The Legacy of Kain

[Forsaken Lover]

And the award for Best Story goes to...LOK!
And the award for Best Writing goes to...LOK!
And the award for Best Voice-Acting goes to...LOK!
And the award for Best Gameplay goes to...hm. Well, can't win them all I suppose.



Kain and Raziel are possibly the greatest protagonists to ever grace a video game. They straddle an intricate and fascinating world and mythos that got better and more detailed with each game. Blood Omen and Soul Reaver 1 planted the seeds of greatness, establishing Nosgoth and its general mythology. Soul Reaver 2, Defiance and Blood Omen 2 (yes, BO2 helped the plot too) made everything bloom into an unforgettable narrative.

So, come gush with me over LOK. Favorite games? Favorite scenes? Favorite lines?

[DMKA]

Haha, my best friend in high school was the biggest Legacy of Kain fan I ever knew. He was absolutely obsessed with the Soul Reaver games.

I only played the first Soul Reaver all the way through, which I can honestly say had the worst ending I've ever seen in a video game (not to say the game is bad). I played some of Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance, but never finished either.

They were cool enough I guess. Tony Jay's voice work made many of the cutscenes.

[Shoeberto]

Haha, my best friend in high school was the biggest Legacy of Kain fan I ever knew. He was absolutely obsessed with the Soul Reaver games.

I only played the first Soul Reaver all the way through, which I can honestly say had the worst ending I've ever seen in a video game (not to say the game is bad). I played some of Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance, but never finished either.

They were cool enough I guess. Tony Jay's voice work made many of the cutscenes.

There was a really good write-up circulating game journo sites earlier this year about the stuff they had to cut due to budget constraints. The whole game was intended to be far more massive and have a bigger ending but they ran out of time. It certainly was one of the more ambitious games of the PS1 era and it's kind of a shame that the whole series has fallen into relative obscurity. I'd love to see a more modern take on everything (the last game came out in what, 2004?); I could see it being pretty popular, especially considering how Darksiders has taken off, which seems to be fairly similar in execution.

[Madame Adequate]

Blood Omen and Soul Reaver were absolutely smurfing amazing games in every single respect.

[Mo-Nercy]

I totally ripped off the story of Soul Reaver for an Year 9 English short story once. Got 10/10. =)

[DMKA]

Haha, my best friend in high school was the biggest Legacy of Kain fan I ever knew. He was absolutely obsessed with the Soul Reaver games.

I only played the first Soul Reaver all the way through, which I can honestly say had the worst ending I've ever seen in a video game (not to say the game is bad). I played some of Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance, but never finished either.

They were cool enough I guess. Tony Jay's voice work made many of the cutscenes.

There was a really good write-up circulating game journo sites earlier this year about the stuff they had to cut due to budget constraints. The whole game was intended to be far more massive and have a bigger ending but they ran out of time. It certainly was one of the more ambitious games of the PS1 era and it's kind of a shame that the whole series has fallen into relative obscurity. I'd love to see a more modern take on everything (the last game came out in what, 2004?); I could see it being pretty popular, especially considering how Darksiders has taken off, which seems to be fairly similar in execution.

Yeah, my aforementioned high school friend referred me to this site a lot, which has a ton of in-depth info on all the cut content. Turns out there's a lot of it.

Also, I remember the night me and him first discovered PsmPlay (a media ripping program for PS1 discs) and we were playing around with different games to see what we could find, and he found a treasure trove of sound clips on the Soul Reaver disc that you never actually hear in the game, including dialog by characters that never happens.

[Bolivar]

I got Defiance for some reason when it wasn't even on my radar. What a surprise I was in for. The game left a huge impression on me, even though I've never beaten it, but I was surprised at just how damn good it was.

I tried Soul Reaver when I got it free on PSN but it just hadn't aged well enough to keep me in it. I might throw it on the PSP one day and see how it is during a travel.

[Madame Adequate]

I totally ripped off the story of Soul Reaver for an Year 9 English short story once. Got 10/10. =)

I ripped off some stuff from Blood Omen in Year Six. But then I ran out of time to write, like I always did.