Toothless

The 'Metroidvania' genre is one that is pretty close to my heart. When Legacy of Kain: Ascendance was revealed to be in this genre...I was over the blood red moon. A day after release I started to view some of the early Steam views - I wish I hadn't looked. Reviews are currently sat at a 'mostly negative' rating, but I decided to go ahead and give the game a fair shot. The game opens up in pretty bland fashion; Your character appears and there's a little dialogue between main character Elaleth and the mysterious Ky'Set'Syk. After a few paragraphs you're spreading your vampiric wings and traversing Nosgoth.

This stage plays out in the same way many modern video games do. You'll be taught how to parry, which is a bit of a waste considering enemies don't live long enough for you to use it. You'll be taught how to suck blood and so on. If you don't find this opening segment to be particularly exciting then you're going to be disappointed, because gameplay doesn't get any deeper. There are no upgrades of any kind, no progression systems...nothing. You'll spend the majority of your time jumping over lit torches or spamming the action button to flap your wings over more fiery obstacles. Enemies are stupidly easy to dispatch and they have pretty poor AI; I lost count of the times when they'd wander off a ledge or simply just stand there waiting to be attacked. Level design is uninspired and lacks any sort of discovery. The bosses are timid and rather bland and they represent very little challenge. Pretty much every boss can be beaten by spamming the jumping special attack. If that fails, then you can abuse the dodge which has a ridiculous amount of invincibility frames. If I wanted to be brutal, I would compare the quality of gameplay to that of a beginner's Godot or Unity game. I'm not sure if the developers were overly confident that their gameplay was any good. This is highlighted by way too many checkpoints. You'll often get through a really irritating platforming segment that lasts less than a minute, only to be given a checkpoint - Rinse and repeat for most of the level. You'll get to play as Raziel and Kain in addition to newbie Elaleth, but neither are particularly fun to play, unfortunately. The voice actors for Raziel and Kain return, which is one of the few positives alongside some decent sound design.

Woe to the gamer

The gameplay is wrapped up in a story that never gets interesting. The standard of writing isn't very good. It's up there with...my reviews. Ouch. I beat the game less than thirty minutes ago and I don't even remember much of the story. Honestly, if just felt so very forgettable. This is a real shame, because the lore and story of previous Legacy of Kain games is fantastic, especially that written by the wonderful Amy Hennig. Unfortunately, she is no longer involved with the series. The game is also incredibly short. I beat the game in two and a half hours and I'm actually glad it didn't drag on for longer. An asking price of £15.99 seems a bit steep for a game of that length and for a game that has virtually no replayability. Drive a wooden stake into my heart, I am done.