Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered - Review

For the longest time Aspyr were known for their work in bringing countless games to Mac, but then in 2019 they changed things up by porting a classic Star Wars games to modern hardware. A year later the studio ported another two games, then another two the year after that and so on, but it wasn’t until 2024 when the studio did something more than Star Wars, Tomb Raider. But while that was how they kicked off 2024, they ended the year by bringing Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered to all platforms. Now that the game has been released in physical means, we finally dove into the games, to see how these PlayStation classics stand up in the modern day.

It is important to note that while you do get two games in this collection, you are actually getting games 2 and 3 in the series. The first game tells the story of Kain, whereas these two focus on the character of Raziel and their journey of revenge and understanding. At the start of the first game, Raziel is killed by Kain after he evolves into a grander species of vampire, this happens because he gets thrown into the Lake of the Dead. Hundreds of years later, Raziel is revived by a being known as The Elder God and sent on a quest for revenge against Kain. The events of the first game are grand and take some understanding, but they are left on a cliffhanger, which is not so bad as you get the sequel game in the collection. As events in the sequel pick right up, if you don’t play the first, then there are a lot of elements that won’t make sense to you. Across the two games there are plenty of being who each have their own stories; some are simple and some weave throughout and it’s a rare thing for games of that time. There are no story changes here, so those hoping for changes to characters or events, will be left wanting, no all the changes are done to the visuals and gameplay.

Starting with the gameplay there are only a few changes to things, most of it is the same as it was when it first released. The first of the two games is from the PlayStation era, that is PS1 for those keeping score at home and much of the gameplay reflects that. One of the major parts of this game, compared to the sequel is the number of puzzles to solve and those are retained here. What makes the first game far more playable than when it first released, is the inclusion of the map. Sure, a map makes sense now, but back then maps were not standard in many games and while the new map is not perfect, it does help greatly. One of the things I would have loved to have seen on the map, is the ability to track what regions of the world were locked off due to a lack of abilities that Raziel had yet to discover, it just would have made things much smoother.

Combat is really the other half of the gameplay and in the first game it might have worked with a PS1 controller, but today, it shows its age greatly. It is not broken by any means, but the animations are all set in stone, which means if an enemy dodges your attack, you are stuck playing out the attack still. In the sequel combat is much improved, enemies are also smarter, which makes for a more engaging experience and the variety of enemies has expanded. While the first game laid the foundation of things to come, the sequel smoothed out those rough edges and the result is a better playing game. The problem is that the gameplay is not as smooth as modern games, even with some of the adjustments that have been done. There is nothing inherently broken here, it is just not as smooth as it should be. If that were the only real issue, then I could accept it, but both games have this pointless compass, which sure make sense without a map, but they don’t do anything else. You can get hints if you are near a puzzle and stand still long enough, but those hints are bare bones at best and can sometimes be hard to trigger on the screen.

While the gameplay enhancements are minor, the graphics are where most of the effort went in and I want to say things look better, but that would be a lie. Now please don’t misunderstand, there are a lot of things to enjoy with the remastered visuals and the best part is that they don’t break the style the game has. No, my issue with the overhauled assets is that when you swap back and forth between, quite a number of assets rarely look that different. If you watch the first game in its PS1 form, it looks vastly different to what they claim it looks like now. It is almost like they upscaled the PS1 game first, then remastered that and the result is this weird state of nothing really looking different. For the second game, which released on the PlayStation 2, it does have the same outcome, the jump between the ‘old’ and the new is not as vast as it should be. If you want to see what a remastered game from that era should look like, check out Perfect Dark on Xbox 360 vs the Nintendo 64 release. Heck, even the Tomb Raider 1-3 Collection looks vastly different and that was done by Aspyr.

Perhaps the most exciting part to the collection are the included bonus materials. These as you might expect include a nice art gallery that features sketches, backgrounds and more. Beyond that though, something I found myself enjoying while doing some housework was the soundtrack player, because the music in both games is fantastic. For true fans of the games, the Lore of Nosgoth addition will provide a lot of insight into the characters, locations and more, which is nice. While I appreciate their inclusion, the Lost Levels addition to the bonuses feels weird, these levels were cut from the game originally and while you can explore them now, they are not complete, so the quality varies.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered contains two fun games and while they are playable today, they are still very much products of their time. The story across the two titles is the more important reason to pick up the collection, because it has a lot of twists and turns to discover. Where the collection falls apart for me is with the visuals, there is not a lot of difference between the before and after, thanks in part to the before being tweaked from its original look. Fans of the series will enjoy the collection, but for those who are coming in fresh, setting some expectations first is highly advised.

If you want to pick up the collection in its physical form, you can do so now with links in our Bargain Guide.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Aspyr

The Pros

The two games tell some great stories for Raziel and Kain, along with featuring a pretty amazing collection of secondary characters

The two games in the collection are great, more so as they are essentially parts 1 and 2 of a story…

The Cons

… it does feel weird not to include the first game in the series with the release though

The graphical upgrades feel weird, like they upscaled the games first and then remastered based off that