Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Review - Cult of Personality

“Legacy” is going to be the word of the day here. Soul Reaver, one of the cult-iest of cult classics, revered by many for its forward-thinking blend of narrative and gameplay, and a title that – while I didn’t personally play it at release – is one I’m assured was the talk of the town at release. 25 years on, Aspyr have released a fresh modern remaster of the 2 Soul Reaver games, with the support of Crystal Dynamics.

Similar to the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered collection released earlier in 2024, Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered is here to celebrate the Legacy of Kain series. Alongside the fresh updates to gameplay and graphics, you also have a library of fan celebration and developer collaboration, including concept art and fan art of Soul Reaver and its characters, the script for both games, and a litany of cut content in the form of lost levels.

Famously developed during a tumultuous back-and-forth between Crystal Dynamics, and Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen developer Silicon Knights, Soul Reaver tells the story of Raziel, a vampire formerly of Kain’s lieutenants. After he is seemingly killed by Kain, The Elder God resurrects Raziel, tasking him with the execution of Kain, and the assassination of Raziels former comrades. This eventually leads to an uneasy alliance with Moebius, the time-manipulating guardian who features prominently in the series.

It’s a very straightforward story when it comes down to brass tacks, especially since both games are doing different things with the material. In Soul Reaver 1, Raziel’s commentary, along with the general direction of the narrative and its groundbreaking cutscenes, is made to establish an arc and vengefully charged story beats. In Soul Reaver 2 however, the lines blur as a timeline-hopping odyssey told almost entirely from Raziel’s perspective, with internalization constantly spewing out.

What’s interesting is how both games differentiate from each other, and how both games utilize what’s already been established. Part of it comes down to the growth of Raziel as a character, as Soul Reaver 1 is more about puzzling and adventuring, but another larger chunk just comes from apprehension regarding how the mechanics are implemented. Whatever the case, the problem largely revolves around combat.

In Soul Reaver 1, combat is an arbitrary gimmick revolving around the “true death” of your vampire adversaries. It’s not just that you slash ‘em to death, but you also have to throw them into direct light, an open fire, or maybe just a stake through the heart. Once that’s done, however, you also have to absorb their soul so they simply don’t just respawn given time. Mind you, all of this is absolved once you acquire the titular Soul Reaver.

An energy blade with nearly limitless easy-killing potential, it gets some tweaks in Soul Reaver 2 through the implementation of a risk/reward system. Use it too much and it starts to damage Raziel, which makes sense, and forces you to deal with what is easily some of the worst combat ever conceived for a game of this type. There’s no feedback, there’s no true connection, the hitboxes are way too wide, and Raziel’s movement doesn’t account for much survivability, unless you simply swing without locking on. What replaces strategy is sheer tomfoolery and button-mashing.

As a remastering effort, Aspyr has gone through the usual motions when it comes to retaining the source material’s energy. You can switch between the original and remastered graphics on the fly, and the first thing you’ll discover is that the remastered fidelity can be astonishingly toothless. There are some shining moments, like the upgraded designs of Melchiah and Zephon, which add a lot more menace and fear than previously enforced by their 1999 counterparts.

A lot of the time, however, you are merely just staring at slightly refreshed textures, with Soul Reaver 1 benefitting, and Soul Reaver 2 suffering from it. Both games utilize a dual-world mechanic in the form of Raziel being able to switch between the Material World, and the Spectral Plane, with more emphasis placed on it in Soul Reaver 1. The way the Spectral Plane twists and contorts is shown off brilliantly in its remastered form, as the Eldritch scrawlings are much more detailed, and intimidating.

The Spectral Plane doesn’t get as much airtime in Soul Reaver 2, potentially due to its placeholder as a glorified extra-life depository, given its larger focus on danger. Still, a lot of the graphic upgrades in 2 tend to muddy up the true direction and atmosphere of the game, which is still phenomenal. The amount of times you’ll simply stop to sink into the fauna, the fire, the cold, and the song is ridiculous, a true testament to how much visual design and audio design are as much of a game as the gameplay itself.

This is where Soul Reaver shines, not in its gameplay necessarily, but in the ease with which Crystal Dynamics were able to create a world, just as true as when it was proclaimed 25 years ago. That’s why it breaks my heart to find that Soul Reaver 2 does nothing with it, and that’s largely down to Raziel as a character. Whereas in 1, he’s a frightened little imp powered solely by rage and the heartbreak he suffers when venturing through the new world, 2 turns him into a cocky counterpart, more akin to Sonic The Hedgehog than a brooding anti-hero.

Soul Reaver 2 is a rare breed of story, where the main character has main character syndrome. The number of times Raziel will walk into a cutscene with his chest puffed out, bragging that he’s finally figured it out, only to see that one of his former handlers or adversaries has to calmly explain the next step. It’s a fascinating showcase of a simpering idiot, who previously sought to learn the proper precautions, and not once is he proven to be the architect. Does Raziel know that? No! Never! But he has a feeling!

With however many issues this remaster has caused to break out of the ground, I feel like this was to be expected. When conversing with a friend, I mentioned how I was playing the remaster, and he was filled with glee at the memories this news brought forth, regaling about how he and his friends all fell in love with the game when it came out, and how they all figured out the puzzles. When I mentioned that I wasn’t having fun with it, his response was, verbatim:

“Oh, God yeah, I wouldn’t play it now, it’s obviously not the same.”

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered | Final Verdict

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that so much of Soul Reaver’s magic has ironically been lost to time. The combat is a button-mashing mess with no strategy, and Soul Reaver 2 tends to focus on the less interesting parts of the world. That being said, for brief moments, Soul Reaver shows timeless offerings in the form of what it was: A world of intricacies, and history, and even in its infamously cut-down state, it manages to showcase it more than many of its contemporaries, even now, and for that? I'm grateful.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered was reviewed on Xbox Series S using a code provided by the developer over the course of 21 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.