Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered is a package that intends to preserve and update rather than reconstruct. While it remains a 20-year-old series, the improvements and bonus content only prove how forward-thinking Soul Reaver was.
Years ago I once played a demo for Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Likely on PC as it would be a few more years before owning a PlayStation console.
While my gaming brain had been relatively matured by that point, I distinctly remember having absolutely no clue as to what I was doing in the Soul Reaver demo. Raziel’s tattered wings glided me towards chunky polygonal pillars. A spiral health meter struck me as strange. And to this day, I couldn’t tell you anything about that demo outside of being lost. Was it one of those vertical slices that was simply a husk of a level with no way to complete it? Dumbfounded, I eventually gave up because despite the game’s reception, I didn’t have enough money to afford it anyway.
Players like me old enough to have a crystallized memory of the pre-HD era of gaming undoubtedly have warmer, fonder memories of that specific era than ones dipping their toes in now. Almost any non-2D game had some kind of teething problems. Years would pass before camera, controls, and navigation harmoniously existed in a way that would fulfill a developer’s vision.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is both a relic and a revelation. Despite only just now playing the full game for the first time, I’m able to transport my memory back to 1999 and remember what the gaming landscape was like and appreciate all that Soul Reaver sought to accomplish at the time.
As Soul Reaver reached its 25th anniversary this year–and no new game in the Legacy of Kain series has been seen since 2003–there’s a kind of poetry that Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1-2 Remastered is also arriving so close to PlayStation’s 30th anniversary.
Are we really that old?
Whether through rose-colored glasses or honest nostalgia, it’s easy to think of a game like Soul Reaver as having an ominous reputation. One might know of Amy Hennig’s work on the series before she shifted over to Naughty Dog and Uncharted. Or of how Silicon Knights started the Legacy of Kain series over the ill-fated Too Human. Or how development on Soul Reaver led to significant cut content. Or how the series’ future is precariously in the pocket of the Embracer Group, a company that has earned little confidence.
Regardless of one’s experience with Legacy of Kain and the two Soul Reaver games, a project like Remastered is a blessing. As an increasing amount of games fall prey to being marooned on older consoles or being almost impossible to experience through “legal” means, preservation is becoming a massively necessary art.
Numerous arguments exist for remaking a game. Currently, Sony Interactive Entertainment is pushing the boundaries on that notion. But Capcom’s work with Resident Evil, Square Enix’s with Final Fantasy VII, and Konami’s with Silent Hill 2 show that visual, narrative, and mechanical overhauls can be not only captivating, but a way to expand upon what made the original vision so impactful.
Remastering, however, is arguably a more important craft. Digital Eclipse is one of the more prominent figures in this space, providing players with the likes of the Mega Man Legacy Collection, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection to name a few. These titles feature a wealth of games in a comprehensive package, often bundled with historical content for those games as well, including original art, design documents, promotional items, and scans of the original game manuals.
Expanding the idea of preservation to not only including the game but as much content surrounding the game as possible is vitally important to sustain the legacy of this fairly young medium, especially one that has such annoying, tricky licensing rights. Additionally, the minds behind these legacy titles aren’t getting any younger and it is crucial to collect as much knowledge as we can from them.
Aspyr has been doing great work in the space in recent years. Numerous legacy Star Wars games have been ported by the developer and just this year it released Tomb Raider I-III Remastered. Though it may be somewhat frustrating for completionists and fans of the series that the other Legacy of Kain games are not included here, Soul Reaver 1 and 2 are wonderful jumping-off points. And it is highly likely that Remastered is a testing ground to gauge interest on viable the series could be for a potential long-desired sequel, further remasters, or potential remakes.
For 1999, the first Soul Reaver game is absolutely phenomenal. In the context of 2024, it is an incredible time capsule of a laundry list of ideas that would fully be realized as technology continued to advance. The battle between the vampire Kain and his former lieutenant Raziel, spans across the gothic landscape of Nosgoth. Regardless of your gaming experience, the scope of Soul Reaver and the fact that it appeared on the original PlayStation is frequently mind-boggling.
Forget for a moment that rooms are often bereft of enemies and navigation is relatively simplistic. Ideas present in Soul Reaver are clever, sometimes unprecedented, and often timeless. Undead enemies cannot merely be beaten to death. They must be burned or impaled or tossed into water. But remove the spear from a dead enemy and they will attack again unless Raziel has sucked down their soul. Though primarily a slight palette change, players can shift between a spectral and physical plane to solve puzzles and uncover secrets. Boss kills and progression grant abilities that can be used to collect items. Fast-travel points are done by having Raziel walk forward into a new area, without too obvious of loading. Environments are packed with murals and detail that almost seem superfluous for the time period.
