You can tell how important this is for Josh, he's in full Substitute Teacher mode all the way through. Glad he left most of the secrets for anyone who wants to play the game for themselves as well.
I can never unhear him as Megabyte from Reboot. His voice was just so.... eloquent, but so villainous. Soothing, but he could make it sound almost predatorial. I miss his voice. He just had this delivery, this punctuation that's unmatched by virtually every other voice actor out there.
Such a tragedy how he died. It was just supposed to be a simple surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumour from his lungs. Then he became seriously ill and died four months later. 😭
If it's passion for the games you'd like to see more, I highly recommend watching Mapocalocops play through the whole franchise. There are honest and unironic "I'm almost crying because the writing is so peak" moments in there. And that was his first experience with Legacy of Kain, too. So the appreciation wasn't simply driven by nostalgia.
It seems like A LOT of YT playthroughts cut the intro audio to avoid copyright :( Welcome to nightmare dystopia that is TH-cam 2024. Would rather have magic vampires running around.
Idk what you're on about, the squid god is clearly a good guy, trying to give raziel his revenge! Frankly I find it odd that anyone could see the ever present squid as a bad guy :p
@@tisFrancesfault yeah, its those stupid ancients painting their fanfic of the future to mislead lost souls like raziel into thinking that elder god is evil
A small detail to Raziel’s “I would have chosen integrity” line is that he later does have to face the same choice that Kain did… and he does choose integrity.
In 2011 I played through this game on a Sony Xperia phone for a nostalgia trip. When I booted this up the other day I realised it’s now been longer since that nostalgia trip than it had been between the original release of the game and my 2011 replay. At first, that made me sad. But then I realised: this masterpiece has been restored and revivified in the best way. I’m so glad we got this, and not some cash grab. And I’m going to savour every moment of playing through it again. Thank you.
It's my head canon that Malchia has had enough and was preparing himself for a final end before Raziel enters his chambers. He's filled with self loathing over his image, he tells Raziel that "you are the last to die", and his final words are "i am released". Old mate was waiting a long time for this.
These games are why when people ask "who are some of your favourite actors" Tony Jay, Michael Bell and Simon Templeman are in there. And the WRITING in this game. Chef's kiss, blew my mind when I played them as a schoolboy
Agreed. My partner teases me for how I can hone in on just about any of Templeman's roles across different games; I didn't grow up with KOTOR, for example, but when my partner was playing it in recent years, my attention snapped to the screen when I heard Simon speaking, and it was just a random guard. 😅 Always gonna be Kain I cherish the most, though. An absolute bastard, but one of my favorite bastards in gaming. 🖤🖤🖤
I was 9 when I first played and I just wasn't good enough back then to beat it and when it finally popped up on steam I thought finally, I can finish it but that version was broken to hell and back. I am so happy they swooped up this title and brought it back. It's been a good year for games for me, I'm so happy 🥹
1. Malchiah's chamber having a giant meat grinder suggests that he both needed it to grind up his food because of his form and that MAYBE, he was alredy contemplating suicide. Which is why he accepts his fate so easily 2. The Vampire Hunter was a chad that made it to Zephon, but got caught off guard by the door being a part of his body 3. Its speculated that the reason Dumah is the strongest of the Vampire Brothers because, unlike the others, his evolution was halted at its peak before could start developing downsides like the others. Giving him all the benefits and none of the weaknesses. He even exists in the Spectral Realm! Also its possible that the reason Dumah's clan is in such an inhospitable enviorment is because its the perfect test for his clan members. Either you can survive or you can't. 5. A huge chunk of the game was cut due to time constraints and thank God it did. Soul Reaver 2 is a masterpiece of storytelling for how much it recontextualises the previous games...
I like the story in SR2 a lot.. but I remember being disappointed with how they made the world.. The first game was amazing with all the interconnectedness. but How I recall the second game going.. it was just walking up and down the same "corridor" that kept expanding both ways.
@@Ph33NIXx Spoiler: You kill all your "brothers" as humans at the end of SR2 including yourself. "The vampire Turel had eluded my vengeance; the Sarafan Turel would not."
@audunskilbrei8279 ah just as i recalled.. So i guess he outlived all? I never played defiance though.. i have thought of buying it as i have a working PS2 now. The steam build of the game would not allow me to use a controller.. and playing it on keyboard was terrible x)
That opening FMV blew me away. I was scratching my head how they got their hands on quarter century old CG assets, hearing that they remade the opening from scratch is infinitely more impressive.
They didnt remake it from scratch, the company just so happened to keep everything archived including scripts, storyboards, audition tapes and older versions of the game. So they just re-rendered the already made intro to the new resolution. As an aside you should look up the recent documentary on soul reaver. Its funny listening to the audition tapes of who applied to this franchise. I believe the guy who plays spongebob was there and the doctor from star trek voyager and some others.
Agreed! It's been one of the biggest highlights in recent years, for me. Hoping we can get more of the younger generations interested in LoK, because I genuinely want to find more people IRL to geek out over the series with. 😅😆
หลายเดือนก่อน +245
I had a few minutes of silence around the 20 mark, anyone else as well?
52:16 Got to both agree and disagree on that. When taken only on its own merit then yes, Soul Reaver 1 is just that and it's great at it. But where it really shines is the context of the entire saga: when later, much later, on the course of next two (or three if you want to count Blood Omen 2) games, you learn that in fact it was "shades of gray" all along. That in his blind pursuit of revenge Raziel became a useful tool for much greater actors. That in his arrogance, he constantly assumed knowledge of not only said players motives and past, but more importantly his very own. He goes back and forth between those assumptions, learning (most of the times the hard way like a proper tragic hero) to look past them and finally understand and forgive Kain, but most importantly accept his own role in this cursed world. And when he finally does, he does it on his own volition - for the very first time doing something, that those who manipulated him up to this point, did not expect at all. And so he grows from an easy to identify with, angsty, single-driven and (self)righteous but ultimately unwitting pawn, to a more thoughtful and ready to self sacrifice discerning player. And so does Kain. But that's an entirely different paragraph ;)
I like to imagine that post-Defiance Kain was heavily moved by what Raziel ultimately did. And, given the circumstances around that ending, I can't help but headcanon that may take a karmic and emotional toll on him; potentially driving Kain to actually step up as a hero, a proper Scion of Balance.
@@Daelyah I would hope he will still try to defy the "sacrifice curse" which was placed upon him at his birth and won't just flat-out accept his fate. Maybe he could achieve that by trying to destroy/erase the very reason pillars were created in the first place? But tbh I don't think much about it, given I'm no Amy Hennig so anything I come up with sounds shallow and cliche even in my head :D
Soul Reaver is great for a number of reasons, but I always loved it for its obvious parallels with Blood Omen. In BO, Kain is the one murdered unjustly and manipulated into a revenge quest. He quickly finds out about that manipulation, and thinks he is doing the right thing to then follow Mortanius' guidance and kill the rest of the pillar guardians - though even this is a manipulation from the Hylden. Kain and the Elder God (for their own separate reasons) manipulate Raziel into this journey for revenge. The LoK universe is incredibly and intentionally cyclical, in a thematic way that could have been "tired" if a less capable writer has tried to handle it.
