Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Review

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Review

Some games can’t survive in a modern environment. In particular, a lot of our early 3D experiments didn’t really translate to this era with any success. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered is a pair of games that seem so cool in theory. You’re playing a vampire getting revenge on your old master and his cronies. You feed on souls instead of blood! How could this be anything but incredibly cool? And yet, in practice, the experience falls terribly short.

N64 and PSOne games often had these issues. When we first made the switch to 3D environments, they were so empty. You wander silent halls, go through several doors, and then encounter your first enemy. In this case it’s a single ghoul. If you see two, one of them will sort of wait their turn while you dispatch the first one. Then it’s time for a bit more lonely exploration before you encounter the next batch. There’s a rudimentary lock-on system, so you don’t accidentally attack the air to said ghoul’s immediate left. This emptiness can feel sort of spooky, at least at first. But this doesn’t last.

On the other hand, Soul Reaver looks a lot better than it used to. Every element has been cleaned up and sharpened. The environments are crisp and highly detailed. Every character model looks perfectly legible. If you’ve only played the original releases, you’ll see details you’d never thought possible. Even the controls and the camera system have been updated for more modern audiences. You can finally look up! New skyboxes have even been added to facilitate this feature. But the brand-new visuals can’t do anything to obscure the weird, empty nature of most of the stages.

Looking Better Than Ever

There’s a puzzle-solving element to Soul Reaver that adds a bit more depth to the combat and exploration. Most enemies require some clever thinking to dispatch, which is nice. Although sometimes that clever solution involves very slowly hauling an inert foe to the nearest fire so they can be burnt up. You also have a series of environmental puzzles to navigate. Nothing too crazy, but enough to break up the usual routine of monster murder and soul consumption. But something else felt off about this game, something beyond the empty spaces and the clunky combat.

For me at least, the most serious problem is one of pacing. My attention span is pretty fried, you see. So a third-person action title with a heavy emphasis on puzzle solving and exploration is a tough sell even on a good day. But Soul Reaver is also terribly slow. Those empty halls and sparse, clunky enemy encounters had my focus drifting elsewhere almost immediately. Plus, the environments do vary from region to region. But each region gets monotonous fast. Thus, it’s easier than I’d like to get lost. So I ended up wandering identical spaces, trying to remember what the larger goal was while fighting occasional monsters and ghouls. The games have been vastly improved from their original releases, but the act of playing them was downright agonizing.

You Can’t Go Home Again

To all the Soul Reaver fans out there, I apologize. Perhaps there’s some essential flavor that nostalgia adds to the soup, but I’m sadly missing it. For me, coming into these games cold was a dreadful shock. The big stretches of empty space are pretty painful. Fighting enemies is easier than I expected, but still not terribly engaging. The puzzles are stretched out over the same bizarre layouts, which makes them more frustrating. The visuals are a major improvement over the old games, however. I like the narrative’s premise well enough, but it was hard to get into the swing of things. Again, mostly due to the archaic gameplay. If you’re a fan of the old games, then Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered will be a breath of fresh air. On the other hand, new players will likely have a very difficult time with these games.

***A Steam key was provided by the publisher***