This is basically what occurs in Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance the changes they make here skew the timeline off into a different version. In this version Kain resurrects Vorador, Raziel resurrects Janos. The Resurrection of Janos gives the pure Vampire body the Hylden Lord needed to put the events of Blood Omen 2 into action. Whether it was old or young Kain the resurrection of Vorador allowed for a quick creation of new vampires. Which Young Kain needed to have any hope against this The Sarafan/Hylden Lord

Remember Kain is a necromatic Vampire and he himself is not able to create vampires the same way as normal ones. He has to give part of his soul to do so and he doesn't learn how for hundreds of years.

Another thing just to think of for the hell of it, in Blood Omen 2 the Soul Reaver being used is the Soul Reaver that a purified Raziel is absorbed into at the end of Defiance. Making The Soul Reaver in Blood Omen 2 more powerful and pure than the Soul Reaver that Kain used against Raziel in Soul Reaver 1

I never thought Raziel was immune to Paradoxes. The way I've always seen it is that Raziel was the single person in history that has true free will. The one person who's actions (or mere presence) allows history to be changed while everyone else just moves trough in a reactionary way, only ever being a part of the equation, as it were. Raziel's presence changes the equation. That is, he causes paradoxes which is quite different to being immune to them. I even remember Raziel was saved by Kain from going into the Blood Reaver at the wrong time, thereby altering the events of history. This proves, (if I'm right) that Raziel is actually affected by paradoxes.

Now, what I mean about the timeline is that, Blood Omen ends, Kain creates his Lieutenants and takes Nosgoth for himself and the Vampires. That is what we are led to believe happened in Soul Reaver (whether or not it did). The Empire then crumbles into decay as the vampires Kain has given life to, slowly lose interest in the world, having basically run out of new experiences and eventually going feral (probably not for the same reason). What we are then told in BO2 is that in fact there was a couple hundred years before Kain made his Lieutenants and that there was other vampires around. If this is caused by Kain merely lying to his Necromantic Vampires then it all makes sense. If this was caused by changes in the timeline that change the point in time that Raziel is made by Kain, then it doesn't make sense. Raziel would have changed, or at least known and that would invalidate a lot of what happened in SR1 which I think is bullshit. Of course these aren't the only two possibilities, there could be an amalgam of both or maybe something I haven't thought of.

Either way, my problem was that it wasn't explained at the start of BO2. Now as promised. BO2 has far more action elements than SR2 and never ever once makes you backtrack half way across the world you just trekked across because they ran out of time and didn't have enough space to add the story elements to. Or more positively, tonnes and tonnes of levels. Unique power ups and a nicely (if too controlled) implemented stealth kill feature. There is tonnes of hours gameplay in it and when it comes onto Gog it will be well worth the price and I will buy it in a heartbeat (available funds depending).