“Kain is deified” is a phrase that appears in my head, apropos of nothing, far more than I’d like to admit. I say this so that you’ll know where I’m coming from before I get into my Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered review. If it’s not clear, I am a big fan of the source material, so much of a fan, in fact, that I actually played obscure online arena shooter Nosgoth and enjoyed it. With that done, let’s hop into this meaty double-pack and see if my nostalgia goggles have been playing tricks on me…again.
What Is Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered?
If you’ve never heard of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, get ready, because you’re in for a treat. Part of a long-running series of dark-fantasy adventure games, Soul Reaver 1 and 2 tell the story of Raziel, vampire “son” to Kain, undead ruler of a faded and dying world. Betrayed and destroyed by the person he called “master”, Raziel embarks on a journey of revenge, beset by deceit and manipulation from all sides. After a long journey of revenge, Raziel is forced to confront what he thought he knew about himself and those around him.
In more practical terms, both Soul Reaver games are third-person action-adventure games that see you journeying around an open(-ish) world collecting items, defeating enemies, and solving puzzles. It’s appropriate that we got both of these games in a single package since Soul Reaver was sort of cut off halfway through, and only when Soul Reaver 2 released did the ‘rest’ of the story actually get told. With both games in a single package, it’s now possible to experience them without several years to wait in between.
Side note: To actually get the ‘complete’ story, you’d also have to play Blood Omen before SR1&2, then play Legacy of Kain: Defiance afterwards. Incidentally, you can get ports of Blood Omen 1 and LOK: Defiance on GOG (don’t bother with Blood Omen 2 unless you want to; different timeline and all that).
Welcome Back, My Old Friend
If you’ve played any of Aspyr’s previous remasters, such as the recent Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered, then you’ll know pretty much exactly what to expect. This is a 1:1 recreation of the PS1 and PS2 games, with a fresh coat of paint, a higher resolution, and more frames than you can shake a stick at. You can even tap in the right stick to switch between ‘original’ and ‘HD’ modes, which is a gift to any reviewer who wants to take a graphical comparison shot.
As this is a 1:1 recreation, it has all of the charms, and flaws, of the original releases. Slipping back into this game as someone who physically owns all of the games and plays them regularly was simple. The controls are a little tighter, and the opening cutscene looks less choppy than it used to, but overall, it felt exactly like the game I had always known and loved. The real question I have to answer is this: Is the game good because I already love it, or because it’s actually well-made?
Holding Up, Or Not
It’s sort of difficult to look at Soul Reaver through the eyes of a modern gamer. By the standards of the day, the tiny world-size and dark-fantasy theming must seem quaint, almost passe by today’s standards. In truth, there is lots about these games that must feel incredibly clunky compared to contemporary efforts, even with some updates via Asypr. These elements are mostly related directly to gameplay, with the combat in particular feeling a bit by-the-numbers and dull, though it’s not entirely without its merits.
It’s still interesting having to manage taking down different opponents, with vampires requiring a fire/light/water/staking double-tap to take down, while regular humans and spiritual entities go down with simple swipes. The issue mostly comes in when you start having to backtrack through areas and re-fight the same enemies over and over, and at that point, the same song and dance of auto-facing your enemy and clumsily swiping at them with your claws or a pointy stick starts to feel stale.
Puzzle and Progression
Luckily, the puzzles are quite fun, but how much you’ll enjoy them and find them manageable depends entirely on how much you enjoy 3D-block pushing/rotating spatial-awareness puzzles, which make up 90% of puzzles in the first game and about 50% of those in the second. Personally, I found the unique nature of these puzzles helped to keep them feeling fresh, and with the games only running a handful of hours each, they don’t outstay their welcome too badly with collecting and combat gameplay to break things up.
Speaking of which, the bosses of Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered also help to keep things fun. There are basically none in the second game, but each boss fight usually acts almost like a puzzle unto itself, requiring you to think about your environment and the weaknesses of your enemies. At the end of the day, while the gameplay still has that PS1/2-era clunk to it, there’s still enough that is enjoyable here to make the games a treat rather than a slog, especially once you start getting into the real reason anyone plays these games: the story.
