Legacy of Kain / Soul Reaver

[yes plz]

How well do they play on the PC? From what I understand, they're mainly made for consoles and then ported over to the PC later, so do they control well with a keyboard and mouse? Finally, what's the chronological order for the games?

 

[DraQ]

The controls are fucked up ('strafing', for example, makes your character run around the camera), but you can get used to them, after which point, you'll be able to play normally. They are also fully configurable, which helps. LoK:SR1 may cause some trouble under XP, but those can be worked around.

The chronology is BO->SR1->SR2->Defiance, although talking about chronology in series where all the characters run circles around the timeline is kind of pointless.
Disregard BO2, from what I've heard it's utter, canon-raping piece of shit.

Gameplay is solid throughout the series, although jumping puzzles in latter instalments (exacerbated by malicious camera) can be somewhat aggravating.

 

[Double Ogre]

BO2 was okay. Very different from the other games, but still fun. It's more combat oriented though, while the SR games are more about solving puzzles.

 

[Turok]

I enjoy more BO2 than the SR serie, was really nice use a bad guy as main hero.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

BO1 and Defiance make a LOT better use of Kain...

 

[yes plz]

BO1 runs like absolute crap. It installed well enough and plays, but it runs very sluggish. The one I downloaded came with CPU Grabber, but I can find a sweet spot for its setting. Setting it too low makes the game freeze-up randomly, but setting it too high makes it run very slow. Also, about how long is the game? I can't see myself stomaching its extremely basic hack'n'slash fights for very long.

 

[Double Ogre]

BO1 runs like absolute crap. It installed well enough and plays, but it runs very sluggish.

There's always the PSX version.

BO1 and Defiance make a LOT better use of Kain...

Except that Kain is basically a Raziel clone in Defiance. Or vice versa.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

BO1 and Defiance make a LOT better use of Kain...

Except that Kain is basically a Raziel clone in Defiance. Or vice versa.

I wasn't talking about gameplay.

 

[Double Ogre]

Then about what? Kain has similar rants in SR2, but just isn't playable there.

 

[Zinc]

Soul Reaver 2 is one of my favourite action-adventure games. Loved the atmosphere and story of this game. Excellent script and dialogue. Great gameplay too, but I felt the setting and storyline are what really brought this game to life. I really enjoyed the use of time and paradoxes. The dialogue is also top notch, with Raziel's narration being perfect. If you haven't played it yet, you must. Definitely one of my personal gaming highlights of the first decade of this millenium.

 

[yes plz]

Playing them in the order that DraQ set. Still making my way through BO1. Playing it on ePSXe -- looks and runs a whole lot better, though there are quite a few load times that weren't in the PC version.

 

[Murk]

^ The psx version has load times up the ass and, unfortuntely, they will be long unless you speed up the cpu rate of the entire emulator (that would result in ridiculously fast game speed tho).

The PC version on the other hand would adapt to your PC's abilities. Regardless, the feature of save-states more than makes up for the load times I would say.

Kain is a badass fasho, one of the best characters in any game series/franchise ever.

 

[sah]

I'm playing through SR2 right now and I'm finding it quite dull. Still, I loved SR1. The level design is slick and tasteful, the locations give the illusion of non-linearity. Throughout the game you learn new abilities that let you reach previously unreachable places, which is a fine motivation to revisit old areas. SR2 is just too linear and colorful. I loved the bleak world of SR1.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

What I didn't like about SR is that limited palette combined with low poly graphics made it easy to miss certain objects or even whole passages sometimes. I'd love to see a Soul Reaver: Lead Designer's Build one day that would bring the visuals to modern standards and restore all the cut content. It would positevely be da bestest game in teh history of evah. Alas, something this great is not likely to happen.

