A reader shares his love of PS1 classic Soul Reaver and recalls the best moments of its story and its complex level design.
For about two years, on the turn of the millennium, if anyone asked me to squeeze through a gap too small for a person to fit through I would fix the plaintiff with a steely stare and pointedly ask them if they thought I had Melchiah’s gift. The quizzically blank expression I 100% always got had two effects. It eased the pressure on my current situation and made the person who made the unreasonable request think I was a bit odd and they left me to my reverie as I once again thought about The Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver.
I saw this game mentioned in the Inbox during the week and I can never stop the memories of it plastering a stupid smile on my face as I remember a game that should be in a lot of people’s top 10 games ever made. Endlessly inventive, challenging and with a depth of lore that made Lord of the Rings look like playschool, Soul Reaver was a PlayStation 1 masterclass of storytelling via gameplay.
A small summary is in order. You play as Raziel, a lieutenant for Kain and one of the most trusted members of his vampire army. One morning you wake up with a flashy set of wings (as you do) and chuffed to bits with your new accoutrements you dash to the throne room to show them off to you buddies and the big guy himself. After a bit of cooing at how rad you are Kain takes a look at your wings and attempts to rip them off your back (not easy when you have three pointy fingers). He’s usually first to get the cool evolutionary gear and it appears you jumping the queue has razzed him right off.
You’re dropped into the lake of execution and somehow find yourself face to many-eyed face with a being called the Elder God, who concocts a plan which involves bringing you back to life many years after your death to have your revenge on your old boss. And to give you the edge he equips you for the task with a mysterious ghostly blade tethered to your hand, known as the Soul Reaver.
Soul Reaver was a real power fantasy for me, the angry young adult revelling in Raziel’s single-minded pursuit of revenge. This task takes him on a dump truck charge through his previous comrades in arms, he shows no mercy to those who stand in his way; a proto-Kratos meting out justice, literally ripping the very souls out of his victims with his ravening phantom blade.
So enjoyable was the journey that I barely thought about the origin of the Soul Reaver itself, though it did occur to me that the Elder God was a fairly unsavoury character clearly from the wrong side of God town. There are some chunky ideas being looked at in Soul Reaver, mostly revolving around control and fate. Do we do what we do because fate decrees it? Or can we forge our own path breaking free from what looks like a fixed trajectory? Also, themes of loyalty, and of course revenge with its grisly satisfaction and empty futility. I was gripped right to the end and as a bonus I enjoyed the even more twisty plot of the sequel, which revealed the shocking origin of your ethereal blade.
How this all shook down in gameplay terms was a third person action adventure in the mould of Tomb Raider, with a university degree and looks like peak Kim Bassinger. The key differential feature from Tomb Raider being that you cannot die, you merely fall into a spectral realm until you can will your corporeal body back into being, after consuming the souls in the damned and twisted dimension.
Raziel has the ability to sink into this dimension voluntarily at any time and I personally never tired of the arm movement and subtle camera pan as the world shifted around you, morphing from the world of the living into the spectral realm which looks similar but with a few important differences. Water and gravity behaved differently from the real world and the layout of the world was sometimes changed and these differences often had to be manipulated to progress further.
Memories fade, some games which seem great at the time, like empty calories, don’t create engrams. They linger on the tongue like popcorn and are forgotten. Soul Reaver is different, it showed our nascent medium that gaming can tell compelling stories that are supplemented by truly inventive gameplay, discussing big ideas in a way that other mediums just can’t match.
I remember that hip sway. I remember one room unravelling like a spiral staircase as I fell into the nether realm, my mouth hitting the floor in shock, admiration and satisfaction. I remember ripping the souls from my enemies and inhabiting the mindset of a sympathetic monster stalking the land of Nosgoth, unstoppable and hateful. I remember being eager to see how the world opened up with each new skill and even more eager to see how each lieutenant had evolved since their complicit involvement in my murder. I remember it all.
By reader Dieflemmy (gamertag/PSN ID/NN ID)
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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