My top game ever created. I have all physical media from Soul Reaver. Thank you for letting Raina Audron direct the Remaster. Another thank you to her and the team :D This is the way you do a Remaster for the new generation. Soul Reaver is a true definition of a game, a true first metroidvania. I would write more ... but give this gem a chance, I mean you...new generation of players :D For the old school gamers - happy days, we have a preserved awesome game,from the better times!

I've never played Soul Reaver 1 & 2, and when I caught wind that they were getting remastered, I held off a little longer. I've heard that they are both fantastic games, and now that I've gotten to play them, I can say that what I've heard is 100% true.

The puzzles are enjoyable and spread out enough that they're not a chore. Their complexity feels just right.

The world itself feels large for a game from it's original time. There is fast travel, but it's restricted. There is not a great deal of direction, so you rely heavily on your compass. There are metroidvania aspects to it in that there are collectables that you can't acquire until you have a certain power.

Combat is where it feels weakest imo. Raziel's fists are very short ranged (understandably so), but once you get a weapon, that range doesn't feel like it improves. He holds something like a spear so close to his body that it's still difficult to get a hit in. I often found it better to just run and swing your weapon instead of trying the intended combat mechanics.

Characters, voice acting, and dialogue are all top notch, though. It really puts the writing in modern games to shame. The creativity and picturesque descriptors in the dialogue are refreshing.

I feel like I've missed out on this game for decades, but I am so grateful to have played it now. I'd rate it a good 5/7.

The remaster is quite good. I've completed SR1 so far, and I’m impressed. The controls are fluid and responsive, especially compared to the PS1 version. The character models, surrounding objects (like the figures in cocoons in the Cathedral or the dead bodies scattered around), weapons, and statues near the glyphs are all incredibly detailed—10/10. The addition of cut content is a nice touch too.

I didn’t notice many changes in the environment, aside from some AI textures towards the end of the game. The Dumah room features the same statues as the original, but the statue you rotate outside is now highly detailed. It’s possible that future patches may improve this, similar to the Tomb Raider 1-3 remasters (it seems like the developers were in a bit of a rush here too).

I didn’t encounter any bugs, although I did fall out of bounds once by mistake, which caused me to lose some progress since saving while out of bounds corrupts the save file.

The compass felt somewhat useless, and the map was only helpful for checking if I had collected everything. When it came to navigation, it didn’t really assist with figuring out where to go next.

Overall, I’m happy with the remaster. It’s great to finally play the game on modern hardware and software.

My biggest complaint so far is the day/night cycle—it’s just too dark. I expected the restored cycle to be a cool addition, but at night, it’s pitch black, and I could barely see anything in the game.

Other minor complaints include some AI textures in the late game and a lack of environmental upgrades, like the Dumah statues (though these may be patched in the future).

I hope that Blood Omen 1 and Defiance will also receive some love and attention in the future. (oke BO2 too)

One of the best remasters I've ever played.
This is the definitive way to play Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2.
Hoping this leads to Blood Omen 2 and Defiance remasters soon.
And hopefully a new sequel.

I loved this game in 1999, and every few years when I'd do a replay. I tried to love the first PC port on Steam, but it was so buggy it was unplayable. Then this remaster came out, and I finally get to play it again! Thanks for bringing one of my all time favorite games back to me :D :D :D :D AND THE LOST LEVELS OMG it was so nice to see!

Dunno what we did to deserve this remaster but here it is and it's great!

This is a bad port of 2 excellent games. There's no graphics options of any kind, you can't choose windowed, fullscreen etc. No option to choose which monitor its on, no resolution or frame rate settings, you just have to hope the game pulls something sensible from the OS defaults.

The intro cutscene has been remastered sloppily, you can see the eyes of Raziel's brothers in the background slide around their faces when they turn their heads (possibly from sloppy AI upscaling of the original video) and their arms and legs clip through their cloths while they walk Raziel to the cliff. None of these mistakes were present in the original FMV (I even went back to watch it on YouTube to double check my memory). In fact clipping here in gameplay is noticeably worse than in the original PS / DC release. They even clipped the camera inside Raziel's body during the speech from the Elder God in the very first minute of the game, again probably because no one thought to check whether the adjustments to Raziel's model broke any camera angles.

After all this time, Soul Reaver deserved better.

Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2™ Remastered™ is deified. The players tell tales of it...

TL;DR: It's really good, and I would recommend it both to the fans of the original games (not that they needed any recommendation) and to the newcomers alike. It has its shortcomings though.

When it comes to the Soul Reaver 1, I would say that this is the definitive version of the game from now on. I liked the new visuals, even though they do lose a bit of the dark and grimy atmosphere of the original, but even if you don't like the remastered look, you can swap it to the original PS1 crusty goodness instantly at any time, so the new visuals are an upgrade at best and inoffensive curiosity at worst, depending on who you ask, they can't ruin the game for you because the devs gave us options, which deserves major props.

The real reason why it's the definitive version of SR1, though, comes from the rest of the changes. From the tighter controls, the ability to move the camera with the analogue stick (in a platformer game, no less), to the addition of the map, which is pretty vague, but still helpful enough and contains the collectables tracker for each zone; reaving souls never felt better.

