Legacy Of Kain Soul Reaver 1&2 Remaster Review – More Than Just a Revival

Nearly everyone gaming since the PS1 era has come across the Legacy of Kain series in some way, shape, or form. I missed the first Blood Omen and, as a young 10 year old, found myself with a copy of Soul Reaver.

This game moulded my gaming preferences with its amazingly deep and complex story, exploration and most importantly, it’s impeccable voice acting. After their success with the Tomb Raider remaster, Aspyr have taken it upon themselves to Remaster both Soul Reaver titles.

A Story Beyond Legendary

The Soul Reaver saga is set in Nosgoth, a fictional land with gothic fantasy aspects. In the first game in the series, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, the vampire Kain embarks on a journey to restore the Pillars of Nosgoth, nine supernatural edifices which are inextricably tied to the health of the land which have become corrupted. During his adventure, Moebius, a manipulative sorcerer, tricks Kain into orchestrating the destruction of the vampire race and Kain is left the last surviving vampire in Nosgoth.

After restoring eight of the Pillars, Kain discovers that he would need to sacrifice his own life to restore the final corrupted one. Realising that his own death would ensure the annihilation of his species, he refuses to kill himself. This triggers the Pillars’ to collapse, and dooms the world to eternal decay, but enables Kain to live on and revive the vampire race.

In the second game, Kain relies on Raziel’s free will in a bid to outsmart Moebius and resolve the dilemma he faced in Blood Omen, ultimately hoping to enable both the restored Pillars and the vampire race to co-exist in the future. Soul Reaver 2 opens as Raziel emerges from the time slip and is greeted by Moebius, having arrived in an era 30 years prior to the events of Blood Omen. Two further time periods, 100 years after and 500 years before Blood Omen respectively, are also explored as you progress throughout the story.

More Than Just a New Coat of Paint

Normally a remaster will just be the old game with a higher resolution, better character models and a better frame rate. But Aspyr have taken this remake to a whole new level. They have done the usual remaster elements, but if you ever feel nostalgic, you can switch between the original game and the Remaster instantly with the R3 button, even during cutscenes! I did this so much during the game just to see the changes that were made.

One thing I never noticed in my rose tinted nostalgia glasses was there is no lip movement in the original game. In this remaster, Aspyr have improved the character models across both games and animated their faces to show more emotion to the intense dialogue, which greatly improves the immersion.

Gameplay remains entirely unchanged, with this being a remaster and not a remake. This initially invoke nostalgia but eventually becomes evident how far gaming has come and evolved. I would love to see this series eventually remade with new gameplay elements like enhanced, fluid traversal as Raziel feels like he should move more fluidly.

The vocals and music feel crisper and more prominent. This definitely accentuates the delivery of the immense story. Furthermore, the remastered collection includes several new features, including a feature which was cut from the original Soul Reaver.

The developers have added a map and compass to improve exploration. You can reconfigure the controls. There are sky boxes that were never there before and a day night cycle missing from the original. Outside of the quality of life and gameplay additions, there’s still more, lore, artwork, outtakes, lost levels and a music player. They truly went above and beyond and added a lot of new features, which makes me happy as a fan of the game.

Even a Remake Has its Flaws

While there are so many improvements and additions to these great titles, they’re not flawless. The character models are a serious improvement but the world’s themselves only received a minor improvement. Maybe a later patch will improve these further, but if you’re particularly sensitive to loud sounds, that is something to keep in mind.

Another issue I had was once acquiring the Reaver, its warping energy sound seemed to overpower all of the other sounds in the game. I had to tinker with volume levels to get it to a comfortable level. And a personal issue I had was that although the story features some added content, I still felt there could’ve been more done to it. Though, in fairness, I guess Aspyr’s focus was to maintain the integrity of the games, without changing them too much.

The Definitive Way to Play the PS1 Classic

Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 1&2 Remaster adds many quality of life improvements to 2 of my favourite games. The consistent character models across both games add an additional continuity.

This remaster also offers a plethora of additional content, so whether you’ve played the original games or are trying them out for the first time, there’s always something for you. I do wish we get the third game in the series to be remastered, especially with all of Aspyr’s quality of life improvements.