Your excitement is palpable in the most genuine way. I'm quite happy to see the remaster has been done so well. I'll probably try playing this on the big screen with my partner
2:55:00 The French version of the game is actually phenomenaly well Voice casted. Raziel's voice is done by the same guy who was dubbing Kevin Costner in French : Bernard Lanneau, who also made voices for the French version of Princes of Egypts, the Iron Giant and Big Hero 6. Kain's voice is done by Benoît Allemane, who made the voice of Balloo in Tale Spin, Goliath in the Gargoyles and the french voice for Morgan Freeman another of his longest "role" was Charlie the Hen in the Looney Tunes. He also did the Elder God's voice in SR. Allemane is someone who did theatres play when he was young, Shakespear mostly and Moliere, so the man is perfect when it comes to Theatrics wich made him perfect for a character such as Kain. Here's the dialogues between kain and raziel in French if anyone is curious. th-cam.com/video/7jX7Q2cE72U/w-d-xo.html
I had finished this game last week, loved every second of the game and seeing josh play this game is honestly awesome and just a master piece in every way possible
I will admit I was surprised by Josh's take on Raziel being 'good' and Kain being 'bad' - and then he mentions later on in the video that he never got the chance to play SR2 or Defiance, and I was like oh. OH! I can't wait for him to play SR2 and see his reaction to the plot twists ....
Just to be clear, these outtake clips have been around for a while. They existed on the PC version for Soul Reaver 2. Not exactly lost but it looks like they spruced up the quality a bit. I appreciate the effort they went into including the cut content, though. THAT is the carrot for me. Otherwise there are great HD versions of Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 available using an emulator.
I will be hoping forever for this to hit enough people to make nostalgia force a finale out of this series. This game meant more to me than I can express I'm over the moon that this has happened and someone I look up to like Josh actually having the ability to give it a proper review was more than I dared to hope for. FUCK YES.
I would like to add to this Josh please for all of us with the nostalgia for this beloved series, use your contacts and let them know how we would love, and be willing to pay for a finale to the lore of this series in a revamped (pun intended) engine, that could do justice in game form. Sincerely every 90's kid that shouldn't have played it but did anyway
Something I always thought, but even more now after hearing this beautiful voice acting again is Victor from the underworld movies seems heavily inspired by Kains voice actor. And rightfully so.
Figured that was why Victor was my favorite, when I watched the first Underworld film as a kid. 😆 He felt just a tad Kain-coded, and little-kid-me was already heavily biased for LoK's titular bastard of a vampire king.
I really hope they remaster Blood Omen, Its story is the backbone of the entire series but its probably the hardest for new people to get into due to the age of game. Its one that could use a massive visual upgrade with a few quality of life improvements. Something along the lines of that Diablo 2 remaster done a few years ago.
In regards to Kain or Raziel being the good guy, neither of them start out as the good guy. But both of them learn and become better as time moves on. That said, Raziel is, in my opinion, the over all protagonist to the series, since he sacrifices so much to save Nosgoth even though he has so little left to give. Kain shifts from the villain to the Anti Hero. Unfortunately we didn't get to see whether Kain would rise to his station as the guardian of balance or not with that cliffhanger ending in Defiance.
Legacy of Kain is one of the other fictional setting, with 40k, that had me OBSESSED to an Unhealthy degree. the HOURS, nay, DAYS, i would spent on Nosghotic Realms boards, discussing Lore implications and ramifications of each and EVERY character and their arcs, and the environement of Nosgoth and how the world worked with HUNDRENDS of other fans. Rare are the games that gave me such overwhelming envy to immerse myself completly in it.
Yeah i remember that. I have a question for you. If Raziel is the only one who has free will. How did kain break the chain of Raziel going into the blade. Because in order to do so he would have to use his own free will to change events.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 He used the Reaver's power, just like he inadvertently did when he killed prince William in Blood Omen 1 and rewrote history in the process. When 2 Soul Reavers are in close proximity to each other, the fabric of reality becomes warped and fate's grasp begins to weaken. There were 2 Soul Reavers in that room at that point - the blade with Raziel's soul, and Raziel himself. About halfway through SR2, Kain used the same trick to guide Raziel into sparing him. So Kain's entire plan hinged on multiple pieces falling in sequence, like dominoes. First he had to not be dead at that point, then he had to be present for Raziel's absorption event. The timeline is vulnerable only when 2 Soul Reavers meet, meaning Kain had limited opportunities to try to change it.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 It is one of the Paradoxes, Kain while not be completly Free, as some leeway, don't forget that HE IS, the Guardian of Balance, the Scion of Balance. So he capitalised on the Paradox of the Reaver's soul trying to devour itself when the Blood reaver and Soul Reaver fused at the end of SR2. Wich gave him enough time to try and change History and introduce a new paradox, something that ultimatly was also a mistake, but apparently something that was clouded from his multiple voyages through time using the Chronoplasts.(this could be one of the few plotholes the series has, but i mean over the span of 5 games and a decade of rewritting, cutting and retconing, its to be expected that there is some holes, it is what it is)
For anyone trying to say that this remaster was "low effort"...just try to play Defiance on PC with a controller these days. Even the simplest things take some hard work to do right. Proper Controller support is one of them. Hell, Defiance still doesn't register my L1/LB or R1/RB when I try to configure controls.
I think a lot of people misconstrue just how CLOSE they adhered to the original release in this remaster as 'low effort'. With games going back this far, it's JUST as much work to keep the game to its baseline. There's a lot of effort and energy required to both recreate the game as a remaster requires, without being tempted to 'change' too much and risk taking away from what it was.
@@Blisterdude123 I think SR1 looks great (except for the intro cutscene's vertical cropping and missing assets), but 2 seems far more undercooked. For some reason many of the textures in SR2 look blurrier than in the original, and the new character models have less expressive facial animation than the original version too (particularly noticeable with Mobius and Sarafan Raziel). I'm okay with things being very close to the originals. In fact even if everything looked _identical_ to the originals, just with higher resolution and frame rate, I'd be fine with that too. Because like ColdRoland said, just having fully compatible versions of these games be available everywhere is hugely important all on its own. But a few things here are definitely downgraded, which isn't good. I'm surprised more people aren't noticing it, actually. I'm hoping that's just because the game is in its honeymoon phase or whatever, and that this stuff will eventually be addressed.
@@yewtewbstew547 Thats actually a reason for soul reaver 2 not lookign as good and being more blurry. So the director of the remaster was talking about it (shes a former fan they hired because of her texture modding and website work). So in soul reaver 2 they did something with the textures to save space on the disk. Which means that all the textures get warped and stretched over the terrain and geometry. So she said they did the best they could because of the source limitations but it couldnt be remastered as well as soul reaver 1 without remaking the game from the ground up. This wasnt true for actual models however which is why the characters and objects look amazing but things like the floor, cliffs, water surfaces etc just look a little crisper than the original without much change.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51I don't think Raina Audron's a former fan, though. She's still a prominent figure in the main LoK server on Discord. Her partner (a fellow fan who goes by Bazielim) releases all news related to LoK on her YT channel, under the title of "Nosgoth News Network."