They even included the cut day/night cycle, which was absent from the original release. I think it's cool and makes you feel like you're in a living and breathing world a bit more, and it even affects the gameplay a tiny bit, which is also kind of awesome. Sometimes it gets too dark though, which doesn't seem to be intentional, and I wish you could toggle it off if you so desired, especially when it gets bugged.

Speaking of bugs, there are plenty. I fell through the floor a couple of times and had other weird stuff happen, but gladly nothing that made my save file go through the purifying cycle of life, death and rebirth, thank the Elder God for that. Players are reporting losing their progress all the time, so I would definitely suggest saving your progress in new slots as much as you can.

Speaking of the game itself, it's a semi-open world action-adventure, which feels like a 3D metroidvania in many respects. It can feel somewhat dated in many areas, especially when it comes to the abundance of block puzzles, and can be a bit frustrating when you're figuring stuff out for the first time, but once you do figure it out, it's a blast. The game is really impressive for its time and continues being impressive nowadays, with lots of cool detail and original mechanics. It's set in a vampiric post-apocalypse, which is a rather unique setting for a fantasy series, the atmosphere is engrossing, the narrative and writing are great and intriguing. It's a classic for a reason.

Soul Reaver 2 is a bit of a different beast. Gone are the sprawling areas with lots of additional content and exploration, this time around we are reaving souls in a very linear and much less ambitious action-adventure game. The puzzles got better, but the combat really took a hit and feels off, and the level design is much simpler. While in terms of its mechanics and the actual gameplay it's a lesser title, the real star this time around is the writing and the story, which took center stage. This is what makes SR2 the classic that it is, the story, the dialogue, the expressive cutscenes, the voice acting; it all comes together to create a much deeper narrative filled with character development, twists, turns and memorable quotes. It's great stuff, and I love that it's much more connected with Blood Omen in terms of its story and characters. The environments, the music and the atmosphere are still stellar as well.

When it comes to the remastered side of SR2, though, it's honestly really disappointing. I know, I know, the devs faced some technical limitations when it came to this game, and the scope of the project didn't allow them to go hog wild here, like they did with SR1, which arguably needed it more. Still, I'd argue that what they ended up doing made the game look worse that it originally did.

Sure, the new models are more high-poly and have cleaner textures, but at the same time many of them (Moebius being a clear example) seem to be less expressive compared to the original models, which really hurts the cutscenes. And since the environments look almost identical to the original game, these new and shiny models tend to stick out like a sore thumb and feel like they don't belong. The game just looks more cohesive with its original visuals. Also, I really, really don't like new Kain, I feel like his original model, despite being more simple, looks miles better, his new face was distracting in every cutscene he was in. Thankfully, once again, you can return to the original graphics anytime.

The devs also fixed some bugs from the original game, like the infamous crow bug, while introducing some new ones. And, while the opening for SR1 was re-rendered in HD, the opening for SR2 was clearly AI-upscaled, and it looks godawful. And here it is, this is the extent of upgrades, if one can call them such, that SR2 received. It feels like all the love and resources went into SR1, and SR2 was an afterthought. Which is a shame and left a sour taste in my mouth, as I love SR2 and I wish it received better treatment. They even included an achievement for SR2 that requires you to kill an enemy that only gets spawned by another enemy... That seems to be bugged, because this other enemy only spawns it once in a blue moon, it's completely random and only serves to waste your time. A shame.

On a more positive side, there's plenty of bonus content here, and it's really good. Lots of concept art (for a Blood Omen/SR1 remake as well, it seems), fan art, interviews, music, even playable incomplete SR1 levels that were cut from the game. Although even here it feels like more love was given to SR1, as pretty much all the SR2 bonus content is lifted from its original console release, but it's great nonetheless.

Overall, despite all my gripes (mostly related to the SR2 portion of this release), I really enjoyed my time and I'm glad that we can finally play these games nowadays without having to resort to the emulation or fan patches. Hopefully, we get the BO2/Defiance collection as well sometime in the future, and it would be great if BO1 at least got ported to Steam some day, it's one of the best games in the series that sadly gets overshadowed by its sequels.

Despite all the work to modernize the game, they didn't bother testing it thoroughly beforehand.

For SR1, they implemented a previously cut feature: a day/night cycle. It doesn't appear to be dynamic - at certain points in the plot, the time of day shifts - and so when you reach the Silent Cathedral, the game shifts to night until you presumably beat it.

However, night time is far too dark for anything on-screen screen to be visible. You enter the building and are met with pure blackness. Suddenly, it's impossible to progress because the game is too damn dark. Not stylistically or thematically dark. Truly unplayably dark. Raziel is reduced to two floating eyes on a black screen.

Of all the QOL changes they could've spent time on - for example a more natural camera perspective, a more modern mix of the soundtrack, fixing the broken "remastered" cutscenes - they opted for an invisible sun that arbitrarily sets, plunging the interiors of buildings into darkness.

There are no brightness or gamma controls to tinker with either, no toggle for the otherwise unimpressive feature (likely cut for a good reason), you simply have to wait for Aspyr to bother patching the issue out. Given their track record, I won't be holding my breath. Enjoy solving block puzzles in the dark.

best game ive played now remaster blood omen