2024 has been a pretty great year for a fan of the Legacy of Kain series. November saw the release of emulated versions of Blood Omen 1 and 2, and now the crown jewels of the series, Soul Reaver 1 and 2, have been released as Remastered titles for PS4 and PS5. Finally, this long-dormant series can be played on modern platforms almost entirely.
Soul Reaver was actually my first entry into the series, a copy leant me to by a friend and it didn’t take long for me to be enchanted by my first foray into Nosgoth and swept away by the grand tale of Vampires and destinies. With Aspyr’s remaster giving the game not only a fresh coat of paint but also access to some of the cut content that never made it to the full game, how does Raziel’s tale fare 25 years later? Are these games still fun to revisit, or have I been blinded by nostalgia? Let’s take a look.
When we think back on games we loved as kids, there’s always something that stands out—a moment, a piece of music, a boss fight, that triggers a rush of memories and nostalgia. Terra’s theme from FF6, or the Virgil boss fight at the top of Temen-ni-gru in Devil May Cry 3. For Soul Reaver its the way sound of the Elder God saying, “Raziel.”
The voice acting across the Legacy of Kain series is absolutely phenomenal. It elevates what’s already a rich narrative into something unforgettable. Across the five games, you get an intricate web of betrayal, destiny, and vengeance, but it’s Soul Reaver 1 and 2 that stand out as the series’ high points in storytelling.
Set 1,500 years after the events of Blood Omen, Soul Reaver begins with Raziel, one of Kain’s vampiric sons, being cast into the Abyss. His crime? Evolving before Kain, by growing wings. Left for dead, Raziel is resurrected by the Elder God, becoming a wraith who feeds on souls rather than blood. Armed with this grim new existence, and perhaps unknowingly following Kain’s journey from Blood Omen, Raziel sets out on a path of vengeance against his brothers and maker, while also serving the Elder God’s plan to cleanse Nosgoth of its vampire corruption.
From the ruined sanctuaries of his fallen brothers to the twists and turns of time itself, Raziel’s journey is epic in every sense of the word. On paper, it might sound like standard gothic fantasy fare, but the dialogue transforms it into something extraordinary. Every line feels like it was ripped from a Shakespearean stage play. It’s heavy, dramatic, and delivered with absolute conviction. And after 25 years, that narrative remains as gripping as ever.
While the narrative has weathered the ravages of time, the gameplay would not have, if it wasn’t for some much-appreciated improvements that the Remaster has brought with it. The first, and most important of these is a more modern control scheme. Being able to use the analogue sticks to control movement and the camera is great, and even though it isn’t perfect all the time, especially when it comes to the more precise platforming requirements, it is really good. They have also added a map and compass to the game, to try and help new players find their way around, which especially in Soul Reaver 1, can be quite daunting as the world is pretty open.
Although their overall methods for exploration are quite different, there are a few major shared mechanics between Soul Reaver 1 and 2. The first of these is the Spectral Realm, where Raziel reawakens after Kain’s betrayal. The Spectral Realm acts as a twisted mirror of the Material one, a distorted reflection where water doesn’t exist, and structures shift and bend but cannot be moved.. At certain portals, Raziel can move to the material realm, creating a body for himself, and while in the material realm, his body will slowly decay unless he consumes souls, and if you run out of health in the material realm, you will switch back to the spectral one. This switching between Planes mechanic is integral to the exploration and puzzles of the game, forcing you to switch back and forth to make progress.
This was so cool to me as a kid. Being able to switch seamlessly between worlds, without any loading times was mindblowing, and if I’m being honest, it still is. I love it as both a mechanic and narrative device and its use in puzzles is one of the reasons I enjoy these games so much.
Soul Reaver 1 leans very heavily on exploration and puzzles. As you progress you will unlock new abilities, like the ability to phase through fences and gates in the Spectral Realm or climb rocky walls in the material one, and these unlock new areas for you to travel to. There are many secrets to find though, health or glyph upgrades or spells for Raziel to use are hidden in areas of the map you have to backtrack with your new abilities to find, areas you will miss completely if you just follow the main story path.
At its core, Soul Reaver 1 is a puzzle game. Exploration is solving the puzzle of where to use the ability you just unlocked, with a vague directional hint from the Elder God. The Dungeons are puzzles, filled with smaller puzzles. The majority of these, are block puzzles, or shifting between the realms in platforming sections, but they do force you to take a look at your environment, listen to what is being said and think. Are you meant to be able to make that jump, or do you need to switch to the Spectral Realm to change the room’s layout and let you climb higher?
Combat itself, is also kind of a puzzle, as you will mostly be fighting Vampires, who are incredibly tough to kill, as Raziel well knows. Impaling, Sunlight, drowning or setting on fire are the only ways to kill them and the only weapons Raziel has constant access to, are his claws. After you have hit the enemy enough times, they will become stunned, and Raziel can pick them up and throw them, this is where the puzzle comes in. Is there somewhere to throw them that will keep them down, such as environmental traps like spikes on the wall or a convenient pool of water to throw them into? You can also pick up weapons like spears to impale them on, but if you take the spear out before consuming their soul, they will pop back to life, so you need to consider what tools you have at your disposal in any encounter you decide to take on. Even the boss fights are all puzzle fights, with direct combat not working on any of Raziel’s brothers, having to figure out the mechanic to victory.
