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Legacy of Kain / Soul Reaver

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
:necro:

Unofficial HD remaster released:
Download

https://www.sr1hdremaster.com/home

Stalk the land of Nosgoth like never before!


About the project​


Soul Reaver was a groundbreaking title when it released in 1999 and it is still fondly remembered by many to this date. However, the graphics quality across the three different published versions have not been consistent and while the Dreamcast version runs at 60fps and has higher poly models for Kain and Raziel, the textures for everything else are actually lower quality than PC or even the PlayStation version. With the advent of emulators being capable of extracting textures, I finally had the means to upgrade Soul Reaver to higher resolution graphics.
This texture pack requires Flycast, a Dreamcast emulator, capable of extracting and loading textures externally, which enables anyone to mod Dreamcast games. I decided that after the upscaled texture pack I released in August 2020 and a demo version for Tomb Raider 2 HD on pc, the time was ripe for me to try something more advanced and challenging. I have started working on this project in July 2021. It has been a long road with many obstacles I had to overcome and I learnt much about working with textures.
To be able to accomplish this, firstly, I obtained a large library of textures. I purchased several sets from Marlin Studios and also bought copies of texture reference books from the acclaimed photographer, Judy A. Juracek. As her books were published during 90s and early 2000s, they are quite expensive and not the easiest to find with a CD-ROM attached. Luckily, I managed to track down Surfaces, Natural Surfaces and Architectural Surfaces, all of which proved to be an invaluable reference material.


Finishing this project would have not been possible without any help. Dear friend and LOK fan, Terry from Team Vivisect, helped me search for these textures and contributed several textures themselves as well. It was Terry's utter dedication to make their own project look as faithful to the original as possible which inspired me to do the same for Soul Reaver.
To make things even better, Daniel Cabuco, the super talented artist from the LOK series, also tremendously helped with this and allowed me to use some of the original SR1 textures. My project would never have looked as authentic without him. Check the credits section for a full list of all the people who contributed. Other languages are also supported as well.


I spent several hundreds of hours working on this, but I hope the wait was worth it. The download also includes a brand new HD version of the original manual I made so make sure to read through it first!
16. 08. 2022 Update: All the download links are now available!
Enjoy all the trailers below and the anniversary stream will be posted here as well!


ah played this for the first time on an emulator maybe 6 or so years ago. voice acting was so good, it pretty much made the game (although combat, lore and the puzzles were pretty good too). platforming is trash, at least on keyboard, but its not too great a hurdle to overcome
 

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
i like the track for that remastered trailer very much, as well. close to the original, but an original take on it.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
:necro:

Unofficial HD remaster released:
Download

https://www.sr1hdremaster.com/home

Stalk the land of Nosgoth like never before!


About the project​


Soul Reaver was a groundbreaking title when it released in 1999 and it is still fondly remembered by many to this date. However, the graphics quality across the three different published versions have not been consistent and while the Dreamcast version runs at 60fps and has higher poly models for Kain and Raziel, the textures for everything else are actually lower quality than PC or even the PlayStation version. With the advent of emulators being capable of extracting textures, I finally had the means to upgrade Soul Reaver to higher resolution graphics.
This texture pack requires Flycast, a Dreamcast emulator, capable of extracting and loading textures externally, which enables anyone to mod Dreamcast games. I decided that after the upscaled texture pack I released in August 2020 and a demo version for Tomb Raider 2 HD on pc, the time was ripe for me to try something more advanced and challenging. I have started working on this project in July 2021. It has been a long road with many obstacles I had to overcome and I learnt much about working with textures.
To be able to accomplish this, firstly, I obtained a large library of textures. I purchased several sets from Marlin Studios and also bought copies of texture reference books from the acclaimed photographer, Judy A. Juracek. As her books were published during 90s and early 2000s, they are quite expensive and not the easiest to find with a CD-ROM attached. Luckily, I managed to track down Surfaces, Natural Surfaces and Architectural Surfaces, all of which proved to be an invaluable reference material.


Finishing this project would have not been possible without any help. Dear friend and LOK fan, Terry from Team Vivisect, helped me search for these textures and contributed several textures themselves as well. It was Terry's utter dedication to make their own project look as faithful to the original as possible which inspired me to do the same for Soul Reaver.
To make things even better, Daniel Cabuco, the super talented artist from the LOK series, also tremendously helped with this and allowed me to use some of the original SR1 textures. My project would never have looked as authentic without him. Check the credits section for a full list of all the people who contributed. Other languages are also supported as well.


I spent several hundreds of hours working on this, but I hope the wait was worth it. The download also includes a brand new HD version of the original manual I made so make sure to read through it first!
16. 08. 2022 Update: All the download links are now available!
Enjoy all the trailers below and the anniversary stream will be posted here as well!


ah played this for the first time on an emulator maybe 6 or so years ago. voice acting was so good, it pretty much made the game (although combat, lore and the puzzles were pretty good too). platforming is trash, at least on keyboard, but its not too great a hurdle to overcome


Remaster from a veteran player's perspective is borderline pointless.

