History VideoGame / LegacyOfKainSoulReaver

* DeathAsGameMechanic: Raziel gets thrown into the underworld when he dies and can come back out. There's puzzles which require doing within the underworld to proceed.

* RogueProtagonist: Kain was the PlayerCharacter of ''Blood Omen'' and was pretty much a VillainProtagonist in that game, the story essentially being a tale of EvilVsEvil. He serves as the BigBad to Raziel in this game, however.

* WaterIsAir: Water in the Spectral Realm is specifically described as such by the Elder God:

The second game in the ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series, developed by Creator/CrystalDynamics and published by Creator/EidosInteractive, and released for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation in August 1999, and the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast a year later.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Soul Reaver, once Raziel gains it. Yes its nice and flashy and its quite powerful against Material Realm enemies, but Raziel needs to be at full health in the Material Realm to use it, meaning if one single attack takes even a smidgen of health, he's back to square one.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Towards the end of the game, [[spoiler:as Raziel explores Moebius' ElaborateUndergroundBase, he can peer into chronoplast portals to see glimpses of the past and future. The later visions, while presented as Raziel potentially undergoing a FaceHeelTurn, concern events in future games -- Namely, the confrontation between Raziel and Kain at Avernus Cathedral in ''Defiance'', Raziel absorbing Ariel's soul to create the purified Spirit Reaver towards the end of ''Defiance'', and Raziel standing at the cliffside exit of Janos Audron's retreat with the Fire Reaver in ''Soul Reaver 2''.]]

[[caption-width-right:300:''"The descent had destroyed me - and yet, I lived"''.]]

-->'''Ariel''': Ghastly past, insufferable future, are they one and the same...? Am I ''always'' here?

After evolving wings, Raziel decides to show them off to Kain, but out of an apparent act of jealously, Kain tears the bones from his wings and executes him by ordering his brothers to throw him into the Lake of the Dead; the swirling, powerful energies slowly burn Raziel as it pulls him apart, [[AndIMustScream subjecting him to constant horrible pain but also leaving him unable to truly die]]. Five centuries of constant torture later, however, Raziel is rescued from his predicament, when he is resurrected as a wraith by the mysterious Elder God to become his "[[TitleDrop Soul Reaver]]". The Elder God explains that the Wheel of Fate, the cycle of reincarnation that governs the world, is dependent on mortal souls to move forward, however, because vampires are immortal, their souls do not spin with the Wheel, with horrible consequences for the land, which decay as the Wheel stalls. As such the god tasks Raziel to kill Kain and his lieutenants, telling him that doing so will restore the proper balance to Nosgoth that Kain denied it so long ago. Raziel embraces this mission, as he has plenty of good reasons to want to exact revenge on Kain and the rest of his empire.

After evolving wings, Raziel decides to show them off to Kain, but out of an apparent act of jealously, Kain tears the bones from his wings and executes him by ordering his brothers to throw him into the Lake of the Dead; the swirling, powerful energies slowly burn Raziel as it pulls him apart, [[AndIMustScream subjecting him to constant horrible pain but also leaves him unable to truly die]]. Five centuries of constant torture later, however, Raziel is rescued from his predicament, when he is resurrected as a wraith by the mysterious Elder God to become his "[[TitleDrop Soul Reaver]]". The Elder God explains that the Wheel of Fate, the cycle of reincarnation that governs the world, is dependent on mortal souls to move forward, however, because vampires are immortal, their souls do not spin with the Wheel, with horrible consequences for the land, which decay as the Wheel stalls. As such the god tasks Raziel to kill Kain and his lieutenants, telling him that doing so will restore the proper balance to Nosgoth that Kain denied it so long ago. Raziel embraces this mission, as he has plenty of good reasons to want to exact revenge on Kain and the rest of his empire.

Starting 1500 years after the events of ''Blood Omen'', ''Soul Reaver'' chronicles the journey of the vampire-turned-wraith Raziel, lieutenant to the vampire lord Kain, who has ruled uncontested over the ruined realm of Nosgoth ever since he refused sacrifice himself to the Pillars of Nosgoth to restore balance to the land. Kain has spent that the meantime raising up the vampire race, creating his lieutenants, including Raziel who is the eldest, to function as the heads of their own clans, giving them each a region of Nosgoth to rule over. The vampires have since grown into the land's dominant species, enslaving the remaining human population who has been effectively domesticated to be a living supply of blood for their vampire overlords, and almost everyone have forgotten that Kain himself was himself once a mortal. One of the very few who hasn't is Raziel.

After evolving wings, Raziel decides to show them off to Kain, but seemingly in act of jealously, Kain tears the bones from his wings and executes him by ordering his brothers to throwing him into the Lake of the Dead, the swirling, powerful energies of which slowly burns Raziel as it pulls him apart, [[AndIMustScream subjecting him to constant horrible pain but also leaves him unable to truly die]]. Five centuries of constant torture later, however, Raziel is rescued from his predicament, when he is resurrected as a wraith by the mysterious Elder God to become his "[[TitleDrop Soul Reaver]]". The Elder God explains that the Wheel of Fate, the cycle of reincarnation that governs the world, is depended on mortal souls to move forward, however, because vampires are immortal, their souls do not spin with the Wheel, with horrible consequences for the land, which decay as the Wheel stalls. As such the god tasks Raziel to kill Kain and his lieutenants, telling him that doing so will restore the proper balance to Nosgoth that Kain denied it so long ago. Raziel embraces this mission, as he has plenty of good reasons to want to exact revenge on Kain and the rest of his empire.

The second game in the ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series, developed by Creator/CrystalDynamics and published by Creator/EidosInteractive, and released for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation in 1999, and the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast a year later.