(Raziel is one of those characters you never forget once you see them.)
There’s something strange about going back to Soul Reaver.
Not just because it’s old, or because it came out at a time when 3D games were still figuring themselves out... but because it feels like it’s reaching for something bigger than what the hardware could comfortably handle. And somehow, instead of collapsing under that weight, it turns that limitation into part of its identity.
You don’t start the game as a hero. You start it broken.
Raziel isn’t introduced with triumph or purpose....
He’s introduced mid-fall, cast into a void by Kain, the very figure he once served.
Raziel had evolved beyond his master, growing wings before Kain and for that, he was punished.
Not killed in the usual sense, but cast into the Abyss, erased as an example.
The fall never really ends. It just changes shape.
When he returns, he’s no longer a vampire.
He’s something hollowed out and held together by hunger.. sustained not by blood, but by souls.
The air itself feels wrong around him, like the world is rejecting what he’s become.
That alone shifts the tone of the entire story. You’re not stepping into a power fantasy.
You’re stepping into something unfinished, something that shouldn’t exist.
Nosgoth: a world that remembers what it used to be
Nosgoth doesn’t feel dead. It feels abandoned by time.
Wind moves through broken cathedrals that no one prays in anymore.
Water sits stagnant where it once flowed. Stone structures lean and fracture like they’ve been holding themselves together out of habit rather than strength.
You don’t just explore this world... you drift through it, like you’re trespassing in something that’s already over.
And the longer you stay, the more it feels like the land itself is aware of what happened to it.
This isn’t random decay. It’s the aftermath of a decision.
The Pillars of Nosgoth, those unseen but ever-present anchors of balance were left to rot when Kain refused to sacrifice himself.
That moment isn’t shown here, but you feel it everywhere. In the silence. In the emptiness. In the way nothing grows the way it should.
Everything in Nosgoth feels like it’s waiting for something that never came.
The Sarafan: ghosts beneath everything
(Raziel really was a Ass)
Long before Raziel was what he is now, he was something else entirely.
The Sarafan.
They’re not just a piece of background lore... they’re a shadow that stretches across the entire story.
Once, they were holy warriors, human zealots devoted to eradicating vampires. They saw themselves as righteous, necessary, chosen.
And they were ruthless.
What Soul Reaver does quietly... and then all at once is reveal that Raziel and his brothers were once among them.
The same beings who now rule Nosgoth as corrupted vampire lords were, in another life, the very hunters who would have slaughtered them.
It reframes everything.
Their “evolution,” their rise under Kain, their twisted forms ..it’s not just corruption. It’s inversion.
A cycle turning back on itself. Hunters becoming the very thing they were made to destroy.
And when Raziel encounters the Sarafan tomb, there’s a weight to it that the game doesn’t need to explain. You’re not just looking at history.
You’re looking at yourself, stripped of everything you’ve become.
It’s one of the quietest moments in the game... and one of the heaviest.
The story: something pulling in different directions
(Is that a face that would lie?)
At first, it feels simple. Revenge always does.
Raziel wants Kain. That’s enough.
Then the Elder God begins to speak.
Not loudly.
Not forcefully.
Just… there.
Constant.
Watching.
It tells Raziel that the world is broken, that the natural cycle of souls has been disrupted, and that Kain is the cause.
It gives him purpose, frames his existence as necessary.
And for a while, that’s enough to believe in.
But the more you listen, the more it feels like you’re being guided rather than helped.
The Elder God never lies outright... but it never tells the whole truth either.
It speaks in certainty, but avoids being pinned down.
Then there’s Kain.
(I think he could take Dracula in a fight.)
When Raziel finally reaches him, expecting confrontation, what he gets instead is something quieter.
Something more controlled.
Kain doesn’t deny anything.. but he doesn’t accept the role he’s been given either.
He talks about time like it’s something that can be bent.
About history like it’s something that can repeat, or fracture, or be rewritten.
He suggests that Raziel’s existence isn’t an accident... but a disruption.
A variable.
And that word lingers, even when it’s not said outright.
From that moment on, the story stops moving in a straight line.
It begins to split, pulling between two perspectives that never quite align.
The Elder God insists on one truth.
Kain implies another. Raziel stands between them, with no clear way to tell which one..
if either is real.
The Soul Reaver: a weapon that shouldn’t exist the way it does
(We all knew what it meant when Kain drew the Soul Reaver in anger.... It meant you owed him money.)
The Soul Reaver isn’t just important, it’s inseparable from everything.
At first, it’s a blade.
Ancient, feared, carried by Kain like something more than a tool.
When Raziel reaches for it, something goes wrong.
It shatters.... not like metal breaking, but like something rejecting him.
And then it changes.
What remains binds itself to Raziel, becoming a spectral weapon that feeds the same way he does.
It doesn’t sit in his hand... it flares into existence, drawn from him, sustained by him.
It feels less like something he wields and more like something that’s been waiting for him.
There’s an unease to it.
Kain understands the Reaver.
You can hear it in the way he talks about it, in the way he never treats it casually.
To him, it’s tied to something larger.... something cyclical, something inevitable.
