“Legacy” goes to be the phrase of the day right here. Soul Reaver, one of many cult-iest of cult classics, revered by many for its forward-thinking mix of narrative and gameplay, and a title that – whereas I didn’t personally play it at launch – is one I’m assured was the discuss of the city at launch. 25 years on, Aspyr have launched a recent fashionable remaster of the two Soul Reaver video games, with the assist of Crystal Dynamics.
Just like the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered assortment launched earlier in 2024, Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered is right here to have fun the Legacy of Kain collection. Alongside the recent updates to gameplay and graphics, you even have a library of fan celebration and developer collaboration, together with idea artwork and fan artwork of Soul Reaver and its characters, the script for each video games, and a litany of reduce content material within the type of misplaced ranges.
Famously developed throughout 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 previously of Kain’s lieutenants. After he’s seemingly killed by Kain, The Elder God resurrects Raziel, tasking him with the execution of Kain, and the assassination of Raziels former comrades. This finally results in an uneasy alliance with Moebius, the time-manipulating guardian who options prominently within the collection.
It’s a really easy story when it comes all the way down to brass tacks, particularly since each video games are doing various things with the fabric. In Soul Reaver 1, Raziel’s commentary, together with the overall path of the narrative and its groundbreaking cutscenes, is made to ascertain an arc and vengefully charged story beats. In Soul Reaver 2 nonetheless, the traces blur as a timeline-hopping odyssey advised virtually fully from Raziel’s perspective, with internalization always spewing out.
What’s attention-grabbing is how each video games differentiate from one another, and the way each video games make the most of what’s already been established. A part of it comes all the way down to the expansion of Raziel as a personality, as Soul Reaver 1 is extra about puzzling and adventuring, however one other bigger chunk simply comes from apprehension concerning how the mechanics are applied. Regardless of the case, the issue largely revolves round fight.
In Soul Reaver 1, fight is an arbitrary gimmick revolving across the “true loss of life” of your vampire adversaries. It’s not simply that you just slash ‘em to loss of life, however you additionally should throw them into direct gentle, an open hearth, or possibly only a stake by means of the center. As soon as that’s carried out, nonetheless, you even have to soak up their soul so that they merely don’t simply respawn given time. Thoughts you, all of that is absolved when you purchase the titular Soul Reaver.
An vitality blade with practically limitless easy-killing potential, it will get some tweaks in Soul Reaver 2 by means of the implementation of a danger/reward system. Use it an excessive amount of and it begins to wreck Raziel, which is smart, and forces you to cope with what is definitely among the worst fight ever conceived for a sport of this kind. There’s no suggestions, there’s no true connection, the hitboxes are method too extensive, and Raziel’s motion doesn’t account for a lot survivability, except you merely swing with out locking on. What replaces technique is sheer tomfoolery and button-mashing.
As a remastering effort, Aspyr has gone by means of the standard motions in the case of retaining the supply materials’s vitality. You may swap between the unique and remastered graphics on the fly, and the very first thing you’ll uncover is that the remastered constancy may be astonishingly toothless. There are some shining moments, just like the upgraded designs of Melchiah and Zephon, which add much more menace and concern than beforehand enforced by their 1999 counterparts.
Loads of the time, nonetheless, you might be merely simply looking at barely refreshed textures, with Soul Reaver 1 benefitting, and Soul Reaver 2 affected by it. Each video games make the most of a dual-world mechanic within the type of Raziel having the ability to swap between the Materials World, and the Spectral Airplane, with extra emphasis positioned on it in Soul Reaver 1. The way in which the Spectral Airplane twists and contorts is proven off brilliantly in its remastered type, because the Eldritch scrawlings are far more detailed, and intimidating.
The Spectral Airplane doesn’t get as a lot airtime in Soul Reaver 2, probably as a result of its placeholder as a glorified extra-life depository, given its bigger deal with hazard. Nonetheless, plenty of the graphic upgrades in 2 are likely to muddy up the true path and environment of the sport, which remains to be phenomenal. The quantity of instances you’ll merely cease to sink into the fauna, the fireplace, the chilly, and the track is ridiculous, a real testomony to how a lot visible design and audio design are as a lot of a sport because the gameplay itself.
That is the place Soul Reaver shines, not in its gameplay essentially, however within the ease with which Crystal Dynamics had been capable of create a world, simply as true as when it was proclaimed 25 years in the past. That’s why it breaks my coronary heart to search out that Soul Reaver 2 does nothing with it, and that’s largely all the way down to Raziel as a personality. Whereas in 1, he’s a frightened little imp powered solely by rage and the heartbreak he suffers when venturing by means of the brand new world, 2 turns him right into a cocky counterpart, extra akin to Sonic The Hedgehog than a brooding anti-hero.
Soul Reaver 2 is a uncommon breed of story, the place the principle character has major character syndrome. The variety of instances Raziel will stroll right into a cutscene along with his chest puffed out, bragging that he’s lastly figured it out, solely to see that one among his former handlers or adversaries has to calmly clarify the subsequent step. It’s a captivating showcase of a simpering fool, who beforehand sought to study the correct precautions, and never as soon as is he confirmed to be the architect. Does Raziel know that? No! By no means! However he has a sense!
With nonetheless many points this remaster has prompted to interrupt out of the bottom, I really feel like this was to be anticipated. When conversing with a buddy, I discussed how I used to be enjoying the remaster, and he was crammed with glee on the reminiscences this information introduced forth, regaling about how he and his buddies all fell in love with the sport when it got here out, and the way all of them discovered the puzzles. Once I talked about that I wasn’t having enjoyable with it, his response was, verbatim:
“Oh, God yeah, I wouldn’t play it now, it’s clearly not the identical.”
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered | Ultimate Verdict
Perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked that a lot of Soul Reaver’s magic has paradoxically been misplaced to time. The fight is a button-mashing mess with no technique, and Soul Reaver 2 tends to deal with the much less attention-grabbing elements of the world. That being mentioned, for temporary moments, Soul Reaver reveals timeless choices within the type of what it was: A world of intricacies, and historical past, and even in its infamously cut-down state, it manages to showcase it greater than lots of its contemporaries, even now, and for that? I am grateful.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered was reviewed on Xbox Sequence S utilizing a code supplied by the developer over the course of 21 hours of gameplay – all screenshots had been taken in the course of the means of evaluation.