When Legacy of Kain: Ascendance was announced, I felt a wave of nostalgic joy overwhelm me. I was a fan of the series when it came out in the late 90s and early 00s, and I was ready to embrace a return to Nosgoth. This spin of the wheel of fate, however, was a bit wobbly.
A Nostalgic Return That Falters
We are introduced to series newcomers Elaleth and Ky’set’syk, a vampire and mysterious mystic, respectively. Elaleth is trapped in time, appearing at random intervals throughout Nosgoth’s history. She is on a quest for revenge against her brother and to revive her lover.
When I heard the term brother, alarm bells rang in my head. “Please don’t go where I’m thinking!” was going through my mind. But sure enough, Elaleth was indeed an unspoken sister of one of the main protagonists. Her random appearances in time also insert her into every major event in Nosgoth’s history.
I later learned the plot was heavily inspired by a 2025 Kickstarted comic book, which was also criticised for its lacklustre plot and shoehorned in characters. After reading it myself, I can confirm it’s a pointless telling of events between the end of Soul Reaver 2 and the start of Soul Reaver.
A Barebones Platformer
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance presents itself in the most basic terms as a pixel art 2D platformer. A pretty uninspired one at that. You have basic jumping controls, an attack, and a feed button for replenishing health. You will need this as Legacy of Kain: Ascendance decided that your health should drain constantly as you suffer from the blood thirst.
This mechanic is not new to the series by any means, but it is so unbalanced here. Health drains so much faster, and it commits the cardinal sin of killing you. Previous games would drain you to a minimum, but wouldn’t actually kill you. Pair that with the large amount of damage you take from sources, and it’s a lesson in frustration.
Multiple Characters: Variety Without Depth
You don’t just control Elaleth, although Legacy of Kain: Ascendance‘s plot is mostly focused on her. Every couple of levels, you jump between Raziel and Kain as well, each offering different move kits. Some have a slow descent, others have some limited flights. Each character has a dive kick, which makes the game feel like it. Which is often your best choice for combat.
Combat is also lacklustre. Your weapon has no attack arc, so it will only stab directly in front of you. You do have a parry, but enemies rarely telegraph their attacks, so half my successful parries were from lucky guesses. Enemy AI is atrocious. Melee fighters will swarm you, and ranged fighters will constantly try to make distance, regardless of the environment. I saw plenty of enemies blindly jump to their death or just get stuck against walls.
Borrowed Ideas Done Poorly
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance‘s level design is bare bones; it is just left to right. There’s no encouragement for exploration. Especially since there’s a time limit on your health. Damage sources are not well telegraphed either. A torch, which seems to be part of the illumination, is actually a hazard, but only if you’re jumping. Checkpoints are also infrequent, with either huge gaps in between hordes of enemies or placed so that you take unavoidable damage upon respawn.
It’s like the developers looked at classic Castlevania and tried to emulate it without understanding what made it work. Difficulty was substituted by overwhelming enemy placement, including spawns behind the player. There are no enemy movement patterns, so you have to manipulate the AI. Even some of the character walk animations seem to be “inspired” by later Castlevania titles.
Bizarre Design: From Unfair to Trivial
There were more bizarre choices made as well. Halfway through the game, a level revolves around answering trivia about the series, completely halting the flow. Another was mostly based on flight, but since the flight mechanic seemed to be modelled on Flappy Bird, this, too, was a level of frustration.
Boss encounters don’t escape the bad design either. At first, they seem wildly unfair, until you discover “the trick” and each encounter becomes a pushover. The first boss, for example, rides back and forth across the screen, doing massive damage while you barely get a hit in. Normally. When I figured I could keep dive kicking them, they could even touch me, and it just became a game of waiting for the health bar to go down.
A Lack of Cohesion
As for the presentation, all I will say is PICK A DAMN ART STYLE! Honestly, it feels like the story was chopped up between different teams who didn’t communicate with each other about what they were doing. We have visual novel-style Live2D scenes and in-game animations, a transition to 3D models, goofy pixel art cut scenes (in fairness, I later learned these were lifted directly from the comic source material), and then classic 2D hand animation at the end.
A Rare Bright spot
Audibly, though I will give it credit. The game is fully voiced with some real talent. Including some of the surviving original cast. And they all do a fantastic job. While I’m not going to be unfair and criticise the passage of time, it is worth noting that Simon Bell, the voice of Raziel, has aged audibly. But he is almost 90 at the time of recording. The music was an original composition by Celldweller, and while it was moody and energetic, it wasn’t in line with the classic Legacy of Kain theme and felt out of place.
An Echo of Greatness
In conclusion, it’s a mess. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is not even a shadow of the former series, more like an echo. Distorted and indecipherable. There’s a term I came across that perfectly sums how I feel: “cultural fracking”. It’s about extracting the last remnants of something, while leaving no foundation to build anything meaningful.
I’m seeing it more and more as nostalgic properties are getting “reunions” or unnecessary sequels long after their time.
As Kain once said, “But suppose you throw a coin enough times… suppose one day, it lands on its edge”. Well, this time the coin did fall on its edge, but it rolled down the street and into the gutter.
Developer: Bit Bot Media
Publisher: Crystal Dynamics
Played on PC
Key Provided by Lurkit
About the Author
Ha, I was wondering how this review would come out
Having been on the streams when you played it i too was filled with that inexorable sense of dread at what had become of the beloved franchise.