Sophisticated mechanics and gameplay are housed in a dramatic narrative that is packed with voice acting, smart writing, and a presentation that explains why content had to be cut and Soul Reaver ends on a cliffhanger that is immediately picked up in the sequel that would release for PlayStation 2 and PC in 2001.
The two games contained in Remastered might not have the instant recognition as landmark classics that would yield platform mascots. But Soul Reaver 1 and 2 are incredible games, certainly ones that shouldn’t be missed by players wanting to experience important tiles, especially from a transformative era such as the early 3D, polygonal days. They aren’t without flaws, certainly. Despite improved camera and updated controls, players are going to experience clipping through surfaces, wacky jumps, and a general weightlessness to Raziel. A compass and a map (created with help from the Legacy of Kain community) are meant to improve a sense of place but aren’t the perfect balm for feeling directionless. I noted after dying to the first boss I had to retrace my steps slowly back, using the map to try and identify the correct fast-travel point.
The Soul Reaver games are certainly not perfect but identifying ways that gaming has improved since 1999 is also a useful tool in recognizing how gaming fundamentals and their groundwork were laid over the course of several years. After progressing in one level, I noticed I could merely just jump off a wall without pushing an important box down and I would have needed to retrace several minutes’ of steps. Thank god for checkpoint reloads and shortcuts.
Old games are sometimes a slight nuisance to go back to, especially when modern gaming has helped smooth out so many rough edges that it’s hard to acclimate. But visuals can definitely make identifying what to do very hard to register. As a moody game set in a world that would tantalize any FromSoftware fan, Soul Reaver holds up pretty well. But Aspyr includes the ability to, with the click of the R3 button, switch back and forth between updated visuals and the old textures.
The best remasters allow players the ability to instantaneously swap between the new and the old, making one appreciate the labor of the past and the efforts to enhance and preserve by the remasters. While the old textures of the Soul Reaver games still have a high-definition sheen, the remake does an astounding job at making everything look better. One might make the argument that some of Remastered‘s visual changes make a few alterations but none do a disservice.
View the work Aspyr did as follows: What if gaming technology only improved to make everything look high-definition with better textures? There’s a scant bit of polygonal crunchiness in Remastered but it preserves the original vision, only seeking to look “new but old” rather than “new and improved” with a visual overhaul. The skies of Nosgoth still are foggy. Caverns possess only a handful of texture maps. Aspyr doesn’t even remove the limited draw distance, meaning that in some instances Raziel is only feet away from a black void, where movement means more data is streaming on the fly.
Personally, I prefer my remakes to be this way. Give me a new orchestral score, improved voice acting mixes, and somewhat denser graphics. But never remove the spirit of the original and definitely allow me to toggle between the years. Remastered is the kind of time machine that the Soul Reaver games needed, allowing multiple groups of players to appreciate what is on offer.
Judging Aspyr’s work on a technical front is easy and if the games were all, that would be fine. But thankfully, Remastered includes a number of bonuses that give fans just a bit more. There’s cutscenes, voice acting bloopers, biographies, behind the scenes images, fan art, cosplay photos, a lore map, and reading material. Perhaps the best inclusion are a grouping of cut “lost” levels that were removed from the games. I wish more games allowed players to experience this kind of rough content, even if it doesn’t amount to anything and is definitively unfinished. What harm does it do? Absolutely none and I imagine ample amounts of cut content could be found across a broad spectrum of games, it’s just sad that it won’t ever see the light of day.
The additional content in Remastered could have likely been more comprehensive for gaming historians but the mere fact that it is included is a blessing. The presentation of the video content could have been better, especially allowing players to fast-forward or rewind. Menus could have also been a little flashier as well. But these are small gripes that could be patched, or considered down the line for other games.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1-2 Remastered is both a time capsule and welcome update to a pair of beloved games that have been shelved for far too long. The longer times goes on, the harder it becomes to preserve titles. Aspyr not only presents the Soul Reaver games relatively untouched but provides worthy updates to ensure the legacy is continued and appreciated. Hopefully, this is the first step towards Legacy of Kain rising from its deep slumber and back into the light.