Aw, sad to see that we wont be seeing your live first-time experience of SR2 on-stream. Would you consider recording yourself playing the game and release a compilation of the biggest revelations? Soul Reaver 2 has so many twists and turns. The jaw drop I had at some of them is wild. I do think you should play Blood Omen 1 before you play Soul Reaver 2 if possible. As the end of Soul Reaver 1 reveals, time travel is a mechanic in this universe and Blood Omen 1 features it heavily. Soul Reaver 2 has you revisiting some of the events of Blood Omen 1 in a different context, which will give you many 'aha!' moments if you've played Blood Omen.
I'd happily watch Josh do a playthrough of all five main LoK games, although I get that BO1 can be tricky for some people to finish. My partner took a few months to beat it, and he didn't much care for how much jank it had. Meanwhile, I still have nostalgia for the whole series. Even with all its faults, I cherish the LoK series dearly.
@@Daelyah I do have mixed opinions about Blood Omen as it was jank, but all the William the Just stuff ties directly into several major moments in SR2 that its difficult to say 'skip it'. I appreciated playing it years later, then playing SR2 right after and being like 'oooooh'.
@@mph8er playing BO1 these days is really tall ask IMO. The game was clunky back in the day when it was new. Whole lotta patience needed and I don't think that will translate well into a video, much less a stream. But yeah, the lore that it holds, William, Ariel, Moebius even Kain himself, looping back in later games and how it all ties together.. Masterclass in writing.
"Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss, unspeakable pain... relentless agony... Time ceased to exist... Only this torture... And a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that damned me to this hell." Pretty sure my Siberian Husky also thinks this when I give her a bath.
I've been waiting 25 years to play Soul Reaver again. I'm so happy this game came out. I turned back into a 5 year old again. One of if not the best games I've ever played
1:51:19 - Bingo. My partner is greatly looking forward to me playing through the game and her watching the story unfold. I'm one of the "big" backers of the Kickstarter and projects that have been coming out and she's infected by my everlasting passion for the series. She's starting to see why, and also how the game actually affected my life so dramatically in my youth. I would quite literally not be the person I am today without Kain and Raziel. They were defining characters for me at a very crucial time in my life. Thankfully the game has subtitles in her native language too, so I don't have to work so hard translating much of the story which is monumentally difficult! It is an absolute delight to be replaying them again without requiring emulation, and seeing so many fresh eyes finally witness what is by far the greatest video game story ever told. It just does not have an equal in my opinion. Edit: also hearing you've not completed Soul Reaver 2 is very close to a mortal sin. You must fix this.
A note on the tutorial cycle that josh is talking about with mechanics, Not only do games often introduce a bunch of mechanics at once and then never really utilize them after they also just forget to actually have them used consistently. This is where older games limitations became their strength because since you couldn't have 7 million mechanics you'd focus on how your few sets of mechanics could be layered on each other for interesting effects like josh says "use mechanic a, then b, now a AND b, now c, now c and a, now b and c. it sounds straight forward when you think about it but after that with just 3 mechanics you've not just created combinations of mechanics but you've also reitterated each mechanic abc three times each, once on it's own and once with each other mechanic meaning that you're less likely to forget to have unused parts.
1:53:40 - The switch between realms doesn't just take longer on emulation, it actually took longer on native PS1 hardware as well. In some ways it worked; the sped-up shifting feels a bit too fast, like the original game was designed with that slowdown in mind at the time. I think Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance have a similarly slow-ish shifting speed by design, but it's been a while since I've played. Anyway, it's neat for gameplay-comfort purposes that shifting is really fast now, but it does take away some of the original feeling, I think.
one of my favorite ps1 games of all time! I must have played it start to finish at least ten time. Did a few speed runs as well just to challenge myself!
Josh clearly loves Soul Reaver, I don’t understand why he didn’t finish Soul Reaver 2. I couldn’t get enough of the story and had to play all of the games. I’m so pleased they’ve remastered this, only wish they had also included Defiance.
Amazing experience. I think there's merit to having respectable youtubers who make consistent and good media as "advisors" in a sense. Nowadays we trust them FAR more than game journalists or reviewers of big shot companies. TH-camrs should become, in a way, the checks and balances the gaming industry needs to be held to. They will tell you what's good, what's bad and the nitty gritty in an honest and transparent way. They are the people who connect to the audiences, it makes sense to liaise with them to see what will work and will not.
Chat needs to get the remasters themselves, and actually take time to properly listen to the music. Much of its ambience contributes a sort of environmental storytelling, as an incredible addition to the rest of the overall story.
I'm fully with Josh on remasters. I myself am 32, but I didn't get to play a ton of classic games because my parents didn't like gaming. No Chrono Trigger, no Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8 or 9, nothing. Most I was allowed was Pokemon because a friend talked them into it and it was "kid friendly". Not to mention the absolute ton of games that didn't get released in one region or another. I'm European, I wouldn't have been able to play a whole bunch of JRPGs even if I was allowed. These remasters release internationally and fully compatible, which is GREAT for people like me, as well as anyone younger who's interested in older games. If a remaster goes to the lengths of preserving the original as well, like here, that's absolutely amazing and I wish it was the norm.
That's the potential problem with remasters. If the experience or content is compromised, people will never get to see the game the way it was intended. In most cases I would advice playing both the original and remaster if possible.
@@lorecow88 That was a big problem with the Halo Master Chief Collection for years. Literal years too, they only really fixed it all by like 2022 or so. Originally those ports of Halo CE and 2 on classic graphics mode were significant visual downgrades from the Xbox originals. No bump mapping, tons of visual effects missing or broken, missing lighting and shadows in cutscenes. I think what exacerbates this problem a lot is that remasters always inevitably attract a new audience. Which is good, obviously that's part of the reason why they're important. But if someone didn't play the original, they won't notice these problems. Which is really why 343 got away with not fixing that stuff I just mentioned for nearly 7 years. If it wasn't for a handful of particularly anal TH-camrs banging the war drum, it probably never would have been fixed.
Fun fact: Because this remaster is essentially running on top of the original game, ALL of the button code cheats are still accessible. You can still activate Shift-at-Will, the story augmented reavers that were cut, all or that. The era of menu button cheats is not yet lost to us!
After finishing the remaster and finding everything there was to find, I have a note about the density of the game. Yes, it is so cool that you get to do so much in so little time but the cost of that is that most of the bonus stuff you find (glyphs for instance) are just there...for the sake of being there. You find awesome stuff but the game doesn't really give you room to breathe to use it. I have found sound glyph, water glyph etc. - and I had no use for them. They were just there. I have used the fire and sunlight glyph a few times when I lost the Reaver to kill the enemies quick but the game definitely did not challenge me enough to make the finds anything more than a curiosity on the menu.
i still own the ps1 version of soul reaver 1 im so happy to see the realm of nosgoth rise from the ashes like the undead raziel is i hope to see more game in the world of nosgoth coming after this remake
my friend used to talk about this game all the time but i never played it . i was busy playing dino crisis and resident evil and metal gear solid . oh the good old days when everything was right ( feels old man)
man this gives me memories, played it as kid, loved the story.... still remember it better than it looks, what wonders does brain does, it fills the gaps...
