Parismio

THE FUTURE IS YOURS!

  • He/Him

Just seeing a blob about a glob


Kerrik52
@Kerrik52

Kain's "lonely" trek through the Vampire Citadel continues, with this half being much more fulfilling than the singular mural guarded by a few too many statues was last time. Combat remains a bit tiresome as the feral humans do not have a new type to entertain us with, but our time-to-mural for this level is pretty good.

Kain: How, as the Vampires began to die out, the Pillars summoned human Guardians to fulfill their roles. It seemed the ancient Vampires had adopted – and, when necessary, abducted – the human Guardians, and made vampires of them when they came of age. Until the humans rebelled against their masters… And here I made a surprising discovery: it was Moebius the Time Streamer, and Mortanius, Guardian of Death, who led the bloody revolt. Now I understood why Moebius hated me so intensely. I was the first vampire Guardian in all these centuries – and he knew what my coming signified…or perhaps I reminded him of all he had forsaken.

Yet another good twist that deepens the significance of our limited cast of characters. One could almost assume that Moebius at one point had...noble aspirations, given the child-abduction he opposed, but I am convinced he just wanted the seat of power for himself after realizing the vampires were doomed. Something he has enjoyed in the centuries, if not millennia, since. Though the Elder God could have whispered the idea in his ear as well.

An important part of "grey-on-grey morality" or "grey-on-black morality" stories is that everyone is properly motivated. One does not need to root for every single party, but each faction/character should have an understandable position that explains their actions.

The Elder God may be a voracious parasite, but something so "big" having a motivation so "small" really adds to the "selfish and petty old man" vibe they were going for. And the Hylden as a people were mutilated beyond recognition in their banishment, so one could almost consider them heroic if it was not not for the whole "genocide machine" in Blood Omen 2.

Humanity as a whole though feels like an afterthought in the whole ordeal, as we have never played from their perspective and the only thing they accomplish of importance is at the behest of Moebius. And the Elder God, by extension. So with that in mind, Janos' position of pity for them makes sense.

Thinking of them like blind children lashing out against eachother, having no idea they are stuck in the aftermath of a world-altering war. I do not know what the trope of "the mechanics of human existance were rigged centuries before you were even born" is actually called (I have seen it in a few other works), but it is always so thrilling to realize how a setting truly works after being given more context. Bonus points if it is something horrific that makes the "current" conflict feel completely pointless in retrospect.

Of course, let us not forget the maze-like path our ex-human protagonists have taken to navigate all this influence in order to try and find a path that gives Nosgoth some manner of peace and prosperity. They are heroic in that sense, but have still murdered countless people to walk that path. Kain as a budding vampire realizing his selfish ambitions and Raziel as an indignant zealot.

These "sins" of pride and wrath still define them, but having walked their respective paths (willingly or not), while guided by destiny and curiosity, they have grown to oppose all this "corruption" that has hung over this franchise since the beginning. Heroic stories are ever-present for a reason, but seeing one emerge, bit by bit, from such monsters as the "answer" to such an awful world, like a pearl emerging from a mountain of garbage, makes it shine all the brighter.

Speaking of round and shiny objects:

Kain: The orb that once opened this portal had been destroyed. To power it, I would need to find a substitute.

Finding an extra teleportation orb is not a terribly complicated fetch quest (though it involves more statues than I care to comment on), but I did hit a minor snag trying to progess.

I am not sure how dumb I was, but when it comes to game design language, few things scream "Insurmountable Barrier" to me like these kind of iron bars/fences do. Especially since every single forge in the game is full of these kind of gates like you see in the background, which are actually impassable and meld into the background very quickly.

Moments like these are why the whole yellow paint thing has been on the rise, as it is incredibly difficult to communicate traversable geometry without giving up entirely and just colour-coding everything or putting down cartoony arrows everywhere (which got mocked for a level in Hi-FI Rush to great effect).

Generally, the solution to do it "correctly" is to just invest in a ton of playtesting, which not everyone has the resources for. And even if you do, there is no guarantee the game will end up better for it if the resulting "guidance" (companions in God of War Ragnarok come to mind) breaks the spell that makes the player feel smart for navigating something meticulously designed to be solved. No one solution fits every game, nevermind every player and in this case the mean people over at Crystal Dynamics made my brain feel small. :<

Kain: - the bearer of the Reaver blade. And here too was his Hylden adversary, with blazing eyes, brandishing a flaming sword. Two heroes locked in combat which only one would survive.

Kain: - possible outcomes. I didn’t know what Moebius was trying to concoct, but this all seemed too convenient…

Well that just raises further questions. Like "What is the game building towards?" and "Did the Ancients have a single prophet who could do their job correctly?".

The final fragment of the Balance Emblem is guarded by the gargoyles all too familiar in Raziel's levels. But since Kain cannot become invisible, we instead need to blind them. Which is a clever inversion reusing a gimmick the player is already familiar with, but it takes all of 35 seconds to flip the TK switches and activate the emblem locks strewn about in the room to achive that, so it is not exactly a brain-bender.

Kain: I now had the means to unseal the mysterious chamber at the heart of the Citadel.

As per the style of the time, this last fragment is the Time Fragment, which naturally triggers a slowmotion spell of questionable usefulness. I find it fun to look back on all the time mechanics that came about during the first half of the 00s. I never found them to be overplayed myself, but I seem to recall there being a bit of pushback on them after the magic wore off. Nowadays, they still show up from time to time, but they are not the technical show pieces they used to be.

