"EXPLOSIVE, ULTIMATE, MUST BUY"!!! Holy Shit!!

Here's a quick rundown:

Blood Omen: sets up a lot of the world-building and backstory, so worth playing if you can find it, get it running, and don't mind playing such an old action/RPG. I still found it to be a solid game. That said, if you don't want the hassle you can always just read a plot summary, and it's not impossible to muddle your way through the plot of the later games without it (though it helps a lot).

Soul Reaver: Probably the lightest on 'plot' of any game in the series; you really only need to see the intro, ending, and maybe one or two cutscenes from the middle to have a good sense of what happens. (Most of the game is just "Raziel hunts down his brothers and kills them.") IIRC, Soul Reaver 2 includes the intro from SR1 as a bonus, and the intro to SR2 is basically a graphically updated retelling of the ending of SR1, so it's actually fairly safe to skip SR1.

Soul Reaver 2: Pound for pound, this game has the most story of any entry in the series, and it's also my favourite. Not to be missed.

Blood Omen 2: Ugh. This was handled by a different development team who completely botched the storyline. (Characters are alive who are supposed to be dead, with no explanation, etc.) It's also just... not a good game, from a story or gameplay perspective. Can be safely skipped (and I heartily recommend doing so), since the next game pretty much pretends this one never happened.

Defiance: Spends a loooooooong time recapping the backstory from the previous games, which is pretty boring if you're already familiar with it, but when the game finally gets rolling in the third act, it does an awesome wrap-up of the series' storyline.

So to summarize: BO1 recommended but optional, SR1 optional, SR2 essential, BO2 so awful it's basically non-canon, Defiance worth it if you've stuck around this long.

I liked the play of BO 2. Sure the storey was screwed up but I liked the powers and the whole victorian look to everything. Plus that girl that tutors you at the beginning...oh man...she can drink my blood anytime!

I adore this series and have been meaning to go back through it from the beginning. I've only played Soul Reaver 1 and 2 and enough of Blood Omen 2 to lose my lunch.

Blood Omen 2 was a mess, but Soul Reaver and (especially) Soul Reaver 2 were just fantastic. I've been meaning to pick up the others I never tried, but figure I may as well just play though all of them (save for BO2.)

Sorry, but he died in Blood Omen. Not to mention that his personality is now the complete opposite of what it was in BO1.

Apparently Defiance was originally going to try to reconcile BO2 with the rest of the storyline, but eventually they decided not to bother.

But...a dork with taste :)

It's true.

*has Kain and Raziel dlc in Tomb raider: Guardian of light*

Blood Omnicide

In case someone didn't know about it, so far it looks amazing, I hope they finish it.

It would be cool if Eidos next project was a spiritual successor to Blood Omen (1) with similar traits (like isometric view instead of that broken sh't they made later).

It's interesting, overall, I think Legacy of Kain is the series that has the highest story/writing vs. gameplay ratio of all the games I've enjoyed.

Looks great. When I played in playstation that original, t'was awesome. Only other game what was like "why these are so rare like these" it was Castlevania: Symphony of the night. Then I got it, everything has to be 3d and even then make everything badly.

Me too, and every single game was new and still sealed when I purchased 'em :-P

Actually I owe everyone an apology. I just realized I don't have Defiance...but I will...one day...maybe!

I wish GOG could get the first one to complete the series. I have the rest of them.

Now you have to change your avatar to a Kain one . :p

No thanks. I'm sticking with Cthulhu.