Legendary game I had it on ps1 on release when I was a kid, I appreciate the writing and story as an adult, I wasn’t able to complete it I was like 7/8 years old.
1:07:40 ....surprised Josh didnt point this out, (Edit ...considering what he says about Dumah, i am not even sure he knows its even a thing) but that is actually teaching you lore "Dead" Vampires can become "Reapers" (they mean Wraiths) if left dead for too long Then when you ressurect them by removing the cause of death (in this case a spear) they retain their Wraith abillities and can drain your health once they make contact with you So no Josh ....you were not low on health at that point because you were in the physical realm, the Vampire was also draining you ....quite a lot (Edit: this is also what Dumah is doing, it has nothing to do with his constrict ability, he can just do it as soon as he hits you)
The only time I ever "cared about graphics" as a kid was in cut scenes, but like only in that way that I went crazy over something like parasite eve or the anime cut scenes in the wildarms series, not that I ever cared about "bad" graphics.
I was on the fence about getting the remaster. Soul Reaver 1+2 and Defiance are like, core memories and standards in video game storytelling for me, but I was afraid it was just a cashgrab. But seeing another fan gush about this kind of clinched it for me. I do hope they remaster Defiance too. edit: those outtakes were on Soul Reaver 2, unlockable iirc. edit2: you never finished SR2, Josh? Hoooboy, talk about endings.
Hate to say it, but the outtakes aren't as lost as you may believe. They were the outtakes and in studio footage that was included as bonus contend on the original release of Soul Reaver 2 (accessible through a code that was revealed at the end of the game). It's still cool they just made sure it was available right out of the gate, though.
I haven't spent much time lately with the main Discord community for Legacy of Kain, but I believe Raina Audron from our community spearheaded quite a bit of these remasters. I'm just happy to see Legacy of Kain getting an influx of attention again, since it's a series I've held near and dear for most of my life.
You can actually go to the human city before rehab. Just go in the spirit realm, then jump up the left wall while in the spirit realm. It's nice to get the gate early.
In regards to Zephon boss fight's thematics. The folly Zephon engages in is his need to dominate the humans. He takes great pride that he turned the humans greatest weapon into his home, only to be undone by a meek wisp of flame from one of their more common weapons. Also that in embracing an insectoid nature to gain control and mobility of the catherdral and mointains he became an imobile insect queen which left him vulnerable. In regards to the spiral - It's more than that. The elder god's imagery is associated with the spiral and the spectral realm, of whom Raziel is raised by. You see them textured all over his chanber.
The bouncer is a guilty pleasure of my youth. I probably used a game-shark to beat it, but I remember spending hours in the multiplayer mode with my friend.
You can tell how important this is for Josh, he's in full Substitute Teacher mode all the way through. Glad he left most of the secrets for anyone who wants to play the game for themselves as well.
He is so excited, you can see it in his face during the cutscenes where he's mouthing along to the lines.
lol I read substitute teacher and he sits there with his cup patronising us. Perfect description
Just hearing Tony Jay's voice gives me chills. What an absolute legend. RIP.
I can never unhear him as Megabyte from Reboot. His voice was just so.... eloquent, but so villainous. Soothing, but he could make it sound almost predatorial. I miss his voice. He just had this delivery, this punctuation that's unmatched by virtually every other voice actor out there.
F
Such a tragedy how he died. It was just supposed to be a simple surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumour from his lungs. Then he became seriously ill and died four months later. 😭
Josh's passion for this game is infectious. This one is first monitor entertainment.
If it's passion for the games you'd like to see more, I highly recommend watching Mapocalocops play through the whole franchise. There are honest and unironic "I'm almost crying because the writing is so peak" moments in there. And that was his first experience with Legacy of Kain, too. So the appreciation wasn't simply driven by nostalgia.
@@hekatebleble4800 I love Mapo!
22:59 sound is back
My hero!
It seems like A LOT of YT playthroughts cut the intro audio to avoid copyright :(
Welcome to nightmare dystopia that is TH-cam 2024. Would rather have magic vampires running around.
@@PeteOfDarkness Yeah, Ozar Midrashim is a _great_ track, but closely guarded...
thank you
lmao when the sound cut out initially i thought JSH had just gone on a long swearing tangent.
nothing beats classical shakespearean story of betrayal and time travelling vampires trying to stop giant squid
And the most Shakespearean of tropes: Time Travel.
@@michaelkitchin9665 Macbeth really took a turn when an eldritch god told Macbeth he'd have to time travel to become the king of Scotland.
Idk what you're on about, the squid god is clearly a good guy, trying to give raziel his revenge! Frankly I find it odd that anyone could see the ever present squid as a bad guy :p
@@tisFrancesfault yeah, its those stupid ancients painting their fanfic of the future to mislead lost souls like raziel into thinking that elder god is evil
A small detail to Raziel’s “I would have chosen integrity” line is that he later does have to face the same choice that Kain did… and he does choose integrity.
Amy Hennig deserves all the accolades she gets and then some!
Facts. I am shocked with how good the writing is so far, I am a first time player, hoping to finish the game today.
In 2011 I played through this game on a Sony Xperia phone for a nostalgia trip. When I booted this up the other day I realised it’s now been longer since that nostalgia trip than it had been between the original release of the game and my 2011 replay.
At first, that made me sad. But then I realised: this masterpiece has been restored and revivified in the best way. I’m so glad we got this, and not some cash grab. And I’m going to savour every moment of playing through it again. Thank you.
this is unbelievably cool, the effort time and passion to build this is groundbreaking
Melchia's biggest mistake was installing a giant meat grinder in his lair, and then phasing into it because he was too lazy to walk around it.
tbh He did seem happy to have his life ended xD
It's my head canon that Malchia has had enough and was preparing himself for a final end before Raziel enters his chambers. He's filled with self loathing over his image, he tells Raziel that "you are the last to die", and his final words are "i am released".
Old mate was waiting a long time for this.
Dear lord, the core memory nostalgia when Josh was explaining playing the game with a printed out gamefaqs guide next to him. I'm still recovering.
40:50 Kain doesn't want you to know this, but those torches next to the door are free. You can just take them.
no shit sherlock, video literally shows this.... thank you Captain Obvious
@@SA80TAGE Booooooooo
These were the first games that showed me as a kid that video games could have amazing stories.
These games are why when people ask "who are some of your favourite actors" Tony Jay, Michael Bell and Simon Templeman are in there.
And the WRITING in this game.