I really enjoy this aspect of Soul Reaver, and although the dodging in combat can sometimes feel a bit janky, it is forgivable because almost all of the time, you can avoid fighting if you don’t want to, and just run past enemies to get the next puzzle.
Soul Reaver 2’s gameplay is very stripped down when it comes to exploration when compared to its predecessor, despite being on more powerful hardware. There is, no exploration in the game, being incredibly linear, going from point a to point b interspersed with the odd combat encounter. I don’t hate this, but coming from the more open world of Soul Reaver 1, it does feel like a step backwards. Despite having no secrets to find, you do backtrack through the same locations multiple times as you earn new abilities or visit different time periods and while they are visually distinct, it doesn’t feel like enough has changed to make the repeat journeys fun.
Combat too feels weirdly like a step backwards, despite being more in-depth. Raziel now had access to light and heavy attacks, and the ability to block as well as dodge, but this ironically made Raziel feel weaker. Enemies block constantly, and it turns combat into a bit of a slog. I remember not hating Soul Reaver 2’s combat when I was younger, and there may be elements of the combat I have forgotten, as there isn’t much of a tutorial for combat in the game, but whenever I had the opportunity I would run past enemies, much more frequently than I did in Soul Reaver 1.
There is a way to make combat much easier though, and that is by using the 2nd important shard mechanic in the series, the Soul Reaver itself.
Early on in Soul Reaver 1, Raziel finds himself bound to a spirit that creates a wraith blade that he can use to slay his foes. In the Spectral Realm, this blade is always available, but in the Material Realm, it can only form when he is at full health. It is a powerful weapon and can kill enemies outright without the need for impaling or setting them alight, and has the added benefit of stopping his body from slowly losing health while exploring. In Soul Reaver 2 however, after an event near the beginning of the game, it goes from Symbiote to parasite, now being able to be summoned into the Material Realm regardless of Raziels health. However, when used to kill an enemy it immediately consumes the soul to make itself more powerful. If it reaches its full strength, it begins to consume Raziels health instead, making it a double-edged sword. Once again, I love this mechanic due to the way it ties the narrative in with the gameplay, and the sword is so powerful and unblockable that it takes down even the most powerful enemies in seconds. The issue is without the Soul Reaver combat is boring and frustrating, and with it, you end up running low on health and having to make trips back to the Spectral Realm to heal up.
One area that I do feel like Soul Reaver 2 does improve though, is in its puzzle variety. Throughout the game Raziel visits elemental forges, to give new abilities to the Soul Reaver, and these are all inventive and fun puzzles. Like Soul Reaver 1, the puzzles layer in on each other, solving one progressing another at the same time and between the different forges it rarely feels like an idea is reused, and all fit perfectly with the Forges theme that makes these the best parts of actually playing the game.
There are a few glaring issues with both games that I do need to point out when it comes to gameplay though. Although these collections are remastered with some modern touches, there are a few things that have not been touched at all. The first of these is the archaic approach to saving. There are no autosaves in either game, with Soul Reaver 2 having specific save points you can use to save your progress. Some checkpoints will bring you back if you die in combat, but the save points can be quite spread out if puzzles take you a while to solve, or if your game crashes.
Soul Reaver 1 has the benefit of letting you save whenever you want from the menu, but when load the save file, it puts you back in the starting area of the game, and you have to use the teleports to get back to the location you were before, if you had found one. This, in some cases, is actually pretty convenient if you want to get to a teleport quickly, just save and reload and be back near one. When it is not convenient though, is when the game crashes halfway through a dungeon, and you have to start from the beginning again.
I normally wouldn’t gripe about this, as like I said they are remasters of old games, and in an attempt to keep the games as faithful to the original vision as possible, I can see why they didn’t change it. However, I had multiple crashes and bugs with both games. Soul Reaver 2, only crashed twice, which isn’t awful, but in Soul Reaver 1 I faced so many bugs with textures disappearing, falling through floors, and random crashes during boss fights. It was so irritating. There is a trophy for getting through the Drowned Abbey dungeon, without touching the water, which took me 3 hours to get because every time got past the entrance of the abbey, I would have texture issues and the game would crash until I gave up and tried again a few hours later. This exacerbated my annoyance with the save system because it meant every crash included the frustration of running back from the starting area to the teleport, transferring to Rahab’s territory, running through the doors, watching the cutscene again and so on.
Despite my few issues with textures not loading sometimes though, both Soul Reaver games look so good. The improved textures and models look great and the new lighting in the game really helps everything pop. I also really like the option to pop back and forth between original and remastered graphics by pressing R3. It is such a cool feature that I really enjoyed switching between them and comparing the two. Although they are not going to hold up to any new AAA release graphically, the improvements are incredibly impressive.
