[ Legacy of Kain: The Lost Worlds ]

Alternate Malek Boss Battle

article by Ben Lincoln

 

The 12 July, 1996 version of Blood Omen features an unfinished, alternate version of the battle between Kain and Malek.

In this version, it is necessary to use the mace to hit Malek until a "vibrating metal" sound is head. While this ringing/vibrating is occurring, Malek is vulnerable to having his blood drained. Curiously, his blood is red, not blue (as if he were a ghost), even though he no longer has a physical body. When his blood is drained, his armour temporarily collapses to the floor as it does after he is damaged using other means in the final version of the game. After approximately five such attacks, his armour stays in pieces on the floor. The battle is unfinished, and it is not possible to trigger his final "energy wave" attack (although the sprite information for it is present in the game data) or to use the teleport pad in the southeast corner of the room.

Additionally, if the Inspire Hate spell is used during the battle, Malek will attack the empty suits of armour instead of Kain.

This version of the battle may have been designed after the removal of the Open-World Design, as without the linear progression, there would be no guarantee that the player would possess the mace by the time they reached Malek.

In the final version of the game, the mace does not damage Malek at all. It seems likely that the combat was simplified due to it being somewhat unintuitive to use the mace on Malek at all, and even less intuitive to try to drain his blood.

The video accessible at the end of this article illustrates both the mace/blood-draining and Inspire Hate aspects of this early version of the battle.

 
Video
File Size Author
Malek Boss Battle (1996-07-12 Build) 19 MiB TLW/SK/CD
A video demonstration this partially-finished alternate version of the battle with Malek.
 
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