Chef's kiss, blew my mind when I played them as a schoolboy
Agreed. My partner teases me for how I can hone in on just about any of Templeman's roles across different games; I didn't grow up with KOTOR, for example, but when my partner was playing it in recent years, my attention snapped to the screen when I heard Simon speaking, and it was just a random guard. 😅
Always gonna be Kain I cherish the most, though. An absolute bastard, but one of my favorite bastards in gaming. 🖤🖤🖤
Josh Strife Kains
Kain Strife Raziels
@@KingLich451Joshacy strof Kaiyes
Janos Strife Plays
Im glad he is playing this 50+ hour game.
the sounds of this game will forever stay in my soul
I have been waiting for this for nearly two decades
I was 9 when I first played and I just wasn't good enough back then to beat it and when it finally popped up on steam I thought finally, I can finish it but that version was broken to hell and back. I am so happy they swooped up this title and brought it back. It's been a good year for games for me, I'm so happy 🥹
1. Malchiah's chamber having a giant meat grinder suggests that he both needed it to grind up his food because of his form and that MAYBE, he was alredy contemplating suicide. Which is why he accepts his fate so easily
2. The Vampire Hunter was a chad that made it to Zephon, but got caught off guard by the door being a part of his body
3. Its speculated that the reason Dumah is the strongest of the Vampire Brothers because, unlike the others, his evolution was halted at its peak before could start developing downsides like the others. Giving him all the benefits and none of the weaknesses. He even exists in the Spectral Realm!
Also its possible that the reason Dumah's clan is in such an inhospitable enviorment is because its the perfect test for his clan members. Either you can survive or you can't.
5. A huge chunk of the game was cut due to time constraints and thank God it did. Soul Reaver 2 is a masterpiece of storytelling for how much it recontextualises the previous games...
I like the story in SR2 a lot.. but I remember being disappointed with how they made the world.. The first game was amazing with all the interconnectedness. but How I recall the second game going.. it was just walking up and down the same "corridor" that kept expanding both ways.
@@Ph33NIXx Also, no bosses, which was a major letdown.
@@DudeWatIsThis Yeah... I was also trying to recall if you ever fight Turel. I did not recall you fight him in the sequel..
@@Ph33NIXx Spoiler:
You kill all your "brothers" as humans at the end of SR2 including yourself.
"The vampire Turel had eluded my vengeance; the Sarafan Turel would not."
@audunskilbrei8279 ah just as i recalled.. So i guess he outlived all? I never played defiance though.. i have thought of buying it as i have a working PS2 now.
The steam build of the game would not allow me to use a controller.. and playing it on keyboard was terrible x)
That opening FMV blew me away. I was scratching my head how they got their hands on quarter century old CG assets, hearing that they remade the opening from scratch is infinitely more impressive.
They didnt remake it from scratch, the company just so happened to keep everything archived including scripts, storyboards, audition tapes and older versions of the game. So they just re-rendered the already made intro to the new resolution. As an aside you should look up the recent documentary on soul reaver. Its funny listening to the audition tapes of who applied to this franchise. I believe the guy who plays spongebob was there and the doctor from star trek voyager and some others.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 Noclip did a fantastic doc on this.
Quarter century old, wow I feel ancient now.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 Yeah, Michael Bell~ He's awesome~
The Legacy of Kain is one of my favorite franchises ever, seeing this remaster makes me incredibly happy.
Agreed! It's been one of the biggest highlights in recent years, for me. Hoping we can get more of the younger generations interested in LoK, because I genuinely want to find more people IRL to geek out over the series with. 😅😆
I had a few minutes of silence around the 20 mark, anyone else as well?
Same for me
same
Same 😢
Didn't he have problems with this scene being copyright the 1st time? I wonder if that's the problem
Minutes 19:58-22:59
52:16
Got to both agree and disagree on that. When taken only on its own merit then yes, Soul Reaver 1 is just that and it's great at it. But where it really shines is the context of the entire saga: when later, much later, on the course of next two (or three if you want to count Blood Omen 2) games, you learn that in fact it was "shades of gray" all along. That in his blind pursuit of revenge Raziel became a useful tool for much greater actors. That in his arrogance, he constantly assumed knowledge of not only said players motives and past, but more importantly his very own. He goes back and forth between those assumptions, learning (most of the times the hard way like a proper tragic hero) to look past them and finally understand and forgive Kain, but most importantly accept his own role in this cursed world. And when he finally does, he does it on his own volition - for the very first time doing something, that those who manipulated him up to this point, did not expect at all. And so he grows from an easy to identify with, angsty, single-driven and (self)righteous but ultimately unwitting pawn, to a more thoughtful and ready to self sacrifice discerning player.
And so does Kain. But that's an entirely different paragraph ;)
I like to imagine that post-Defiance Kain was heavily moved by what Raziel ultimately did. And, given the circumstances around that ending, I can't help but headcanon that may take a karmic and emotional toll on him; potentially driving Kain to actually step up as a hero, a proper Scion of Balance.
@@Daelyah I would hope he will still try to defy the "sacrifice curse" which was placed upon him at his birth and won't just flat-out accept his fate. Maybe he could achieve that by trying to destroy/erase the very reason pillars were created in the first place? But tbh I don't think much about it, given I'm no Amy Hennig so anything I come up with sounds shallow and cliche even in my head :D
Soul Reaver is great for a number of reasons, but I always loved it for its obvious parallels with Blood Omen.
In BO, Kain is the one murdered unjustly and manipulated into a revenge quest. He quickly finds out about that manipulation, and thinks he is doing the right thing to then follow Mortanius' guidance and kill the rest of the pillar guardians - though even this is a manipulation from the Hylden.
Kain and the Elder God (for their own separate reasons) manipulate Raziel into this journey for revenge. The LoK universe is incredibly and intentionally cyclical, in a thematic way that could have been "tired" if a less capable writer has tried to handle it.
Your excitement is palpable in the most genuine way.
I'm quite happy to see the remaster has been done so well. I'll probably try playing this on the big screen with my partner
I wish a remaster like this would be done for Vagrant Story. I love that game.
Noclip just released a 1 hour documentary on Soul Reaver too, with some more behind the screen stuff (like David Hayters audition). Really good stuff.
He auditioned for this game?? What character was he aiming for?
@SeymourAsses1 Raziel, there is a audio snippet in the noclip documentary. It pretty much sounds like snake from mgs 1 doing raziels intro speech😅
As amazing as Hayter is (and I really love the guy) he just isn’t right for Raziel. The Raziel we got was better than we could’ve ever hoped for.
@@davidyoung2990 very true.
2:55:00 The French version of the game is actually phenomenaly well Voice casted.
Raziel's voice is done by the same guy who was dubbing Kevin Costner in French : Bernard Lanneau, who also made voices for the French version of Princes of Egypts, the Iron Giant and Big Hero 6.
Kain's voice is done by Benoît Allemane, who made the voice of Balloo in Tale Spin, Goliath in the Gargoyles and the french voice for Morgan Freeman another of his longest "role" was Charlie the Hen in the Looney Tunes.
He also did the Elder God's voice in SR.