 

[pipka]

I played only Defiance and didn't liked it. The gameplay is tedious. And I stopped playing.
What i really liked about SR series is narration. One of the best.
.
.
.
Raziel == Haer'Dalis

 

[Morgoth]

Unofficial HD remaster released:
Download

https://www.sr1hdremaster.com/home

Stalk the land of Nosgoth like never before!​

About the project​

Soul Reaver was a groundbreaking title when it released in 1999 and it is still fondly remembered by many to this date. However, the graphics quality across the three different published versions have not been consistent and while the Dreamcast version runs at 60fps and has higher poly models for Kain and Raziel, the textures for everything else are actually lower quality than PC or even the PlayStation version. With the advent of emulators being capable of extracting textures, I finally had the means to upgrade Soul Reaver to higher resolution graphics.
This texture pack requires Flycast, a Dreamcast emulator, capable of extracting and loading textures externally, which enables anyone to mod Dreamcast games. I decided that after the upscaled texture pack I released in August 2020 and a demo version for Tomb Raider 2 HD on pc, the time was ripe for me to try something more advanced and challenging. I have started working on this project in July 2021. It has been a long road with many obstacles I had to overcome and I learnt much about working with textures.
To be able to accomplish this, firstly, I obtained a large library of textures. I purchased several sets from Marlin Studios and also bought copies of texture reference books from the acclaimed photographer, Judy A. Juracek. As her books were published during 90s and early 2000s, they are quite expensive and not the easiest to find with a CD-ROM attached. Luckily, I managed to track down Surfaces, Natural Surfaces and Architectural Surfaces, all of which proved to be an invaluable reference material.


Finishing this project would have not been possible without any help. Dear friend and LOK fan, Terry from Team Vivisect, helped me search for these textures and contributed several textures themselves as well. It was Terry's utter dedication to make their own project look as faithful to the original as possible which inspired me to do the same for Soul Reaver.
To make things even better, Daniel Cabuco, the super talented artist from the LOK series, also tremendously helped with this and allowed me to use some of the original SR1 textures. My project would never have looked as authentic without him. Check the credits section for a full list of all the people who contributed. Other languages are also supported as well.


I spent several hundreds of hours working on this, but I hope the wait was worth it. The download also includes a brand new HD version of the original manual I made so make sure to read through it first!
16. 08. 2022 Update: All the download links are now available!
Enjoy all the trailers below and the anniversary stream will be posted here as well!

 

[Pound Meat]

What I didn't like about SR is that limited palette combined with low poly graphics made it easy to miss certain objects or even whole passages sometimes. I'd love to see a Soul Reaver: Lead Designer's Build one day that would bring the visuals to modern standards and restore all the cut content. It would positevely be da bestest game in teh history of evah. Alas, something this great is not likely to happen.

If you're not playing Soul Reaver on a Dreamcast then you ain't black.

 

[Bigg Boss]

The story, soundtrack, VA, in this game is better than the game itself. Tomb Raider puzzles do not age well. Still love it though.

 

[gerey]

The block puzzles were a chore, but the biggest issue for me was how underutilized the side content in the game truly felt. There's a lot of optional places to go and explore, spells to unlock etc., but there's really little point doing so since the game is not particularly challenging.

 

[Pound Meat]

I played it when it was new and it didn't blow my mind but I remember really liking it. It was certainly more enjoyable than Shenmue. I would have given it back in the day but now it's and even that is made up of a lot nostalgia. It's so damn empty and wordy and the music is barely there. The cliffhanger was cheap as hell too.

SR 2 is a . It's just Backtracking: The Game, and the lore reaches a level of autism that will make your brain bleed.vdidnt even finish it.

 

[toughasnails]

I love SR but yeah I'd be very VERY careful about recommending it to new players today. What it needs is a remake that would keep the original writing and voice acting but would improve combat, even a more difficult version of Defiance's combat would be a step up, either remove some of the puzzles or better replace them with different types of puzzle, maybe develop the metroidvania element a bit so that the world can be filed with more useful stuff to find.
The game's writing remains well above the video game standards, it's got great world and atmosphere, but if you weren't "there" to be impressed by the 3D world without visible loading screens and the environments that completely transform around you in real time it would be hard to get over its shortcomings.

