The first four Legacy of Kain games were up and down in terms of quality. The games also kept a sharp divide between the wannabe vampire lord Kain and his servant-turned-wraith Raziel. The fifth (and, it turns out, final) game Defiance was to bring the two together and bring an end to Raziel's story. While this game did go for the gold, it just couldn't stick the landing.
The plot of this game assumes that you know everything that happened in
Soul Reaver 2; so, I might as well not bother with a spoiler alert. The chapter-based narrative shifts between the two protagonists. Kain is in pursuit of the master manipulator Moebius who engineered everything that happened to him since the beginning of
Blood Omen. Raziel is rebelling against the Elder God that turned him into the soul-sucking wraith he became since he discovered the master plan to wipe out all vampires. Both plots are told extremely well. Though Kain and Raziel have their own goals, they become more intertwined until they connect at the end. The discussions of the nature of fate can get tiring but no more so than in the previous games. It helps that the returning voice cast give their all. Their performances are as strong as ever, particularly from Simon Templeman and Michael Bell in their final turns as Kain and Raziel respectively.
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It's a good thing the plot is so strong because the gameplay has taken a major turn for the worse. While most of the previous games took cues from Zelda but still felt very much like their own thing, Defiance is a straight-up
Devil My Cry rip-off. Worse, it's not even a very good Devil May Cry rip-off. Kain and Raziel only have the Soul Reaver for physical attacks, no other weapons to pick-up or use. While both characters have a number of attacks and combos at their disposal, flailing the buttons tends to work just fine. There's none of the technique required in Capcom's game. The combat is just mindless. The only unique element is that Kain can can choose between two ways to finish a subdued foe, sucking his blood to restore health or impaling him with the Reaver to gain magic power. Worse, the puzzles that I thought were excellent in the previous games are gone. In their place are basic get-the-key-and-use-it "puzzles" that were already passe because of their overuse in the Resident Evil games. The most creative moments were a couple of points that required Raziel shifting between the spectral and material realms, but those are far below similar moments in the first Soul Reaver.
Though the visuals are excellent, even by current standards, and the framerate stays at a perfect 60 fps, the worst thing graphically about the game is the camera. This game switched to a fixed camera setup like Devil May Cry, and it actively hurts the gameplay (though not nearly as badly as
Dino Crisis 3). I lost count how many times a camera shift kept me from seeing what I was doing. I had to target psychokinetic blasts at archers I couldn't even see at one point! The platform jumping got infuriating at a few points because of the camera views. The camera didn't kill the game, but it certainly didn't help it.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance isn't a bad game, but it is a finale almost as disappointing as Star Trek: Nemesis, Dexter, or How I Met Your Mother. The epic conclusion of the story of Kain and Raziel was the only thing that compelled me to brave through the mindless combat, annoying platforming, and lame puzzles. Those who are not completely invested in Nosgoth's lore have no reason to load this up; they can just stick to Devil May Cry. Those who are can get the closure they want and never touch it again.
