Legacy of Kain: Ascendance Review
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance returns to Nosgoth in a retro 2D action platformer built around sword combat, platforming, and return performances from fan-favorite actors.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance. Credit: Bit Bot Media / Crystal Dynamics
The Legacy of Kain series has been dormant for over 20 years outside of remasters, rereleases, and comics. Now players can return to Nosgoth in retro-styled 2D action platformer Legacy of Kain: Ascendance. Is this a satisfying revival? Not really. On the surface, the game understands the appeal of the franchise. Gothic melodrama, haunted ruins, fan-favorite actors. The problems start if we go any deeper.
Ascendance jumps between Kain, two versions of Raziel, and newcomer Elaleth across a story that acts as both a prequel and a partial retelling. Fans will recognize major events and characters immediately, though newcomers are probably going to struggle to care. The game dumps lore through conversations, collectibles, and awkward PS1-style 3D sequences that look conspicuously out of place. The writing swings wildly between entertainingly theatrical and painfully overwrought. By the final act, I found myself warming up to it anyway, mostly because the returning voice actors sell the material harder than the script deserves.
Combat revolves around chaining sword strikes, dashes, and parries, though you can get through most fights barely engaging with the parry mechanic at all. Enemy variety stays thin, so encounters quickly blur into repetitive slash combos against enemies that rarely force you to adjust. None of the playable characters feels distinct enough to meaningfully change the rhythm, either. Some can fly. Others can’t.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance. Credit: Bit Bot Media / Crystal Dynamics
The platforming drags things down further with level design that’s boring at best and dated at worst. Stages often ask for blind jumps because the camera never lets you look up or down. I shouldn’t need to gamble on whether a landing is safe in a game this focused on precision movement. A better version of Ascendance would feel old-school without being so dated.
The pixel art sprites are solid, especially during combat animations, but the environments blur together, repetitive and low in detail. The traditionally animated cutscenes are rough enough that I kept wishing the budget had gone into improving the actual gameplay presentation instead. They look like a forgotten American fantasy cartoon from late-1980s television, and not in a charming way.
There’s still some appeal in revisiting Nosgoth and hearing these characters again. Legacy of Kain deserved a comeback, but not like this. A 2D action game based on the franchise could have been great. Ascendance is forgettable at best.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance revives Nosgoth with strong atmosphere and returning performances, but the combat and platforming rarely rise above forgettable.