Allemane is someone who did theatres play when he was young, Shakespear mostly and Moliere, so the man is perfect when it comes to Theatrics wich made him perfect for a character such as Kain.
Here's the dialogues between kain and raziel in French if anyone is curious. th-cam.com/video/7jX7Q2cE72U/w-d-xo.html
Also - the oldschool vibe of the stream is absolutely brilliant! :)
I had finished this game last week, loved every second of the game and seeing josh play this game is honestly awesome and just a master piece in every way possible
So amazing to see more Josh playing his favorite game :)
Please do Soul Reaver 2 playthrough like this 🙏. I absolutely loved watching you play this
Those outtakes were on the soul reaver 2 ps2 disc, back in the day. I watched all of them when i was a kid, video game making aint what it used to be
Yeah, I remember. There's more to being a vampire than drinking blood, and ripping out throbbing hearts! Trust me doll!
Oh yes! I remember that.
Good times :)
god the whetstone on the blade in the music just gives everything the feeling of death and decay. its so good.
The mega-soul reaver fan being the director is like a dream, I swear. What a lucky woman. I'm so happy for her!
I will admit I was surprised by Josh's take on Raziel being 'good' and Kain being 'bad' - and then he mentions later on in the video that he never got the chance to play SR2 or Defiance, and I was like oh. OH! I can't wait for him to play SR2 and see his reaction to the plot twists ....
Josh is morally obligated to continue on with the series, now.
It's going to be fun to see his interpretations and reactions, oh man
Just to be clear, these outtake clips have been around for a while. They existed on the PC version for Soul Reaver 2. Not exactly lost but it looks like they spruced up the quality a bit. I appreciate the effort they went into including the cut content, though. THAT is the carrot for me. Otherwise there are great HD versions of Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 available using an emulator.
I will be hoping forever for this to hit enough people to make nostalgia force a finale out of this series. This game meant more to me than I can express I'm over the moon that this has happened and someone I look up to like Josh actually having the ability to give it a proper review was more than I dared to hope for. FUCK YES.
I would like to add to this Josh please for all of us with the nostalgia for this beloved series, use your contacts and let them know how we would love, and be willing to pay for a finale to the lore of this series in a revamped (pun intended) engine, that could do justice in game form.
Sincerely every 90's kid that shouldn't have played it but did anyway
Lol that cheeky smile in thumbnail :D The man is happy as one can be :)
Something I always thought, but even more now after hearing this beautiful voice acting again is Victor from the underworld movies seems heavily inspired by Kains voice actor. And rightfully so.
Figured that was why Victor was my favorite, when I watched the first Underworld film as a kid. 😆
He felt just a tad Kain-coded, and little-kid-me was already heavily biased for LoK's titular bastard of a vampire king.
I really hope they remaster Blood Omen, Its story is the backbone of the entire series but its probably the hardest for new people to get into due to the age of game. Its one that could use a massive visual upgrade with a few quality of life improvements. Something along the lines of that Diablo 2 remaster done a few years ago.
Best VA in any game absolutely love the soul reaver series so glad it got a remaster
In regards to Kain or Raziel being the good guy, neither of them start out as the good guy. But both of them learn and become better as time moves on. That said, Raziel is, in my opinion, the over all protagonist to the series, since he sacrifices so much to save Nosgoth even though he has so little left to give. Kain shifts from the villain to the Anti Hero. Unfortunately we didn't get to see whether Kain would rise to his station as the guardian of balance or not with that cliffhanger ending in Defiance.
Reina Audron also released an emulated version of Soul Reaver a year or 2 ago. She does fantastic work
Legacy of Kain is one of the other fictional setting, with 40k, that had me OBSESSED to an Unhealthy degree.
the HOURS, nay, DAYS, i would spent on Nosghotic Realms boards, discussing Lore implications and ramifications of each and EVERY character and their arcs, and the environement of Nosgoth and how the world worked with HUNDRENDS of other fans.
Rare are the games that gave me such overwhelming envy to immerse myself completly in it.
Yeah i remember that. I have a question for you. If Raziel is the only one who has free will. How did kain break the chain of Raziel going into the blade. Because in order to do so he would have to use his own free will to change events.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 He used the Reaver's power, just like he inadvertently did when he killed prince William in Blood Omen 1 and rewrote history in the process.
When 2 Soul Reavers are in close proximity to each other, the fabric of reality becomes warped and fate's grasp begins to weaken.
There were 2 Soul Reavers in that room at that point - the blade with Raziel's soul, and Raziel himself.
About halfway through SR2, Kain used the same trick to guide Raziel into sparing him. So Kain's entire plan hinged on multiple pieces falling in sequence, like dominoes. First he had to not be dead at that point, then he had to be present for Raziel's absorption event. The timeline is vulnerable only when 2 Soul Reavers meet, meaning Kain had limited opportunities to try to change it.
I loved it so much that I genuinely enjoyed playing Nosgoth.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 It is one of the Paradoxes, Kain while not be completly Free, as some leeway, don't forget that HE IS, the Guardian of Balance, the Scion of Balance.
So he capitalised on the Paradox of the Reaver's soul trying to devour itself when the Blood reaver and Soul Reaver fused at the end of SR2.
Wich gave him enough time to try and change History and introduce a new paradox, something that ultimatly was also a mistake, but apparently something that was clouded from his multiple voyages through time using the Chronoplasts.(this could be one of the few plotholes the series has, but i mean over the span of 5 games and a decade of rewritting, cutting and retconing, its to be expected that there is some holes, it is what it is)
For anyone trying to say that this remaster was "low effort"...just try to play Defiance on PC with a controller these days.
Even the simplest things take some hard work to do right.
Proper Controller support is one of them.
Hell, Defiance still doesn't register my L1/LB or R1/RB when I try to configure controls.
I think a lot of people misconstrue just how CLOSE they adhered to the original release in this remaster as 'low effort'. With games going back this far, it's JUST as much work to keep the game to its baseline. There's a lot of effort and energy required to both recreate the game as a remaster requires, without being tempted to 'change' too much and risk taking away from what it was.
@@Blisterdude123 I think SR1 looks great (except for the intro cutscene's vertical cropping and missing assets), but 2 seems far more undercooked. For some reason many of the textures in SR2 look blurrier than in the original, and the new character models have less expressive facial animation than the original version too (particularly noticeable with Mobius and Sarafan Raziel).
I'm okay with things being very close to the originals. In fact even if everything looked _identical_ to the originals, just with higher resolution and frame rate, I'd be fine with that too. Because like ColdRoland said, just having fully compatible versions of these games be available everywhere is hugely important all on its own. But a few things here are definitely downgraded, which isn't good. I'm surprised more people aren't noticing it, actually. I'm hoping that's just because the game is in its honeymoon phase or whatever, and that this stuff will eventually be addressed.
