Nadia Rain Chassis

That's my blorbo right there

God, the more I sit on it the more I'm amazed by the Legacy of Kain series. Raziel and Kain were both great protagonists with a ton of depth to them both. Flawed and steadfast and tragic. I loved the way Raziel constantly questioned his surroundings and the motives of the people manipulating them and eventually coming to his own conclusion, which Kain lead him and wanted him to do without forcing his hand without really even being cryptic about it. Kain was the one person who was honest with Raziel, even if it was difficult for Raziel to believe. God, I loved them both, even when Kain was being a total bastard. The Legacy of Kain series is one of my biggest favorites now. I'll never forget it. The music was great too, especially Ozar Midrashim, which I think is intended to be the main theme of the series. It keeps playing over and over in my head, too.

I don't think I want the series to be rebooted or continued either. All I really want is for it to be more accessible. The entire series is available on Windows, but even with compatibility patches, they're in a rough state and I'd only really say that Blood Omen and Defiance are playable. The PC port of Soul Reaver has a horrible audio bug which causes sound effects to repeat and layer upon themselves continuously, which eventually becomes unbearable, and is also lacking the dynamic music. Soul Reaver 2 hangs on mutli-core CPUs, which can be averted by setting it to single-core affinity, but that makes the audio stutter and desync, so all the voice lines in the cutscenes are off, and Blood Omen 2 suffers the same problem. Also, only Defiance has subtitles, which is unheard of in this day and age. Defiance at least ran great on PC without needing any patches (besides the widescreen patch I used), though I needed to use Joy2Key to map the triggers and D-pad on my controller.

I played Blood Omen and Defiance on PC, emulated the Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver, and emulated the PS2 versions of Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2. That's what I'd recommend, although the Xbox version of Blood Omen 2 has stencil shadows for the characters.

I finished Legacy of Kain: Defiance and thereby finished the series.

The game switching between Kain and Raziel each chapter was a fun move, considering they were both doing essentially the same tasks in different periods of time, playing into the theme of the "circle of destiny" that Kain said both he and Raziel were forced upon. The more the two of them tried to defy their fate, the more fate was forced upon them, neither character totally sure if the choices they were making were of their own volition or the hand of fate turning them. The revelation by Kain that Raziel is the only being who truly has free will, since he was killed and resurrected--his soul no longer being in the "wheel of life"--was totally fascinating. Raziel does eventually kill Kain, as he was instructed to do by the Elder God in Soul Reaver, but it doesn't play out the way any of the puppetmasters think, not even the Elder God who boasted about setting everything in motion, leading to one of the most satisfying moments in the series. Raziel is defeated in battle and resurrects in the spectral realm where he is taunted by the Elder God. Moebius speaks with the Elder God in the physical world, while Kain, resurrected by means unknown to him, Moebius, and the Elder God, stumbles upon Moebius, and finally kills him. Seeing Moebius' soul come into form in the spectral realm, Raziel devours it, denying Moebius the privilege of being reincarnated. It was a satisfying end to a real bastard of a villain.

Raziel finally defies fate and acts of his own free will, sacrificing himself to form the complete Soul Reaver blade, to Kain's utter dismay. Though Raziel spends much of his screen time despising Kain, Kain never refers to Raziel as an enemy or even a pawn. It was satisfying to see Kain so distraught once he realized Raziel was sacrificing himself to empower Kain. Raziel's sacrifice binds him, the spectral Soul Reaver, to the physical Soul Reaver blade, healing Kain, and giving him the power to harm and battle the Elder God. He doesn't kill the Elder God, but leaves him, with the knowledge that Kain could kill him, and the Elder God is furious that his godhood is as fragile and fleeting as any mortal's life. With this, Kain is finally free from the wheel of fate himself--he has finally defied fate, even if the pillars were already shattered and ruined. The game closes on one final remark from Kain, saying that Raziel had given him something he'd never had before--hope. The game doesn't exactly end on a true final, definitive note, but it doesn't leave itself open for a sequel as hard as the other games in the series do.

Raziel and Kain both finally defy fate, in the form of defying the hideous god that boasted about controlled their destinies.

It was a great game and a great series. Each game went through its own little bit of development hell and I assume Eidos didn't want to make a sixth Kain game, but it's a great place for the series to leave off. I think the best one is still the original Soul Reaver, but the story is so strong throughout the series that I would honestly recommend the entire series in a heartbeat. Each game is fairly short and mostly unchallenging, getting through the entire series takes the same amount of time a single more modern game would take to finish.

The Legacy of Kain games have a fantastic horror-gothic setting and Defiance really uses it to great effect. For 2003 this is stunning.