To Raziel, it’s a mystery that keeps getting closer to him the more he uses it.
The deeper implication, that the Reaver is tied to time, to identity, to the idea that events don’t just happen once but echo... is never spelled out cleanly.
But it’s always there, just under the surface.
The weapon isn’t just part of the story.
It is the story, in a way that only becomes clear if you’re paying attention.
Raziel: something that doesn’t fit anymore
(STILLL one of, if not the coolest looking anti-heroes ever.)
What makes Raziel compelling isn’t power... it’s dissonance.
He doesn’t belong anywhere anymore.
Not among vampires, not among humans, not even fully within whatever system the Elder God claims to represent.
Every answer he gets makes him less certain.
Every step forward makes the world feel less stable.
And instead of resisting that, he leans into it. He questions everything. He doubts what he’s told. He pushes back, even when it would be easier not to.
There’s a point where revenge stops mattering.
Not because it’s resolved... but because it no longer explains anything.
Movement: space, and the feeling of learning a world
The first thing that stands out when you actually start playing is how deliberate everything feels.
Movement isn’t especially fast or smooth by modern standards, but it has weight.
Jumps feel measured. Climbing takes time. Even turning around has a slight stiffness to it.
At first, it can and will feel clunky.
But the longer you play, the more it starts to feel intentional.
The world isn’t designed to be rushed through. It’s built like a series of spaces you have to understand.
You don’t just run from point A to point B... you look around, you experiment, you figure out how things connect.
And the world itself is surprisingly open for its time.
There aren’t obvious level breaks or clean transitions. Instead, everything folds into everything else.
You’ll find yourself looping back to areas you’ve already been, only now you can see them differently because you’ve gained a new ability or perspective.
It creates a sense of place that sticks.
You start to remember locations not because the game tells you to, but because you’ve physically navigated them.
The spectral shift: still one of the coolest ideas in gaming
(Someone REALLY liked blue)
The defining mechanic of Soul Reaver is the ability to shift between the material world and the spectral one.
It’s not just a visual trick.... it changes how the world works.
In the material realm, things are solid, structured, decayed but stable.
In the spectral realm, everything warps. Walls bend. Paths twist. Geometry reshapes itself into something unnatural.
It’s not just about solving puzzles, though there’s a lot of that....
it’s about seeing the same space in two completely different ways.
There are moments where you’re stuck, staring at something that doesn’t make sense, and then you shift…
and suddenly the solution isn’t just visible, it feels obvious. Like the world was hiding it in plain sight.
Even now, it holds up as an idea.
Not because it’s complex, but because it’s used consistently.
The game builds around it instead of treating it like a gimmick.
Combat: serviceable, but never the focus
(Where my Munny?!)
If there’s a weak point, it’s probably the combat.
It works, but it’s not especially satisfying.
Attacks feel a little loose, enemies can be repetitive.
And fights tend to revolve around figuring out how to actually finish an enemy rather than how to defeat them in a straightforward way.
Because in Soul Reaver, enemies don’t just die....
You have to destroy them, throw them into spikes, sunlight, fire, water. It turns combat into more of a positioning puzzle than a test of skill.
At times, that’s interesting. It forces you to think instead of button-mash.
At other times, it can feel tedious, especially when you’re dealing with the same types of enemies over and over.
But the truth is, combat isn’t really what the game cares about most. It’s there because it needs to be, not because it’s the main attraction.
Where it shows its age
There’s no getting around it... some parts of Soul Reaver feel dated.
The camera can and is awkward.
Platforming can be frustrating when jumps don’t land the way you expect. Combat lacks depth.
And the pacing can feel uneven, especially if you’re not sure where to go next.
There are moments where you’ll feel lost... not in a mysterious, intentional way, but in a “what does the game want from me right now?” kind of way.
But even those flaws feel tied to the time it came from.
They don’t ruin the experience so much as remind you of how ambitious it was for what it had to work with.
What stays with you
What Soul Reaver leaves behind isn’t excitement.
It’s a kind of quiet pressure.
A sense that you walked through something that didn’t fully explain itself on purpose.
That you were shown pieces of a larger design, but never the whole shape. That the answers exist somewhere... but not here, not yet.
It lingers.
Not as a story you finished, but as something you’re still trying to understand.
"Cast him in"
Final thoughts.
Soul Reaver, along with Blood Omen, which spawned the series, are great games in and of themselves.
If you love good writing and storytelling.... something almost Shakespearean in nature, give them a try.
I would suggest playing the remasters, as they include some quality of life fixes, but even if you play the originals on their respective hardware, these aren't games you can just pick up and play, at least not story-wise anyhow.
You really have to play them in order from Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, to Legacy of Kain: Defiance.
Overall, it's a large, evolving story that, if you enjoy a good tale filled with mystery, misdirection, and manipulation from every character, That will keep you engrossed until the very end. By all means, take the time to experience them.
Pros
- + Great story and game.
Cons
- - Clunky by today's standards
8
Gameplay
8
Graphics
10
out of 10
Overall
Great game and Series
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I'm just glad we're getting more LoK stuff!
