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DF Retro: Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver - A Classic Revisited on PS1/PC/Dreamcast!
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
It's to CD's credit that they made a PSX game that matches the size, scope and look of a lot of PC games of that time. It's a moody style from the late 90s I have a lot of nostalgia for; when we'd have 3D games with increasingly large worlds that were still sparsely populated due to technical constraints.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Crashes all the time (and this game has rare save points AND unskippable cut scenes... some of which are very very long), audio glitches (SR1 was even worse on that, dynamic music didn't work and even music switching after changing area often failed), no controller support.
Oh that's awesome. How about control? Has anyone modded in support for analog movement? It didn't feel great when I was going through it. Also the broken music playback remains an issue.You can also unlock it to beyond 60hz / 60fps. I am currently playing it at 120fps/120hz! No bugs visible as of yet! It even works with driver SGSSAA.
1920X1080 w/ no Texture Filtering and 8XSGSSAA
daninthemix
Member
Analog movement from that era on PC is non-existant, no? I would expect mouselook, but movement was almost always WASD.
KainXVIII
Member
Widescreen is vert- though.
daninthemix
Member
Well Tomb Raider is far, far more popular and OpenTomb is years away from completion
/
daitoqu
Member
Rei dos Vermes
Member
Very interesting! I'll try when I get home from work.
Kain-Nosgoth
Member
such a great serie, too bad we'll probably never see a new one
Magicpaint
Member
Loved this episode. Soul Reaver is really special to me.
mattwhite924
Member
I remember seeing ads for this game back during that time, but I never played it. This episode convinced me to finally give it a shot. I grabbed the PS1 version off ebay, and am looking for a Dreamcast version. I figure I'll play a bit of both and then decide which one I like better. I've been rather partial to PS1 graphics lately, so I've got a feeling I'll go that direction, especially given the supposedly better controls.
Call me crazy but the PS1 has a certain charm. The PC and Dreamcast versions look better but they also kind of don't. I can't really explain it but the slightly wonky graphics "fits" PS1 but the sharper/cleaner graphics with everything looking really plain on PC/DC doesn't look that great to me.
mattwhite924
Member
I feel like really low resolution textures just look better when they're not filtered. Everything on the PS1 just looks super sharp, in a pixelated sort of way.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
If someone can test and confirm this makes it work like the PS version I think I'll go this way.
The_Spaniard
Netmarble
That's what I asked on page 2. I own both the PC version and the DC version, but I'd play it on PC if I could just install some kind of mod with the better DC models.
CosmicRomancer
Member
Watching the video has brought back a flood of memories. Reminds me how great a game it is. I'll always cherish it. Still surprises me that they originally had something more ambitious in mind. It already seemed like a massive game to me, and I don't remember the ending feeling abrupt at all. Just shows how well Crystal Dynamics fared given the circumstances.
But hearing about all that cut content... makes me wish for a remake with its initial scope, though it would have to be made by people who know it inside-out.
Dreamcast version looks beautiful. Shame about the camera being mapped to the d-pad, and interesting nugget about the main theme song too! I love it. It's been in my head all day.
But hearing about all that cut content... makes me wish for a remake with its initial scope, though it would have to be made by people who know it inside-out.
Dreamcast version looks beautiful. Shame about the camera being mapped to the d-pad, and interesting nugget about the main theme song too! I love it. It's been in my head all day.
The_Spaniard
Netmarble
Stupid question, but are there a ton of spoilers in the video? I ask because I've played part way through the game several times, but just never finished, and intend to some day. I don't mind minor spoilers, such as enemies, and environments, I only really care about story stuff.
It spoils the ending of Soul Reaver.
The_Spaniard
Netmarble
Thanks a lot, I was interested in watching the video because I enjoy DF stuff, but was apprehensive about having too much spoiled.
Same. Well, I'm guessing the answer is no considering no one has linked me to a mod like that. I've been searching around and I'm certainly not finding one.
grandwizard
Member
No, lots of games had analog movement and gamepad support. It just used direct input instead of the modern xinput (360 controls) that modern games have so most people are unfamiliar with it. It was kind of a pain to set up but it worked.
mattwhite924
Member
Oh man, that would be a great episode. The differences between the Xbox and GCN/PS2 version are pretty big, to the extent that the later two even have a slightly altered story.
Then there's all the fun of the PC version's very specific GPU requirements for it's shadows.
Naked Snake
Member
Loved the video! Thought this thread would have more posts by now.
