Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Developers
	Silicon Knights
Windows	Semi Logic Entertainment
Publishers
	Crystal Dynamics
Windows	Activision
Release dates
Windows	August 31, 1997
Reception
IGDB	85
Taxonomy
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Adventure
Themes	Fantasy
Series	Legacy of Kain

Legacy of Kain
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain	1997
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver	1999
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2	2001
Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2	2002
Legacy of Kain: Defiance	2003
Nosgoth	Cancelled

Key points

Some crashes and other issues on modern operating systems, though modded exes fix this.

Unofficial patches eliminate loading times.

40 FPS lock (slightly slower animations than PSX), 15 and 18 FPS FMVs. Fixed in OpenGL wrapper.

FMVs have inferior video quality compared to the PSX and have mono audio, though there are patches that replace the videos.

Some sounds are inferior in quality to the PSX i.e. voices of the spirit forges and blood fountains lacking reverb and vocal distortion, though a patch can be used to fix this.

General information

Square Enix Legacy of Kain series forums

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Physical copy protection: bad sectors.

New copies and digital distribution unavailable due to legal issues with past developers and publishers.

Essential improvements

Verok's GL wrapper & patch

Windowed mode support, FMVs plays without interlacing, optional unfiltered scaler, WinXP/7/10 compatibility fix, removed CD check, 60 fps support like in PS1 version, optional PS1 fmv support, HQ cutscenes with stereo sound, subtitles and more.

Includes the HQ Sound Patch.

CubanRaul's modded exe

Fixes a host of crashes, fixes credits, fixes speed bugs, removes the CD check, and offers its own installation method that allows for modern path characters such as parentheses. Replaces and supersedes Raistlin633's modded exe.

Peixoto's patch

• Allows nearest neighbor or xBRz scaling
• Fixes the color bug on Windows Vista and 7
• Fixes artifacts on the mouse cursor
• Adds full compatibility with XInput controllers with working triggers and dpad

HQ Sound Patch

Replaces some of the lower quality audio files in the Windows port with those from the original PlayStation release.

HQ Sound Patch[citation needed]
Download HQ Sound Patch and extract the files. Follow the instructions in the readme.txt file.

Bink Video Support Pack

A compilation with every Bink video support patch from NosGothica.org, which has shut down.

Includes Bink files of the FMVs from the PSX version, which have better video quality and stereo sound.

Install Bink Video Support Pack[citation needed]
Download Bink Video Support Pack and extract the files. Follow the instructions in the readme.txt file.

HQ Video Patch

Replaces every video in the Windows port with Bink conversions of the FMVs from the original PlayStation release.

The PSX videos have better image quality compared to the NosGothica patch.

HQ Video Patch[citation needed]
Download HQ Video Patch and extract the files. Follow the instructions in the readme.txt file.

Skip intro videos

Instructions[citation needed]
Go to <path-to-game>\kain Delete/Rename actl001.jam LOGO001.JAM SK.JAM If you've converted the videos to Bink video, then the files you have to delete are the same, but now have the .bik extension.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\SAVED\

Config files are not in plain text format.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\SAVED\

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		640x480, 640x480i, and 320x240 pillarboxed only (latter 2 accessible by pressing F12 in-game).
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Use DxWnd or Verok's GL wrapper & patch.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS		40 FPS lock, 15 and 18 FPS FMVs. Use Verok's GL wrapper & patch to increase the FPS.
120+ FPS		Gameplay is tied to the framerate and going above 60 FPS makes the game play too fast.

Input

Control options.

XInput - Verok's GL wrapper & patch

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		Use Peixoto's patch or Verok's GL wrapper & patch to add proper support for XInput controllers.
Full controller support		Cannot quit game or skip FMVs (hard-coded escape key). Qualifies otherwise.
Controller remapping		Uses numbers, not face buttons
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Audio

Audio options.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sound and music.
Surround sound		Possible via OpenAL with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
Subtitles		Possible with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Losing focus causes screen to go black. Transitioning FMV<->Game fixes.
EAX support		Possible via OpenAL with Verok's GL wrapper & patch

English subtitles.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				Subs possible with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
French
German
Hungarian				Subs possible with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
Italian				Subs possible with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
Japanese
Brazilian Portuguese				Subs possible with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
Russian				Fan translation by Allard. Subs possible with Verok's GL wrapper & patch
Spanish				Fan translation.

Issues fixed

System Locale/Language Check Failed

Error message for an "invalid locale".

This error occurs on game startup with modern Windows when your language for non-Unicode programs is set to something the game doesn't "support" (note that in practice the vast majority of games run fine on different locales from their own).

Change the language for non-Unicode programs[citation needed]
Go to the "Region" Control Panel. Go to the "Administrative" tab, then press "Change system locale..." under "Language for non-Unicode programs". Set the system locale to one the game supports, such as "English (United States)" for the US release. Notes Exact steps vary slightly depending on your Windows version. The above is for Windows 8.1.

Game Crashes When Loading a Save or After Playing the Introduction Cutscene

Disable Data Execution Prevention for KAIN.exe[citation needed]

Go to the "System" Control Panel. Press "Advanced system settings" tab, then press "Settings.." under "Performance". Go to the "Data Execution Prevention" tab, check "Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select:", then press "Add...", then go to the game's path and add KAIN.exe to the list. Notes Exact steps vary slightly depending on your Windows version. The above is for Windows 7.

Game Freezes After Initial Dialog in Windows 9X

After the introduction of the game the screen freezes. This bug is active when your computer's performance is too high for your game requirements. To prevent this from happening it is necessary to decrease the FSB (Front Side Bus) frequency to reach a value that does not cause problems with the game, usually 100Mhz or 66Mhz. It is the frequency of the FSB clock that will determine how will the performance of the motherboard and processor of a machine. For those who do not have hardware with this configuration capability a less efficient alternative is to use software specialized in occupying processor resources to slow the execution of applications, known as "cpu killer".

Other information

API

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 100 MHz	Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM)	16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	12 MB
Video card (GPU)	SVGA 1 MB of VRAM
Sound (audio device)	Sound Blaster compatible
Other	4x CD-ROM