Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver
Every month we celebrate the most important, innovative, or just plain great games from PlayStation’s past. This issue, we prepare to fly on broken wings with PS1’s most downtrodden but murderously mobile vampire
Thundering cliché it may be, but you really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Just take Raziel. The star of Crystal Dynamics’ cult action-adventure is an emaciated ghoul who looks like he bought his outfit from Hobos ‘R’ Us. Yet despite his shabby appearance, this cursed, size-zero vamp can run rings around Lara Croft.
Compare Soul Reaver’s realmhopping bloodsucker with the First Lady of PlayStation, and there’s really no contest… well, there wasn’t back in the PS1 era. While Lara may have nabbed global fame and lucrative Lucozade adverts, Raziel is a profoundly more satisfying character to control. Whereas Core Design served up an awkward archaeologist who constantly stumbled and struggled to turn throughout its Tomb Raider trilogy, Legacy Of Kain’s gothic warrior was ghoulishly graceful from day one.
That remains the enduring appeal of Soul Reaver 19 years on: controlling Raziel is an utter delight. Compare the game to most other 32-bit 3D adventures, and the bony vampire embarrasses not only Croft, but also the likes of the stiff Syphon Filter. While manoeuvring Lara into position to perform even simple leaps could often feel akin to trying to parallel-park the Titanic on the head of a pin, Raziel is instantly fluid and fleet-footed. Whether effortlessly jumping 15 feet into the air, or using his tattered wings to gently glide between platforms, he makes PS1 Crofty look roughly as spry as an arthritic (albeit super-shooty) sloth.
VAMP IT UP
Soul Reaver is far more than a nuanced control system, though. This is a thoughtful mish-mash of soul-sucking combat, inventive puzzles, and VO performances that are way better than you’d expect from a campy tale of vampire revenge. Thanks to pleasingly in-depth mechanics – fellow vamps can only be killed by staking them through the chest or by exposure to sunlight or water, for example – and a wellexecuted duelling realm system, Legacy Of Kain has the smarts to match its claret-soaked chompers.
After being thrown into a life-sapping vortex by the titular (and extra-cranky) Kain, Raziel must master hopping between the material and spectral planes of existence. In gameplay terms, this sees you contending with two constantly shifting environments, and you must frequently phase between both as you tinker with your surroundings to solve block and gate puzzles. Example? An impassable river in the material realm can be navigated when it’s turned into a dry lakebed once Raziel passes into the spectral plane.
Games like Dishonored 2, and its fabulous ‘Crack In The Slab’ level, have subsequently used such realitymeddling mechanics to tremendous effect, yet back in 1999 few titles had ever experimented with such complex environmental interactions. Tomb Raider’s Lost Valley may have wooed us with that T. rex, yet next to Soul Reaver’s crisscrossing realms, Croft and her extinct chums can’t compete.
Subsequent (inferior) sequels followed, but the series was eventually staked to dust in 2004. Seeing as a modern reboot is about as likely as Dracula booking himself on a beachside holiday to Ibiza, we recommend dusting off your PS3 and downloading the PS1 classic edition to give this undead ace the encore it deserves.
DESPITE APPEARANCES, THIS CURSED VAMP RUNS RINGS AROUND LARA.