Can someone explain to me what this series all about ? I don't get anything past Soul Reaver 2 ? Who are the hyldens ? Why is everything about the reaver ? Why Vorador do fucking nothing ? Why Kain can revive without a heart ?
Should I do Blood omen to understand ?
Dude's a chinless vampire who likes to push blocks a lot. He's all angry at his dad because he got like wings first and he didn't and shit. Then they ran out of budget and couldn't finish the game the end.
>>3197112
Did you play the games starting with blood omen? If not, then you fucked up. If so, then you're just dense.
>>3197125
10/10
>>3197112
after Soul Reaver 2, the people who made Blood Omen 2 were a completely different team and writers from the original Blood Omen and made a shit story.
When the original team made defiance they tried to incorporate events in Blood Omen 2 to keep continuity (that's why the Hyldens are there) but I think it sort of broke the plot into an unrecoverable mess
beautiful game though, I own all of them (except blood omen 2)
just downloaded this from gog today,
any way to stop those looping fire and soul sounds?
or would i be better off with the ps1 or dc version.
got soul reaver 2 a few days ago and i really want to get into the series
>>3197474
I did a playthrough of this series 18 months ago, and you might want to really think about what you're getting yourself into. You're not here for the gameplay, or even the story, but for the presentation and aesthetics. And the aesthetics get more generic as you go from SR to Defiance.
>>3197474
Dreamcast version has vastly improved graphics if you care about that sort of thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WsS8R93_Y
>>3197649
I have no idea who is talking.
>>3197112
Okay, i'll try to be simple with the answers, but not so much as to leave some important things unmentioned.I'm also not going to resource to things like " this is due to xxx game being developed by different people", since we still have a sequential story that makes sense in itself in the end, it just has some unfinished business as of yet. Needless to say, SPOILERS ahead, but i believe anyone in this thread will have played most games already:
>what the series is all bout
The series as a whole is about true destiny and concepts such as free will, that go along with it. We get to follow and play through Kain and Raziel's lives, as they uncover their true destinies behind an elaborate game of interests, lies and deceptions.
>who are the hylden?
they are a race of seemingly demonic beings, who at one point battled the ancient vampire race (blue skinned) for dominance of the land of nosgoth, and maybe more. Their true intentions and motives are yet to be explored.
>why is everything about the reaver?
Because the reaver at one point becomes the connecting element between Kain and Raziel's lives, and before that, it's importance was due to it being the last resort the vampires had against the hylden. So you have Raziel afraid of the reaver because he is destined to become entrapped in it, kain is destined to wield it through his reign and against their true villain (Elder God), and since every ancient vampire worshipped the blade, most ruins are built to be opened with the reaver. " The reaver is the key", in many ways.
>why did Vorador do nothing?
I don't know to which part or game you're referring, but throughout the series he's done many things: he made the original reaver (not yet soul reaver, posessed by Raziel), he battled many humans during his vampiric unlife, becoming the last resistance against the sarafan, killing important members of their inner circle, weakening their forces. He held strong against many invaders during Blood Omen,
>>3198362
>>3197112
and after Kain's reshuffling of the time stream at the end of Soul Reaver 2, Vorador became once again the main piece of resistance against the Sarafan Lord (now during the events of Blood Omen 2 made possible after Kain's meddling with time). He founded the Cabal and became their leader until Kain woke from his 200 year slumber. Finally, he guided Raziel through his quest for truth and self-discovery, and managed to preserve Janos' body for centuries until the day would come, when he'd be Ressurected (in the end, this was proven to be a bad decision).The dude has seen much and done much.
>why can Kain survive without a heart?
That isn't really clear, but at the same time it is not so important the "how", but the "why". It seems to happen because of two main things: his role as scion of balance, which makes him more than just a living creature, he has a true function in the world that gives him reasons beyond death to remain in this world, as if his existence was independent of a functional organism. After all, he is dead already. The second thing would be when Raziel struck him down, the Hylden possessing him sent Kain through a portal (not sure if on purpose, or by Raziel's accidental misuse of hylden power) to the Hylden dimension, where maybe his heartless corpse could survive in a weird state of existence. Again, it doesn't seem like Kain needed the heart as much as a regular vampire. Before he was a vampire, he was already playing a bigger role as scion of balance, successor of Ariel. Who knows what that does to a person's existence...
Well, i hope i could help you. But even though BO1 was made thinking of different things, the latter games used it's story to patch the whole franchise up, so you should play it. It's also a great game, so no loss at all.
>>3197558
The aesthetic is exactly why I started playing, it's very unique and Gothic, you would never get anything like it today.
Closest thing to it I can think of are the souls games
>>3197558
Blood Omen has pretty great gameplay, though it could have used some polish and balancing. The first SR has some good gameplay, though combat is clumsy and the puzzles are dull it's fun to explore. When the game emphasizes platforming it's very solid.
SR2 is where everything fell to shit, both in terms of story and gameplay.
>>3197112
Just read the plot faq from gamefaqs. I enjoyed reading the plot more than playing anything after sr1. Sad how it went downhill so fast with the later games. Sr2 especially was a joke at 6-7 hours. More like a demo. They should have just let the original team finish the damn thing for ps1.
>>3197112
What game was this, where every player on the board claimed the same pawn?
VAE VICTIS
>>3198362
>Their true intentions and motives are yet to be explored.
The proto-vampires fought a war with the Hylden over faith. The Hylden are just after revenge for banishing them out of the physical world.
>>3201037
Except we don't know why they are fighting Raziel when he was fighting against the elder god.
>>3201071
The Hylden aren't aware the Elder God actually exists to them he was just the religious symbol of their enemies.
>>3197125
So, Neon Genesis Evangelion with vampires?
>>3201117
Well good luck with that, all we've gotten in recent times was that godawful Nosgoth game
>>3201117
Be careful what you wish for.
>>3201263
This. If competent and interested developers with an enthusiastic director were in charge of making something inspired by the original Blood Omen, I'd be interested. But the series fell apart two games in, and there's not much reason to revisit it. Sometimes things are better left alone.
THE HEART OF DARKNESS
>>3201037
>>3201080
Oh yeah, exactly, i messed that up. This is their reason for war, >>3197112 , if you're even there.
>>3199709
The games after SR1 are really good in general, and they all have strong and weak points, too. I played SR2 a couple of years after release, and never felt like it owed me gameplay hours. The puzzles and story-telling gave it a great pacing. What we see there in general could never be the same in a ps1 game.
>>3205896
Exploration was crippled. The games started to railroad the player which hurt one of the most appealing things found in BO and SR1. If the story was up to snuff it's be forgivable, but I don't think it really was. It was just a self-important mess.