He’s Soliloquizing All over the Shop
While the fully-voiced cutscenes aren’t anything to write home about now, back when these games originall released, they represented a new bar for quality of voice-acting and storytelling in a game. The complex narrative is backed up by some serious talent in the voice department, and the Shakespearean dialogue dealing with revenge, the nature of free will and even the classical perception of good v.s. evil manages to make some pretty wishy-washy fantasy concepts feel like they carry some serious gravitas.
Throughout the course of both titles in Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered, I was kept invested once again by the genuinely interesting plight of the main character, Raziel. Betrayed by the people he considers his family, he begins as a creature of mindless rage bent on venting his anger by slaughtering everyone he can. Before long, revelations about his pre-vampiric past have him questioning his perception of both vampires and humans more than once, as well as beginning to question those who set him off on this quest of revenge in the first place.
Does the Plot Cover Gameplay?
While watching the characters discover secrets and change perspectives or goals is great, there are one or two elements that are a bit, for want of a better term, ‘videogamey”, especially in Soul Reaver 2. You spend a huge amount of time in the early game hearing Raziel basically say, “I’ll have to come back later with more powers”, and a lot of the rest of the game is spent visiting Elemental Shrines for poorly explained reasons. Sure, it’s tied together by a bit of classical-theatre-style ‘Revenger’s Tragedy’ dialogue, but having to gain the power of light, darkness, fire, and wind puts me in mind of The Legend of Zelda or Rayman, not Jacobean Drama.
That said, I also acknowledge that it’s pretty easy to ignore these parts. These are elements that allow this to be a playable experience rather than a play or book, and while we’ve certainly improved on hiding these aspects these days (mostly), it’s not exactly a huge issue to leave them barebones. All of the deceit and intrigue surrounding everything makes for a great distraction, and I looked on the temples as a brief ‘puzzle-break’ between monologues and conversations.
But, bugs
Honestly, if I sound mostly stoked on Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered, then it’s probably because I am. It’s been an amazing experience going back into these games with a bunch of great updates and added features, including cut content being semi-playable, which is an insane bonus to get. Hell, I even tried going in with a mindset of others with no history in the series and came away loving it all over again. But, all that positivity aside, there have been far too many problems with this game in its current state for me to not mention them.
For whatever reason, the current version of the game (pre-day1) is absolutely filled with bugs. I had the entire map disappear, plunging me into the void. There was a time when I got stuck in walls during certain animations. I even had an experience where I lost over 4 hours of gameplay and had to start again from scratch due to a corrupted save. By far the worst of my experiences was when I collected every Glyph and upgrade in the first game but was prevented from collecting the final one in Nuprator’s abandoned fortress because the climbing glitched out.
Graphical Comparison Time (Also a Great Soundtrack)
As is bound to happen with any remaster that gives you a ‘swap graphics mode’ button, it is time for the inevitable graphical comparisons. With Soul Reaver 1, there is obviously a huge difference between both versions of the game. In most cases, this is limited to a texture swap in the environments, but the enemies and main character look a lot cooler and smoother. That said, there’s a weird issue with the animations; since those haven’t been changed from the PS1 days, your new, shiny characters stand a bit awkwardly and sort of jostle from side-to-side rather than expressing any sort of emotion.
Onto the PS2 remastered. This still has some appreciable differences between each graphical mode, but they’re a lot less striking. The environments barely change at all, apart from some visual adjustments to specific designs (the fonts are a bit different, for example), but once again, the newer character models are a lot better looking. There’s also a fantastic soundtrack backing everything up, and even a sound player in the bonus menu so you can listen to it at will, which is great if you get stuck somewhere and have a song stuck in your head for days.
Returning to the Underworld
When the day is done and the vampires come home to roost, Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered has been a mostly joyous experience, peppered throughout with slight annoyances and grievances, but mostly slightly ruined by the occasional attempt by the game to commit suicide. The storyline is fantastic, and the voice acting and character development still make you want to come back for more, but with the bugs and the slight clunk, it’s no surprise that some people will find this a tough experience to get settled into. There is a dark and wonderful world, storyline, and cast of characters buried in here somewhere, but until some of these critical problems are fixed, you’re going to have to already be invested in Legacy of Kain or Soul Reaver specifically to make it past the opening hour or so.
Developers: Crystal Dynamics, Aspyr Media
Publishers: Eidos Interactive, Aspyr Media
Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox Series
Release Date: 10th December 2024
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered was provided by the publisher.
You can get your hands on a copy of Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered on GoG with 10% off until launch.