@@yewtewbstew547 Thats actually a reason for soul reaver 2 not lookign as good and being more blurry. So the director of the remaster was talking about it (shes a former fan they hired because of her texture modding and website work). So in soul reaver 2 they did something with the textures to save space on the disk. Which means that all the textures get warped and stretched over the terrain and geometry. So she said they did the best they could because of the source limitations but it couldnt be remastered as well as soul reaver 1 without remaking the game from the ground up. This wasnt true for actual models however which is why the characters and objects look amazing but things like the floor, cliffs, water surfaces etc just look a little crisper than the original without much change.
@@charg1nmalaz0r51I don't think Raina Audron's a former fan, though. She's still a prominent figure in the main LoK server on Discord. Her partner (a fellow fan who goes by Bazielim) releases all news related to LoK on her YT channel, under the title of "Nosgoth News Network."
Tony Jay had such an iconic voice
Sucks we will never get him back for a final game
RIP, Tony Jay, you absolute legend
Aw, sad to see that we wont be seeing your live first-time experience of SR2 on-stream. Would you consider recording yourself playing the game and release a compilation of the biggest revelations?
Soul Reaver 2 has so many twists and turns. The jaw drop I had at some of them is wild.
I do think you should play Blood Omen 1 before you play Soul Reaver 2 if possible. As the end of Soul Reaver 1 reveals, time travel is a mechanic in this universe and Blood Omen 1 features it heavily. Soul Reaver 2 has you revisiting some of the events of Blood Omen 1 in a different context, which will give you many 'aha!' moments if you've played Blood Omen.
I'd happily watch Josh do a playthrough of all five main LoK games, although I get that BO1 can be tricky for some people to finish. My partner took a few months to beat it, and he didn't much care for how much jank it had. Meanwhile, I still have nostalgia for the whole series. Even with all its faults, I cherish the LoK series dearly.
@@Daelyah I do have mixed opinions about Blood Omen as it was jank, but all the William the Just stuff ties directly into several major moments in SR2 that its difficult to say 'skip it'.
I appreciated playing it years later, then playing SR2 right after and being like 'oooooh'.
@@mph8er playing BO1 these days is really tall ask IMO. The game was clunky back in the day when it was new. Whole lotta patience needed and I don't think that will translate well into a video, much less a stream. But yeah, the lore that it holds, William, Ariel, Moebius even Kain himself, looping back in later games and how it all ties together.. Masterclass in writing.
I got sick od cod and could not belive my eyes when I seen this on the pa5 store as well as sly cooper!
So disappointed Josh forgot to talk to Dumah in the spectral realm before the fight.
I've tried searching for this game from pieces of memory from my childhood playing it from a mag demo disc, and failing to find it... UNTIL NOW!
"Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss, unspeakable pain... relentless agony... Time ceased to exist... Only this torture... And a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that damned me to this hell."
Pretty sure my Siberian Husky also thinks this when I give her a bath.
I'm so glad this vod was remastered. I remember the old standard definition vod and wished it was updated to be in hd.
The outtakes are not lost media, those where available in the Defiance game as well as on TH-cam for years.
5 and a half hours of second monitor content released on my birthday. amazing :D
lmao a fellow second monitor listener
I've been waiting 25 years to play Soul Reaver again. I'm so happy this game came out. I turned back into a 5 year old again. One of if not the best games I've ever played
1:51:19 - Bingo. My partner is greatly looking forward to me playing through the game and her watching the story unfold. I'm one of the "big" backers of the Kickstarter and projects that have been coming out and she's infected by my everlasting passion for the series. She's starting to see why, and also how the game actually affected my life so dramatically in my youth. I would quite literally not be the person I am today without Kain and Raziel. They were defining characters for me at a very crucial time in my life. Thankfully the game has subtitles in her native language too, so I don't have to work so hard translating much of the story which is monumentally difficult!
It is an absolute delight to be replaying them again without requiring emulation, and seeing so many fresh eyes finally witness what is by far the greatest video game story ever told. It just does not have an equal in my opinion.
Edit: also hearing you've not completed Soul Reaver 2 is very close to a mortal sin. You must fix this.
I never finished this game as a kid because, I was so lost in what to do. Love this play through as I'm finally able to see the full game, thank you.
A note on the tutorial cycle that josh is talking about with mechanics, Not only do games often introduce a bunch of mechanics at once and then never really utilize them after they also just forget to actually have them used consistently.
This is where older games limitations became their strength because since you couldn't have 7 million mechanics you'd focus on how your few sets of mechanics could be layered on each other for interesting effects like josh says "use mechanic a, then b, now a AND b, now c, now c and a, now b and c. it sounds straight forward when you think about it but after that with just 3 mechanics you've not just created combinations of mechanics but you've also reitterated each mechanic abc three times each, once on it's own and once with each other mechanic meaning that you're less likely to forget to have unused parts.
'Revenge is motivation enough, at least its honest'
"Hate me, but hate me honestly."
A line that still haunts the back of my mind quite often.
1:53:40 - The switch between realms doesn't just take longer on emulation, it actually took longer on native PS1 hardware as well. In some ways it worked; the sped-up shifting feels a bit too fast, like the original game was designed with that slowdown in mind at the time. I think Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance have a similarly slow-ish shifting speed by design, but it's been a while since I've played.
Anyway, it's neat for gameplay-comfort purposes that shifting is really fast now, but it does take away some of the original feeling, I think.
one of my favorite ps1 games of all time! I must have played it start to finish at least ten time. Did a few speed runs as well just to challenge myself!
Josh clearly loves Soul Reaver, I don’t understand why he didn’t finish Soul Reaver 2. I couldn’t get enough of the story and had to play all of the games.
I’m so pleased they’ve remastered this, only wish they had also included Defiance.
Hopefully that's on the docket for future works.
"The fate of this hairstyle was pre-ordained in an instant" best line, watched the whole thing.
chills bro chills we have no voice actors that are this good these days
You had me at cut content restored. Legacy of Kain was my teenage years obsession.
I played through these over the christmas. A beautiful revisit to two of my most cherished games. Makes me want to play defiance.
I've played through this game, I dunno, 20 times; but I'm loving your enthusiasm for it. I'll probably end up watching all of this.
Amazing experience. I think there's merit to having respectable youtubers who make consistent and good media as "advisors" in a sense. Nowadays we trust them FAR more than game journalists or reviewers of big shot companies. TH-camrs should become, in a way, the checks and balances the gaming industry needs to be held to. They will tell you what's good, what's bad and the nitty gritty in an honest and transparent way.
They are the people who connect to the audiences, it makes sense to liaise with them to see what will work and will not.
Chat calling the music simplistic is so strange. Its probably the best part of the game, and the game is excellent.
Chat needs to get the remasters themselves, and actually take time to properly listen to the music. Much of its ambience contributes a sort of environmental storytelling, as an incredible addition to the rest of the overall story.
Music has always been very ominous which kinda fit the entire tone of the game so yeah really really odd to say it sounds simplistic lol
The average Gamer(tm) when music isn't forced "epic" slop that barely even fits the game at all :
38:50 - The game doesn't tell you as much, but flipping a block to crush a vampire is also a valid finisher.
I'm a big fan of the oldschool-windows aesthetic that you have started going for ever since PoE2. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that more often!
