Legacy of Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Reviews

Amazing detail, including the Sluagh's hairy butt cracks in dazzling 4K. It's just like the original but better. I especially like the fact that you can skip the overly extensive dialogue, especially in Part 2. The one thing I don't like is the before/after switch when you press the Right analogue stick down, as I constantly kept pressing it by accident and it's quite distracting. Otherwise I would absolutely recommend this.

An epic game from playstation is back, the puzzles are quite hard on this one if you want all the powers and the game is so much fun

Love this game lore and challange, the remastered graphics are a nice touch without loosing the charm of the orignal game for those that played the original!

The Legacy of Kain series is a master piece with five games in total Soul Reaver 1 being the 2nd in the series and Soul Reaver 2 being the third installment with that being said these games are just as impressive as they where 20 years ago when i was a boy playing them for the first time either being on the ps2 or ps1 for there respective consoles when the games where originally published seeing these tittles an other gems from the ps1/2 being remastered/remade for the newer generation of gamers to enjoy as much as my generation did long before any online cod tittle and fornite toke over gaming for those of you looking for a great story with loads of twist and turns as you dive deeper into the series join Kain and Raziel as they journey into the past present and future that nosgoth holds in store for our beloved heroes as kain was once born of noble blood and raziel the highest of the sarafan brothers will you be nosgoth's savior or its destroyer in this epic tail.

Amazing story. Fantastic voice acting. Sadly the combat system did not age well. It was fun to replay this game with updated graphics.

There are a few bugs with this game in terms of the port of SR1. That being said this is an older game that doesn't hold your hand when it comes to navigation. You will be revisiting old areas in order to progress and if you want to get all achievements I recommend looking up the achievement listing. 9/10 for me.

One of the Predecessor of souls-like genre This is not really a negative review but rather informal/neutral one It is enjoyable when it works, camera is off and will move around involuntarily. Movement is rather limiting one smallest step and you are bound to backtrack all the way. Most of the places looks identical so its easy to get lost and give up This is not a bad remaster however it is easy to see Aspyr doesn't really care long as their work meets lowest quota (which applies for tomb raider and other remasters as well) Overall would not recommend unless you are willing to accept its fatal flaws and go along with it.

Great remaster, keeps the souls game exactly how i remember but playable, all good and bad but with better graphics, same voices and audio.

tl;dr: I wholeheartedly recommend Soul Reaver 1 to anyone and everyone. Soul Reaver 2 however fucking blows. Just watch the cutscenes on youtube. I mostly played with classic graphics, switching to new to see the new models and textures but promptly switched back. Soul Reaver 1 feels ahead of it's time. I played it a long time ago as a kid but never finished nor appreciated it much. Cue this Remaster after having delved a little into what became of the series and it's lore and [i]whoa[/i]. Visually, it's frighteningly good looking PS1 game (yes yes, remaster has modified it a little) with some really solid mechanics. The world, despite the old, blurred, pixelated textures and rough polygonal models and environments still feel quite real and believable. The remastered textures cleaned them up and made them clearer and I don't think it ever really messed with the original art style, so props to the devs. The character/NPC models felt hit or miss but again, PS1 game. Some look ok, some look pretty cool. The remastered models, alot of them look soooooo fucking good. I was especially fond of Zephons glow-up. Kain himself however... oof. The game is like, idk, think classic Tomb Raider but without the guns and no tank controls. The world is surprisingly open so long as you have the necessary abilities to reach story related/side areas. 0 loading screens which seems crazy to me. Visited areas tend to have portals you can activate so you can travel back and forth without having to run all the way. You have reasons to explore, health upgrades, magic capacity upgrades and... other things. Combat is pretty fun and feels good and tight to perform. Lock on, time your dodges and strike until they are stunned, to which you then gotta use a weapon to finish them off and feed on their soul. [spoiler]Look I can't avoid it but this game really does have an almost proto-Dark Souls thing going on.[/spoiler] When you aren't fighting, you are running, jumping, climbing and gliding through the realm(s), solving puzzles that range from fine to ZZzzz. You also have access to spells (if you can find them) which can make combat a breeze so long as you have enough... lets just call it mana. It's story is pretty great but lackluster given it's ending. Makes sense given that 1/3 was cut from the game near the release date but still. The music ranges from what felt like, to me, hitting random in the music producer while others are genuinely good. Enemies all have distinct calls. Hearing Raziels footsteps has always been weirdly satisfying. The voice acting is absolute cinema. Some of the best voice work on the PS1 era. The camera and platforming can be a little weird at times. [b] Soul Reaver 2 [/b] So I had never actually ever played 2 before. Had no idea what to expect. I'm gonna try and keep this fairly brief because just thinking about this game exhausts me. Oh my fucking god what a terrible game. I had almost no enjoyment from this game. The combat was made worse with enemies randomly blocking, being tankier and somehow 60% of my attacks would not connect. I'd have had a better time playing DMC2 because atleast then I'm not being frustrated, just bored. It feels like a massive step back from SR1. The visuals are nicer, models having a bit more going for them. The environments are nice and varied, but larger. There is no teleport system. You are backtracking for 70% of the game which makes sense given the circumstances of the plot but it still felt mundane going back and forward over and over again. The remaster... didn't do much. Some textures look cleaner. Some models look better. Kain and Mobius suffer big time. They are less expressive than their lower poly counterparts and [spoiler]Sarafan Raziel[/spoiler] just looks terrible. Didn't care for any of the music. The CGI cutscene in the intro was somehow scuffed to hell in some AI bullshit retouch. At one point, Kain jumps down from a heightened area. In the remaster, he fucking blurs into his surroundings then materialises below. Who signed off on that lmfao?????? Seems like more care was put into 1 than 2. The only good thing about this game is the story, cutscenes (when not in Remaster mode) and the superb voice acting. Honestly just watch it on youtube. I hated playing this game. Overall, I experienced no bugs, crashes or anything that seemed unintentional. 144fps is silky smoooooooooooth. The whole "press a single button to swap between classic and remaster" is genuinly an awesome feature. A couple remastered things look goofy but overall it's great? I really enjoyed SR1, wonderful game. I hated SR2. This edition comes with a really awesome bunch of archived stuff including concept art, VA sessions, fan art and such. The most interesting part is the cut levels from Soul Reaver 1. Being able to play them is super cool even if they are extremely limited. I doubt it will happen but it would be cool to see them... filled in a bit? I could swear there are vids of these levels being more complete but then again maybe those were heavily modded. idk. I recommend this solely for Soul Reaver 1 which means get this thing on sale. Blood Omen 1/2 + Defiance when? Reboot when? Remake when? Sequel when? Cam aaaaaaaaaaaaaan, we need to see how this ends!

As much as I respect the Legacy of Kain series for its influence and storytelling back in the day, the remasters of Soul Reaver 1 & 2 just don’t hold up at all. These games are simply too dated to be enjoyable today. The biggest offender is the gameplay itself. You’re constantly dragged down by tedious box-pushing puzzles that feel like they’re only there to pad out playtime. Instead of being clever or satisfying, they’re just repetitive chores that kill any pacing the game tries to build. Level design is another massive problem. All the environments are bland, copy-paste corridors that look almost identical, which makes exploring feel more like running through a maze of same-looking hallways than actually progressing through an interesting world. It gets dull fast, and there’s nothing rewarding about it. It's also just annoying trying to figure out where to go next, because everything looks the same trying to navigate this world is a pain. These titles might be nostalgic for some, but stripped of that, they’re clunky, boring relics. The remaster only makes it more obvious how badly these games have aged. Unless you’re already a diehard fan, I can’t recommend them.