 

[Darth Roxor]

It's just Backtracking: The Game

No, that title goes to Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.

Also Soul Reaver 2 is great and you are a faggot.

 

[United Nations]

How well do they play on the PC? From what I understand, they're mainly made for consoles and then ported over to the PC later, so do they control well with a keyboard and mouse? Finally, what's the chronological order for the games?

You want a gamepad dude... I would probably choose a PS2 controller over PSX, even though a PSX controller would be most authentic in terms of Soul Reaver.

I never played much past the beginning of the original Blood Omen since it's a totally different game (top down, Zelda-style) from the rest of the series, but it's rated pretty high.

TBH I would only recommend the first Soul Reaver game because it's the only true classic, from there Blood Omen 2 and Defiance are about the same in terms of quality (most people dislike Blood Omen 2).

Soul Reaver 2 went in a completely different direction in terms of atmosphere and is more puzzle-based... It's much more fantasy than horror and the puzzles fucking blow.

So back to what I originally stated, Soul Reaver 1 is badass, and it's probably my favorite game ever made, but I also never did beat it because of the difficulty of the puzzles and nonstop backtracking, despite my many playthroughs.

 

[Derringer]

How well do they play on the PC? From what I understand, they're mainly made for consoles and then ported over to the PC later, so do they control well with a keyboard and mouse? Finally, what's the chronological order for the games?

You want a gamepad dude... I would probably choose a PS2 controller over PSX, even though a PSX controller would be most authentic in terms of Soul Reaver.

I never played much past the beginning of the original Blood Omen since it's a totally different game (top down, Zelda-style) from the rest of the series, but it's rated pretty high.

TBH I would only recommend the first Soul Reaver game because it's the only true classic, from there Blood Omen 2 and Defiance are about the same in terms of quality (most people dislike Blood Omen 2).

Soul Reaver 2 went in a completely different direction in terms of atmosphere and is more puzzle-based... It's much more fantasy than horror and the puzzles fucking blow.

So back to what I originally stated, Soul Reaver 1 is badass, and it's probably my favorite game ever made, but I also never did beat it because of the difficulty of the puzzles and nonstop backtracking, despite my many playthroughs.

Soul Reaver 2 just looks like the same games as 1 except worse, while Blood Omen 2 and Defiance are just kinda average to mediocre Devil May Cry clones. The only real games worth bothering with are Soul Reaver 1 and Blood Omen.

 

[United Nations]

How well do they play on the PC? From what I understand, they're mainly made for consoles and then ported over to the PC later, so do they control well with a keyboard and mouse? Finally, what's the chronological order for the games?

You want a gamepad dude... I would probably choose a PS2 controller over PSX, even though a PSX controller would be most authentic in terms of Soul Reaver.

I never played much past the beginning of the original Blood Omen since it's a totally different game (top down, Zelda-style) from the rest of the series, but it's rated pretty high.

TBH I would only recommend the first Soul Reaver game because it's the only true classic, from there Blood Omen 2 and Defiance are about the same in terms of quality (most people dislike Blood Omen 2).

Soul Reaver 2 went in a completely different direction in terms of atmosphere and is more puzzle-based... It's much more fantasy than horror and the puzzles fucking blow.

So back to what I originally stated, Soul Reaver 1 is badass, and it's probably my favorite game ever made, but I also never did beat it because of the difficulty of the puzzles and nonstop backtracking, despite my many playthroughs.

Soul Reaver 2 just looks like the same games as 1 except worse, while Blood Omen 2 and Defiance are just kinda average to mediocre Devil May Cry clones. The only real games worth bothering with are Soul Reaver 1 and Blood Omen.

SR2 is way more colorful than SR1, it's a lot like comparing the atmosphere and visual palette of Diablo 1 to Diablo 3.