I especially enjoyed the technical details of the engine on PS1, didn't care much about the DC or PC ports, and I still prefer the look of the PlayStation version. I think I still have the disc somewhere.
Loved the cut content and story details too. And seeing the GIA website was definitely a blast from the past. My mind is blown that the site still exists but seems to have completely fell off the radar.
I especially enjoyed the technical details of the engine on PS1, didn't care much about the DC or PC ports, and I still prefer the look of the PlayStation version. I think I still have the disc somewhere.
Loved the cut content and story details too. And seeing the GIA website was definitely a blast from the past. My mind is blown that the site still exists but seems to have completely fell off the radar.
I've never played it, but wasn't the original Ridge Racer completely, in its entirety, loaded into the PS1 ram and thus never required loading past the initial boot? I seem to remember reading something like that years ago.
I'm not sure, if anyone can confirm that the DC version has dynamic music, that would be great. I've been recomending the OG PSX edition as the definitive edition, but if DC has dynamic music it would be a very good and perhaps better than the PSX version.
TheRazielim
Member
Well, I think even King's Field 1 did it.
Prithee Be Careful
Industry Professional
Watched this last night and it was a lovely trip down memory lane.
I had a friend who was working on a sequel to this a few years ago - a concept designer working out of a freelance studio in London. They did about six months of work on it before it eventually got canned again.
My heart was broken.
I had a friend who was working on a sequel to this a few years ago - a concept designer working out of a freelance studio in London. They did about six months of work on it before it eventually got canned again.
My heart was broken.
mattwhite924
Member
I got in my copy of the PS1 version yesterday. Was pretty excited to play it.
But then the audio started skipping. To the point that it was unintelligible, and the game wouldn't continue until the sound clip was done. It works a tad better when I play it on an actual PS1, but I'm still bummed I got a bad disk. It doesn't even look that scratched, at least not any more than I would expect from a disk of that age. I wonder if there's disk rot. It's kind of hard to tell with the black disk.
But then the audio started skipping. To the point that it was unintelligible, and the game wouldn't continue until the sound clip was done. It works a tad better when I play it on an actual PS1, but I'm still bummed I got a bad disk. It doesn't even look that scratched, at least not any more than I would expect from a disk of that age. I wonder if there's disk rot. It's kind of hard to tell with the black disk.
daninthemix
Member
Ugh, this game with SRhook and DGvoodoo2 seems to be the only game that consistently crashes the Steam overlay after a few minutes. I need that for DualShock mapping of course.
It's possible that it's a conflict with the SRHook and dgVoodoo2 software but the Steam Big Picture Overlay crashing generally points to an unstable GPU.
I would try reducing its core/memory clocks and see if this continues to happen.
I don't know how frequently it's happening for you but I tested the game for 20-30 minutes and it didn't happen here. It was an occasional problem for me in other games and once I made this change to my overclocked 1070, I haven't had the overlay crash once.
daninthemix
Member
Nah I don't overclock at all. BP overlay is fine in all other games.
Unfortunately it's not that simple. Even when using a dinput analogue controller, it's completely broken. Razeil (sp?) Just runs around in circles as the game has no idea how to deal with anologue axes. Really weird as I would have assumed analogue dinput controllers would have been a thing for years by 99.
A fix for the analog issue has been posted in this thread.
Using Xpadder isn't really a fix, more of a workaround (and a suboptimal one at that).
Played up to the first battle with Kain. Can also confirm that other patch fixes the dynamic sound issue, but it's a little rough. During dialogue the sound minimizes but between lines the volume jump is a bit jarring. Still better than the alternative.
Not talking about Xpadder. Check the last posts in the thread.
Not talking about Xpadder. Check the last posts in the thread.
Muskieratboi
Member
Just a quick FYI if it hasn't already been posted, Crystal Dynamics is doing a 25th anniversary charity bundle, $1 gets you the soul reaver trilogy and Project Snowblind: https://tiltify.com/events/crystal-dynamics-25th-anniversary-campaign
(It's the Steam versions tho)
(It's the Steam versions tho)
First off, I had no idea Legacy of Kain was on Steam. That's awesome!
What isn't awesome though are some of the recent reviews for it, at least for Soul Reaver. Seems as though just getting the game to run without constantly crashing on Windows 10 is like asking for a minor miracle. That's supposedly even with some unofficial patches.
Oops my bad. Was on my mobile at the time so I missed those (the thread didn't redirect to mobile so it was hard to read). Doesn't help that EternalWolf just dropped those links without any labels or context provided.
Anyway, that's cool I'll give it a shot.