Legacy of Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Review

Developed and published by Aspyr, Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered has brought back a wonderful series on its 25th anniversary. However, being only a remaster and not a remake means the game is still a 25-year-old game with a few modern enhancements and that can be a risk to the legacy of…the series.

                For those unfamiliar with the series, the summary of the first game is that you play as Raziel, a vampire lieutenant to Kain who, aggravated by Raziel’s new wings, sends him to the abyss. Then, Ages past and Raziel emerges from the abyss with the help of the elder god as a wraith out for revenge against Kain and his brothers feeding on souls rather than blood. As the final battle ensues (spoiler warning) Kain escapes through a time portal which Raziel follows leading to the second game. (end spoiler) In the second game the story became a bit more complex with time paradoxes as Moebius tries to trick Raziel in hunting down Kain and restoring the pillars which would mean the end to all vampires. But Raziel soon realises that revenge against Kain is not what is needed and he needs to go back in time to speak to the ancient vampire Janos who was killed by the Sarafan. There, he finds the original Soul Reaver which eventually becomes over aroused and tries to kill Raziel only to be saved by Kain which changes history again. But Raziel learns that fate hasn’t been changed only postponed.

After launching into the first Soul Reaver you can see that graphically the game has been spruced up. Character models have been redone and a lot of the scenery has been touched up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like enough has been done to make it feel less like a 25-year-old game. Don’t get me wrong, the story and cutscenes are still epic and for those that enjoyed them in the past, revisiting them has been a blast. It is only when you see the emptiness of some of the areas, the simplistic clunky combat and the lack of direction before it starts to sink in that this game would have benefited from being remade rather than remastered. That’s not to forget the camera angle goes from OK to all over the place at times and on stairs the camera is just chaos. Which is weird as one of the enhancements is the ability to move the camera with the right stick; the jury is out on if it helps but it does at least make it feel a bit more modern. I still enjoyed playing through the game and getting used to the old-style combat but I forgot just how bad the lack of direction the game has.  I also find it strange that the first game allows you to save anywhere whereas the second game only allow you to save at checkpoints. I thought they both would have benefited from having a save anywhere feature as I feel this game is better played in chunks before it gets too repetitive.

                Both games were renown for having tricky puzzles and it offers no help in trying to get through them. 25 years ago, gamers would have had to have more patience to try and solve these puzzles to progress. But in the day and age where there is glut of games to play, I have a feeling that younger gamers may not have the patience for these puzzles anymore. I hit a bit of a sticking point on the first game where I needed to flip a block over an edge to then push it down the lane and onto the button. But no matter what I did I couldn’t flip the block and so I couldn’t progress with the game.

                The second game did seem a little simpler to work out some of the puzzles and directions but any areas which involved water became a massive frustration for me. So many times, I just wanted to jump out of the water only to randomly dive back down to the bottom again. But such is the joy of quirks in these older games. But even for there age they are still decently sized and will take about 20+ hours to complete both.

                Other than a few graphical and quality of life advancements the game just feels like a bundle package with some minimum improvements to call it a remaster. There are some bonus features which has some music and game art which is cool if you enjoy looking through those and they are always interesting to have a little look.

Conclusion

Legacy of Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered is one of my childhood games brought back to the modern day but just not in the way I imagined. With such a cool story and concept, a remake combining the two with modern controls and a bit more direction would have made this awesome. But just a graphical touch up isn’t enough to bring these games to the modern era. It needed more love and for me that’s a shame.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S (via a Game Pass Ultimate subscription). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version.
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Good
  • The spruced-up graphics and textures look great
  • Its good they allow a free moving camera
Bad
  • The game lacks direction on where to go
  • Some of the areas feel very empty
  • Should have been remade and not remastered
7
Good
Written by
Gaming, or, games in general, are in my blood. Just shy of an addiction but still an obsession. From opening my mind on the Commodore 64 I have kept up with the generations of gaming, currently residing on the Xbox One. Gamertag: Grahamreaper

2 Comments

  1. “There, he finds the original Soul Reaver which eventually becomes over aroused and tries to kill Raziel only to be saved by Kain which changes history again.”

    Archer voice: Are we not doing phrasing anymore?

    Reply

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