The polygon count is way too low, not surprising since it's a PSX title, so the sharper textures don't really improve the game enough to entice me to play it again.

Right now we need a total remake, something that no mod using the game's current engine can accomplish.

Besides the lack of sufficient visual improvement, the core game mechanics and general presentation are severely outdated, and it's still at its worst, nothing more than a wordy Tomb Raider clone.

I really like certain elements of the cancelled sequel, Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, which was supposed to reboot the franchise with an all-new character arc.

The Nosgoth MMO footage I watched on YouTube looks like shit in comparison.
 

toughasnails

Guest
Derringer
Blood Omen 2 is hardly a DMC clone. I'm not sure how I'd describe it save as an action adventure in the older sense. It's not bad per se either, it's just that visually it felt out of date (it looked like a Dreamcast game) and very obviously lacked the budget of Soul Reaver 2 (just compare the cutscenes in two games). And I guess you can argue that the story feels forced in and unnecessary to the rest of the series. It wasn't even meant to be a Blood Omen game and was repurposed into one later in development, kinda like what happened with Soul Reaver but that obviously worked out way better.
 

Egosphere

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
Messages
1,909
Location
Hibernia
:necro:

Unofficial HD remaster released:
Download

https://www.sr1hdremaster.com/home

Stalk the land of Nosgoth like never before!


About the project​


Soul Reaver was a groundbreaking title when it released in 1999 and it is still fondly remembered by many to this date. However, the graphics quality across the three different published versions have not been consistent and while the Dreamcast version runs at 60fps and has higher poly models for Kain and Raziel, the textures for everything else are actually lower quality than PC or even the PlayStation version. With the advent of emulators being capable of extracting textures, I finally had the means to upgrade Soul Reaver to higher resolution graphics.
This texture pack requires Flycast, a Dreamcast emulator, capable of extracting and loading textures externally, which enables anyone to mod Dreamcast games. I decided that after the upscaled texture pack I released in August 2020 and a demo version for Tomb Raider 2 HD on pc, the time was ripe for me to try something more advanced and challenging. I have started working on this project in July 2021. It has been a long road with many obstacles I had to overcome and I learnt much about working with textures.
To be able to accomplish this, firstly, I obtained a large library of textures. I purchased several sets from Marlin Studios and also bought copies of texture reference books from the acclaimed photographer, Judy A. Juracek. As her books were published during 90s and early 2000s, they are quite expensive and not the easiest to find with a CD-ROM attached. Luckily, I managed to track down Surfaces, Natural Surfaces and Architectural Surfaces, all of which proved to be an invaluable reference material.


Finishing this project would have not been possible without any help. Dear friend and LOK fan, Terry from Team Vivisect, helped me search for these textures and contributed several textures themselves as well. It was Terry's utter dedication to make their own project look as faithful to the original as possible which inspired me to do the same for Soul Reaver.
To make things even better, Daniel Cabuco, the super talented artist from the LOK series, also tremendously helped with this and allowed me to use some of the original SR1 textures. My project would never have looked as authentic without him. Check the credits section for a full list of all the people who contributed. Other languages are also supported as well.


I spent several hundreds of hours working on this, but I hope the wait was worth it. The download also includes a brand new HD version of the original manual I made so make sure to read through it first!
16. 08. 2022 Update: All the download links are now available!
Enjoy all the trailers below and the anniversary stream will be posted here as well!


ah played this for the first time on an emulator maybe 6 or so years ago. voice acting was so good, it pretty much made the game (although combat, lore and the puzzles were pretty good too). platforming is trash, at least on keyboard, but its not too great a hurdle to overcome


Remaster from a veteran player's perspective is borderline pointless.

The polygon count is way too low, not surprising since it's a PSX title, so the sharper textures don't really improve the game enough to entice me to play it again.

Right now we need a total remake, something that no mod using the game's current engine can accomplish.

Besides the lack of sufficient visual improvement, the core game mechanics and general presentation are severely outdated, and it's still at its worst, nothing more than a wordy Tomb Raider clone.

I really like certain elements of the cancelled sequel, Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, which was supposed to reboot the franchise with an all-new character arc.

The Nosgoth MMO footage I watched on YouTube looks like shit in comparison.

wordy is doing a lot of work here. I'm a huge fan of tomb raider 1, but its combat was literally running in a circle and holding down X whilst Lara shot something trying to track you off screen. Imo LoK would have been better if it hewed closer to TR than it actually did - the back and forth in the world of LoK is subpar compared to the giant levels arranged linearly in TR.
 
Self-Ejected

HereticGuy

Self-Ejected
Joined
Sep 11, 2022
Messages
218
Nothing good can come out of this and the survey is proof: it all boils down to “which modern AAA game shall we copy because we are mindless hacks?”.
That's depressing, but you're right... Here's an Ozar Midrashim rock cover from 2006 (shit, it feels like yesterday!), for the memory of original Soul Reaver. Cheers!

 

Deadyawn

Learned
Joined
Dec 1, 2019
Messages
108
Location
Argentina
Soul Reaver>Blood Omen>Soul Reaver 2>Defiance>Blood Omen 2
 
Last edited:

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