The lighting is so much better and the details in all of the environments really bring out the best in Nosgoth. There is one choice I wasn’t enamoured with though, and that was the day and night cycle they added to Soul Reaver 1. I like it in some places, and it adds a level of atmosphere and progression that wasn’t in the original but the dark is too dark. In some of the dungeons it actually made it really difficult to see what was happening, and I think this might need a little bit of tweaking to get the desired result.
For trophies Soul Reaver 1 and 2 are not overly difficult to complete and achieve their platinum trophies. They are however victims of the PS5’s ability to only have 1 platinum if the game shares a launcher for some reason. The PS5 version of the remaster has Soul Reaver 2 as DLC for the first game, which is incredibly disappointing. The PS4 version however does have 2 separate lists with individual platinums and that was what I ended up playing in the end.
Soul Reaver 1s list, is the more expansive of the two games, with it having 55 trophies in total, and quite a few missable trophies. Some of these are for specific dungeons, while others will take a large chunk of the game before you earn them.
The main long-term ones to look out for on your journey are to not kill any humans that you find on your journey, and when you reach the Human Citadel, if one of the humans bows to you in worship you will earn “Don’t be Afraid”. Once you have unlocked the Soul Reaver, you will find the spirit of Ariel at the Pillars of Nosgoth. She will provide cryptic hints as to where you should go next, and these update after every major boss fight. Make sure you go back to her after beating a boss to hear them all and earn “Ariel Remembers”
Each of the main dungeons has a specific missable trophy to watch out for as well like the one I mentioned earlier for getting through the Drowned Abbey without touching the water for “Don’t get your feet wet” or for speaking to Dumah in the Spectral Realm before resurrecting him for “Spectral Talk” so try and keep on eye on these and keep plenty of manual saves before each dungeon and boss just in case. One of these trophies, for cutting off Zephon’s legs with the Soul Reaver, actually bugged out on me and didn’t pop when it should have, which meant I had to replay the first hour or so of the game again to get the trophy.
There are also trophies for killing a number of enemies using all of the tools available to you, stealth kills, impalments, fire and drowning as well as one for specifically throwing an enemy into the abyss. You should also hurl yourself into the abyss after him for the trophy “Beyond Death” and make sure you fall in the water at least once before beating Rahab in the drowned abbey for another trophy.
The majority of the other trophies will come from finding all of the Glyphs, Health Upgrades and teleports so make sure you explore thoroughly. Once you have completed all of this you will earn the Platinum Trophy “Redeemer and Destroyer” and be able to move on the sequel.
Soul Reaver 2 has fewer trophies overall than the original but there are more missables to be aware of. The first of these is reportedly quite buggy, although I didn’t face the bug myself. After you have left the Sarafan Stronghold and gone out into the world, you will find crows, sitting along your main pathway. You need to scare all of these away as you head to the swamp area. There are also a few in the first areas of the swamp. If you have done all of this you will find them all sitting on a balcony just outside the Dark Forge and if you scare them all again here you will get the trophy “Scare the Crows”
You also need to get kills with every different weapon in the game that Raziel can pick up, and some of these become unobtainable when you travel through time, so make sure you pick up everything and get a kill to earn “Finish Him”.
There is also one other trophy that is a bit difficult to get, as the enemy AI has a tendency to just stop sometimes. Once you have met Ariel at the Pillars, you will face your first fire demon, there is a chance that if you stand far enough away he cannot hit you with his melee attack, but not far enough away he throws fireballs, that he will instead summon a small worm-like creature. Killing this will earn you “Keep your Distance”. This actually took me like 30 minutes of waiting for him to actually spawn the creature, so I hope you get luckier than I did. If it does take a while to spawn, run past the enemy to find a portal to the material realm, then come back and he should respawn and hopefully use the ability.
There are a few other missables to watch out for, but they are less egregious. There is also a speedrun trophy for finishing Soul Reaver 2 in less than 6 hours, which I would recommend leaving for a second playthrough unless you already know the game well and remember all the puzzle solutions. With this need for a speedrun in mind, you will have multiple chances to obtain the missable trophies.
With this completely, you will earn “Full Circle” if you are playing the PS4 version, or achieve 100% completion if you are playing the PS5.
They say that true love lasts forever, and that is how I feel about the Soul Reaver games. The remasters have done a lot to touch up its ageing looks and mechanics, but they are still products of their time, and despite this, I still adore them. The narrative is still a classic, and playing through it again has only reminded me how great it is. The biggest issue with these remasters is the number of bugs and crashes I had, and it’s really disappointing. I do think these can be fixed with time, and I hope they will be because they sour an otherwise amazing experience.
Despite my issues though, the bugs with trophies and environments, especially in the first game, I have no qualms about recommending these classics to anyone who loves a good story. I just hope it is not another 20 years before we get a remaster of Defiance.
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