Is this remaster worth it?

[Crummylion]

Been meaning to play the series for some time now and the release of this remaster seemed like a good opportunity. Thing though is I own all the games on GOG and am currently a lil tight on cash. I know the pc port of SR 1 and 2 are not well received, but that's the beauty of pc gaming. Some Samaritan out there will happily fix the game for you. I'm just wondering though if the remaster is worth it as the definitive edition or if I should just mod the games I already own. Graphics don't mean much for me and idc if anything was censored, I'm more worried about functionality and controls.

[Renigen]

Originally posted by Crummylion:

Been meaning to play the series for some time now and the release of this remaster seemed like a good opportunity. Thing though is I own all the games on GOG and am currently a lil tight on cash. I know the pc port of SR 1 and 2 are not well received, but that's the beauty of pc gaming. Some Samaritan out there will happily fix the game for you. I'm just wondering though if the remaster is worth it as the definitive edition or if I should just mod the games I already own. Graphics don't mean much for me and idc if anything was censored, I'm more worried about functionality and controls.

Yeah, i'd say that's gonna work just fine for you. The remaster is good for the most part, though the games themselves will require getting used to. They're old school, for better and worse.
Also, the remastered has a bunch of goodies, such as lost levels, concept art, restored music and so on.
Is it worth the money? Umm, yeah? If you don't want to mess with the mods and patches - this is definitely the best bet to get the games running on the modern operating system.

[Yukari Penninsula]

Yeah, it's totally worth it. Be mindful, though, that SR2 is not as polished as the first game, as there are some visual bugs.

[Allard]

Originally posted by Crummylion:

but that's the beauty of pc gaming. Some Samaritan out there will happily fix the game for you.

Yeah, not in this case though. With SR1 the "fixes" are less than ideal and aren't even close to being as good as the remaster - the controls would feel worse, the stability would be regrettable and it's still going to lack the original PS1/Dreamcast interactive soundtrack, instead opting for a non-interactive selection of 1/10th of it. And that's only basic functionality, without getting into the graphical upgrade and the extras.
With SR2 there was a good fix and its author worked on the remasters as well.

[Sombric]

For SR1, yes; for SR2, no.

[reticent.rem]

just for controller support and modern controls its worth it.

Originally posted by Sombric:

For SR1, yes; for SR2, no.

for sr2 also. the original pc port of sr2 is so broken its unplayable.

[thegroze]

Originally posted by Crummylion:

Been meaning to play the series for some time now and the release of this remaster seemed like a good opportunity. Thing though is I own all the games on GOG and am currently a lil tight on cash. I know the pc port of SR 1 and 2 are not well received, but that's the beauty of pc gaming. Some Samaritan out there will happily fix the game for you. I'm just wondering though if the remaster is worth it as the definitive edition or if I should just mod the games I already own. Graphics don't mean much for me and idc if anything was censored, I'm more worried about functionality and controls.

If you're tight on cash, right now, I'd suggest waiting for a patch -- or a couple -- before you purchase the remaster. Having said that, and answering your actual question, I do think this remaster is the definitive version to play Soul Reaver and, to a lesser extent, Soul Reaver 2. To me, it's worth the price of admission for the working mouse+keyboard controls alone, it's extremely fluid and responsive, even if the gameplay elements remain the same at their core and I'm guessing it won't make the games feel all that "contemporary" to younger players or people who missed the 32/64bit generation of gaming. It also has some QoL additions, most of which are... fine, I guess, but don't really add much (a map and a compass that, in all fairness, are pretty useless, especially in Soul Reaver), but one of those is the option to enable subtitles, which is great to have in terms of accessibility.

You obviously have no issue with looking around for fixes and workarounds to be able to play games on PC, so right now I wouldn't say you should just blindly grab this remaster. You won't have to look for .dll fixes online just to be able to run Soul Reaver 2 for more than 10 minutes without crashes, and even that won't fix the nausea-inducing sinewave bug when you're swimming, so this version remains the best version to just download and play, hassle free. It looks better, it plays better, it has a ton of extra content (though I'd argue some of it is cringey as all hell, but, hey!, someone out there probably loves the cosplay photos or some of the more... 10 year-old kid fanart), subtitles are nice. BUT it still has some stuff that needs ironing out, visual glitches, sound bugs, some people came across game-breaking issues. Not to mention we're talking about a PC version of a game that has no options menu whatsoever, no way to at least change resolution other than changing your native resolution which... come on... is not really a "solution", now, is it, devs? It is the definitive way to play both these games (especially when some of the issues have been fixed), but it is still just a barebones port of the "more important" remastered console version. With great mouse+keyboard support, but no video settings whatsoever.

There's also a lot of OST stuff that I don't really care about, but apparently they restored the PS1 soundtrack to PC, that's a huge thing for a lot of people, I guess. It's fine. I wouldn't necessarily say it makes it the definitive version, but if you care about that stuff, that's also a thing they did.

So, TL;DR: if you have the original versions on GOG and don't mind patching and fixing them yourself, if you don't mind old controls, no mouse support, no QoL additions, then you might as well play those. Still, this remaster *is* the definitive version of these games, and if that matters to you, then by all means get this version (you can even get it on GOG, too, it's where I got mine).

[Selen]

Yes, absolutely.

[Neltera]

currently there are still some heavy bugs, so give it some time. the remasters of both games will be worth it once they are a bug free experience.

[SkacikPL]

Define worth it, when alternative is to fish out old and barely working original ports.
This one works out of the box and that's probably its biggest benefit.

[cren3856]

Only if you want to spend $30 for analog camera controls. Otherwise, not really.

[Mr Eos]

In hindsight.
I probably should have waited until someone adds HMD support of some kind to the game. This game looks easy enough on hardware to be able to play it on xx60 cards instead of needing the 80/90's

2.9 hours..... and I'll be waiting for the HMD support. Forever if need be.

Anymore. the only reason to remaster a game like this is to add HMD support.
Rune would be another good that could do with a graphic/VRemaster

[Doctor TacoChocolate]

Originally posted by Neltera:

currently there are still some heavy bugs, so give it some time. the remasters of both games will be worth it once they are a bug free experience.

They will never be bug free. The devs aren't ever going to remove all of them. They might fix a few of them, at best.