Legacy of Kain: Ascendance Review(Playstation 5) Review

If you ever wanted a single reason as to why I don't demand revivals to long dormant franchises I enjoy, stories like Legacy of Kain Ascendance and The Dead Shall Rise graphic novel by extension are why. More often than not, they usually turn into the what is known as the "monkey's paw". Everything about this game and the graphic novel makes me ask, "who in the hell is this even for?" Long time fans are obviously alienated by it but this whole thing didn't even bring in any new comers either. The only reasons why I'm not harsher on this game and why I beat it is due to the short length and story mode. Music is also surprisingly decent which I'll give. I mainly checked this game out of being a fan of the franchise and curiosity.

Unusual for me but I'll start with the gameplay and it's terrible. You think the Symphony of the Night inspired visuals might decieve you into thinking this might be a solid if by the numbers 2D action game but it isn't. I don't mind that it's not a metroidvania or that it forgoes the exploration that games like the first Soul Reaver attempted. LoK never had a truly set gameplay style to get attached to.

At the same time, the level design is terrible the moment you boot up the game, it's full of awkwardly placed traps that are hard to avoid even on platforms that shouldn't even have them since that is where the player could land.

Combat is terrible and I lowered the difficulty to story mode with infinite health due to the parry system not adding much and especially those awkward knife throwing enemies that dart around and move much faster than you do.

Story mode won't completely absolve everything however since there are times where levels have death pits and other times where you can descend lower into the level geometry. There are other platformers that do this but I'm not big on when they do it either.

There will be other awful moments like when Raziel gets his wings and the controls for descending are very stiff and unintuitive.

For some reason, the game even includes trivia game at the Pillars with Kain and Ariel and recall how I asked who was this even for? Why would you have the first LoK game in over 20 years include a trivia game that doesn't add anything to the story.

Might as well cut to the chase. This isn't a brand new LoK game, it's more of a video game adaptation of the recent Dead Shall Rise graphic novel. To put it lightly, the source material is a poorly written mess. What was promised as a midquel that takes place between Blood Omen and Soul Reaver turns out to be an excuse for a Sosuke Aizen retcon inducing original character to ravage her way through all of the franchise's most interesting moments.

I already knew I was in for how poorly written Elaleth was going to be when Raziel kills Janos Audron in Soul Reaver 2, not because he was an arrogant religious zealot but because he wanted to avenge her. There's other infamous moments like Kain killing Raziel's parents turning a character who was once a well intentioned extremist into a generic evil villain you'd fine in some revenge story. Elaleth suggesting to resurrecting Raziel and the Sarafan. It's not because Kain was so cool that he wanted to keep his enemies even closer it's because of some stupid Aizen style retcon. The story even making out that Kain really was jealous of Raziel's wings.

Elaleth herself isn't very compelling since her backstory is very poorly defined due to a badly directed and composed scene of Raziel killing her dead boyfriend. It's so awkwardly put together that it's hard to tell if Raziel was trying to help her or was scared out of his mind. Most of her interactions just consist of her constantly whining about how much she wants Mathias to come back. I could tolerate this but the story never gives any geniune interactions between her and Mathias to even warranting her endless constant mention of her.

Then there is awful writing without Elaleth like how there's a chase scene between wraith Raziel and Sarafan Raziel during Soul Reaver 2 but this can't even possibly happen due to the player controlling the former the entire time when heading back to the Sarafan Stronghold.

The one that really permeates everything is seeing Kain get overly annoyed and reacting to Sarafan scriptures as if he really would care about anything they would have to say.

Yes, the guy who said the line, "hate me Raziel but do it honestly" would really care about these petty writings.

At the end of the day, this all links back to what I said at the start. Who is this even for? Long time fans are appalled by the terrible writing. The gameplay isn't good enough of as a 2D action platformer to warrant the price of admission. It also expects you to be familar with the series due to that trivia game. You are left with a game and by extension story that fills in a niche for no one. Due to the stories like this, I'm more happy that dormant franchises I enjoy are stay dead.