At the heart of the citadel, there is naturally one last mural to gawk at:

Kain: - damning them to a kind of spiritual purgatory. But why were they compelled to seal this chamber so securely? Perhaps the lock was not meant to keep intruders out, but to imprison something within...

Elder God: Savior of Nosgoth.

Kain: What is this?

Elder God: Your arrival is foretold... The Fates have willed it.

Kain: Is that so.

Elder God: I am the Oracle of your ancestors. I can provide the answers you require...

Kain has no idea...

KAIN HAS NO IDEA! WE HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR AND KAIN DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT THE ELDER GOD IN THE SLIGHTEST!

I love this revelation, since the game does not linger on it at all, meaning they trust you to realize the implications yourself. For as long as Kain has tried to lecture Raziel on the ways of the world since Soul Reaver, he has been missing a critical piece of the puzzle that Raziel has held on to and been none the wiser. This anchors Kain in the human ignorance I talked about earlier, meaning he still has a lot to learn before we can untangle this mess.

Elder God: You needn't speak; I know your mind. You seek knowledge of your creature, Raziel... this I can offer, if you will look.

Elder God: He journeys now to Avernus Cathedral to seek the Heart of Darkness. You know what this means...

Kain: And why would I trust your prophecies?

Elder God: These events are already written, just as you feared. But there is still time; he can be stopped.

Elder God: I may aid you in this regard as well...

Elder God: This task is yours to carry out... since it was you who made him what he is. When you are ready, you may pass through.

Kain: I knew of course that this 'oracle' was not to be trusted. But in the end, what choice did I have?

Well, you could simply take it chill and wait out the 500 years and hope that you do not get staked in the meantime. Moebius' murder mob will not get murder-happy for another 450 years, so the odds could be worse.

Kain: This peculiar sensation was familiar to me -

Kain: In this regard, at least, the oracle seemed to have been truthful.

Elder God: I have delivered you faithfully to the very hour you desire. You know what must be done, Kain. There is only one way to prevent Raziel from doing great harm.

Kain: He is not my enemy.

Elder God: But you are his...

Kain: From this vantage point I could see the city of Avernus in flames. The oracle had indeed brought me to the time it promised. It might also be true, then, -

Kain: If so, he had to be stopped. I could not allow Janos to be raised.

Kain is right. If Janos is revived, Blood Omen 2 can happen. Raziel must be stopped. Until then, keep our remaining quandaries in mind like usual:

  • "Why did Janos' Guardian peers die out?"

  • "What happened to Turel?"

  • "Why did the Reaver try to consume Raziel if his destiny is to wield it?"

  • "Who is the adversary of the vampire savior?"

  • "Who will be the winner in the battle for Nosgoth's future?"

  • "How was Janos revived?"

  • "Why does Raziel have free will?"

  • "What changed the mechanics behind new Pillar Guardians being chosen?"

  • "What is the context for the two remaining visions of the future in the Chronoplast?"

As always, Vae Victus!

  1. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #1 - Enter the World of Nosgoth
  2. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #2 - Kain's Rebirth
  3. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #3 - Vengeance Sated
  4. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #4 - Quest For the Pillars
  5. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #5 - In the Shadow of Nupraptor's Madness
  6. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #6 - Homecoming
  7. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #7 - Vorador's Decadence
  8. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #8 - Denizens of Dark Eden
  9. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #9 - Azimuth & Avernus; A Calamitous Combo
  10. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #10 - The Plight of Willendorf
  11. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #11 - Redeemer and Destroyer
  12. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #12 - The Essence of Blood Omen
  13. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #13 - Shifting Perspectives
  14. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #14 - Eternal Agony
  15. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #15 - Abysswalker
  16. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #16 - Melchiah's Malevolent Mausoleum
  17. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #17 - Paternal Matters of the Soul
  18. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #18 - Silent, But Deadly
  19. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #19 - Tomb Raider
  20. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #20 - Wet & Hot
  21. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #21 - Dumah's Demise
  22. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #22 - A Fatal Slip
  23. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #23 - A Tale That Wasn't Right
  24. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #24 - Soul Reaver Ad Astra
  25. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #25 - A Generational Leap In Sass
  26. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #26 - The Start of the Full Circle
  27. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #27 - Beauty Beyond the Fissure
  28. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #28 - Dark Blessings
  29. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #29 - History and Destiny Collide
  30. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #30 - Lost in the Future
  31. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #31 - Blowing Hot Air
  32. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #32 - The Tenth Guardian
  33. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #33 - The Edge of the Coin
  34. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #34 - Soul Reaver: Da Sequel
  35. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #35 - Another Bloody Mess
  36. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #36 - A Great and Terrible Nap
  37. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #37 - Gutter Trash Mobs
  38. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #38 - Gounod Never Intended For Grand Guignol With Bad Bosses
  39. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #39 - Messy Meals
  40. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #40 - We Cringe and We Pay
  41. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #41 - Charmed, I'm Sure
  42. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #42 - A Stone's Throw
  43. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #43 - Here There Be Demons
  44. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #44 - The Mass of the Device of the Builder of the Lost Thesaurus
  45. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #45 - The Plot Came Back
  46. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #46 - What If Kain Was BETRAYED and LEFT In the Wharf?
  47. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #47 - Credits, Beautiful Credits
  48. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #48 - The Absolute State of Video Games in 2002
  49. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #49 - One Last Throw Against the Tyrannous Publishers
  50. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #50 - Our Two Heroes
  51. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #51 - The Upper Hand
  52. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #52 - Material Realm, Material Problems
  53. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #53 - Pathways of the Pillars
  54. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #54 - Vorador's Crib
  55. Kerrik52's LoK Retrospective #55 - Time For A Dip

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