Legacy of Kain™ Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered

This is one of the best gift to the world! Enjoy it!

While I haven't gone very far, first impressions are great, this is simply put an improved version of Soul Reaver 1 and 2, better visuals, support for current controllers, no need for additional patches or mods. Very similar to the Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remasters, with even a toggle for the old and new visuals. If you're into adventure games that rewards exploration in a Zelda like fashion, there's a good chance you'll like this and the story is an excellent dark fantasy with a focus on matters of choice and fate, the dialogues will keep you well invested, especially the 2nd game. Though now a few things have been added like a map indicating the locations you have visited, it's a simple new feature, a compass and there isn't much else more, in its core, this is still the same Soul Reaver experience which requires you to explore, consult the friendly characters for pointers as to where you should go if you're lost and when loading a game it starts you off in the beginning which then you'll either walk all the way back or take a teleporter closest to where you left off, so BEWARE, if you were expecting a perfect save state option and objective markers saying "Go here dummy!", then this might turn you off. Other than that, they added many bonuses such as unfinished levels, video reels of the recording sessions with the voice actors (Who are absolutely amazing with their performances) and lots of other extras for those curious to learn more about how these games were designed. Overall I'm really happy with what's on offer here.

A fan was the team lead...not a professional dev. Thus..no real improvements at all except textures, a broken day-night cycle, ridiculous goal oriented in-game maps, etc. hell, they broke the original grpahics mode and made it jittery as hell.

The devs of this "remastered" version decided to add a day/night cycle to the original Soul Reaver; something it was never designed for (the game features a mechanic where you can kill vampires by throwing them into shafts of sunlight, which would be completely broken by this mechanic without a substantial redesign) and which makes the game nearly unplayable in you're unlucky enough to find yourself in an outdoor area at night. These areas were never designed with alternate lighting in mind, so they end up being so dark that it becomes pretty much impossible to navigate them unless you have the original game memorized. Resurrecting Soul Reaver seems to have been like putting Janos Audron's heart back into his corpse. Some things should just remain dead.

I've got to say I'm a little disapointed. Yes, the game looks better than ever, but even the graphical restoration isn't without glaring flaws. You can clearly make out the seams between joined areas and there's noticable popup when entering an area that hasn't fully loaded. But the real gripe here arethe controls and sound. Controls are responsive, but there's very little precision, which is critical for platforming. Luckily even the OG game was forgiving enough that this ends up just being frusterating rather than infuriating. Combat could have used a bit of tightening up as well. I can understand wanting to preserve the original feel, but I think that could be accomplished without conforming to outdated combat controls. The only complaint that I have with the sound is that during dialogue, the music fluxuates in volume, increasing when no one is speaking, then decreasing to allow the voices to dominate. Seems like the better solution would have been to simply decrease music volume for the entirety of cutscenes. But the updated graphics are nice and being able to toggle between them and the original look was a good touch. The bonus content is pretty satisfying too. It's still worth a buy if you're intersted or want to relive some great memories with fewer polygons, but if you're not in a hurry, wait for a sale.