I'm fully with Josh on remasters. I myself am 32, but I didn't get to play a ton of classic games because my parents didn't like gaming. No Chrono Trigger, no Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8 or 9, nothing. Most I was allowed was Pokemon because a friend talked them into it and it was "kid friendly". Not to mention the absolute ton of games that didn't get released in one region or another. I'm European, I wouldn't have been able to play a whole bunch of JRPGs even if I was allowed.
These remasters release internationally and fully compatible, which is GREAT for people like me, as well as anyone younger who's interested in older games. If a remaster goes to the lengths of preserving the original as well, like here, that's absolutely amazing and I wish it was the norm.
That's the potential problem with remasters. If the experience or content is compromised, people will never get to see the game the way it was intended. In most cases I would advice playing both the original and remaster if possible.
@@lorecow88 That was a big problem with the Halo Master Chief Collection for years. Literal years too, they only really fixed it all by like 2022 or so. Originally those ports of Halo CE and 2 on classic graphics mode were significant visual downgrades from the Xbox originals. No bump mapping, tons of visual effects missing or broken, missing lighting and shadows in cutscenes.
I think what exacerbates this problem a lot is that remasters always inevitably attract a new audience. Which is good, obviously that's part of the reason why they're important. But if someone didn't play the original, they won't notice these problems. Which is really why 343 got away with not fixing that stuff I just mentioned for nearly 7 years. If it wasn't for a handful of particularly anal TH-camrs banging the war drum, it probably never would have been fixed.
Knowing now what the devs wanted to put into the game during the original development i would kill for a full fledged realisation of that.
I loved the soul reaver series and even being blind in one eye I am thinking about buying this to give support to the team.
what has being blind in one eye got to do with anything?
@@charg1nmalaz0r51 Put a patch over your bad eye and try living your life.
The magic is whateves in use, but the exploration and finding those weird out of the way rooms is what's really rewarding.
Fun fact: Because this remaster is essentially running on top of the original game, ALL of the button code cheats are still accessible.
You can still activate Shift-at-Will, the story augmented reavers that were cut, all or that. The era of menu button cheats is not yet lost to us!
I want every remaster to be like this. 😭 It's perfect and I love it. I wish I could get every game from my childhood like this. Take all the money!!!!
Another gaming law: there's always a secret behind the waterfall
The playthrough I've been waiting to watch since the initial announcement! 🎉
Those outtakes were on SR2. once you beat the game it would give you a cheat code to press on the controller to input on the title screen.
After finishing the remaster and finding everything there was to find, I have a note about the density of the game.
Yes, it is so cool that you get to do so much in so little time but the cost of that is that most of the bonus stuff you find (glyphs for instance) are just there...for the sake of being there.
You find awesome stuff but the game doesn't really give you room to breathe to use it.
I have found sound glyph, water glyph etc. - and I had no use for them. They were just there. I have used the fire and sunlight glyph a few times when I lost the Reaver to kill the enemies quick but the game definitely did not challenge me enough to make the finds anything more than a curiosity on the menu.
i still own the ps1 version of soul reaver 1 im so happy to see the realm of nosgoth rise from the ashes like the undead raziel is i hope to see more game in the world of nosgoth coming after this remake
Those are not quite lost media, you get those in PS2 DVD as bonus content. I still have it :)
From a more civilised time, when writers were not afraid of polysyllabic words.
The lexicons of writers in gaming are truly bereft of properly verbose flare, nowadays.
my friend used to talk about this game all the time but i never played it . i was busy playing dino crisis and resident evil and metal gear solid . oh the good old days when everything was right ( feels old man)
man this gives me memories, played it as kid, loved the story....
still remember it better than it looks, what wonders does brain does, it fills the gaps...
Legendary game I had it on ps1 on release when I was a kid, I appreciate the writing and story as an adult, I wasn’t able to complete it I was like 7/8 years old.
These games are some of my most favourite games I have played in my youth. I kind of miss having these types of games being made.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Unregistered
HyperCam 2
Unregistered and red don't rhyme.
@@azuredragonofnether5433 They aren't meant to.
@@azuredragonofnether5433as long as HyperCam 2 rhymes, it's ok to enjoy the poem
1:07:40 ....surprised Josh didnt point this out, (Edit ...considering what he says about Dumah, i am not even sure he knows its even a thing)
but that is actually teaching you lore
"Dead" Vampires can become "Reapers" (they mean Wraiths) if left dead for too long
Then when you ressurect them by removing the cause of death (in this case a spear) they retain their Wraith abillities and can drain your health once they make contact with you
So no Josh ....you were not low on health at that point because you were in the physical realm, the Vampire was also draining you ....quite a lot
(Edit: this is also what Dumah is doing, it has nothing to do with his constrict ability, he can just do it as soon as he hits you)
I'm planning to get this after Christmas. Such good games! Amazing voice acting, fun gameplay, good soundtrack... They had it all!
I remember Ratchet & Clank did this at 17:35 and it was flawless, without any menus aswell. I think R&Q had the best tutorial than any game I played.
The only time I ever "cared about graphics" as a kid was in cut scenes, but like only in that way that I went crazy over something like parasite eve or the anime cut scenes in the wildarms series, not that I ever cared about "bad" graphics.
I was on the fence about getting the remaster. Soul Reaver 1+2 and Defiance are like, core memories and standards in video game storytelling for me, but I was afraid it was just a cashgrab. But seeing another fan gush about this kind of clinched it for me. I do hope they remaster Defiance too. edit: those outtakes were on Soul Reaver 2, unlockable iirc. edit2: you never finished SR2, Josh? Hoooboy, talk about endings.
Hate to say it, but the outtakes aren't as lost as you may believe. They were the outtakes and in studio footage that was included as bonus contend on the original release of Soul Reaver 2 (accessible through a code that was revealed at the end of the game). It's still cool they just made sure it was available right out of the gate, though.
Soul reaver is one of the few games i go out of my way to shepherd people to. Its amazing.
I haven't spent much time lately with the main Discord community for Legacy of Kain, but I believe Raina Audron from our community spearheaded quite a bit of these remasters.
I'm just happy to see Legacy of Kain getting an influx of attention again, since it's a series I've held near and dear for most of my life.
You can actually go to the human city before rehab. Just go in the spirit realm, then jump up the left wall while in the spirit realm. It's nice to get the gate early.
In regards to Zephon boss fight's thematics. The folly Zephon engages in is his need to dominate the humans. He takes great pride that he turned the humans greatest weapon into his home, only to be undone by a meek wisp of flame from one of their more common weapons.
Also that in embracing an insectoid nature to gain control and mobility of the catherdral and mointains he became an imobile insect queen which left him vulnerable.
In regards to the spiral - It's more than that. The elder god's imagery is associated with the spiral and the spectral realm, of whom Raziel is raised by. You see them textured all over his chanber.
The bouncer is a guilty pleasure of my youth. I probably used a game-shark to beat it, but I remember spending hours in the multiplayer mode with my friend.
That 360 controller is indeed the greatest controller ever made. What a blast from the past that was!