Personally I would say Soul Reaver1. Many (myself included) consider it the pinnacle of the series. Besides it is the safest story-wise, since you aren't missing anything crucial to the plot (besides the things that are mentioned in the manual and the dialogue).
Unfortunately it's also the one with most potential technical problems.

As Paradoks said, Soul Reaver 1 is the definitive choice here. The other games clearly need to you have played the previous ones to enjoy them fully, they are highly Storyline interconnected. It also means if you enjoy it and want to see more you can get Soul Reaver 2 and then Defiance if you desire later and follow the great storyline.


If you do buy any of these games though I do suggest using a gamepad to play and you will need gamepad software like Xpadder or Joy2key or whatever for Soul Reaver. The games were not designed with a KB/Mouse in mind. So mapping the keyboard keys to a controller will give you a much better experience.

I toyed with the idea of buying it on the playstation network, the ps1 version for the ps3. but honestly, I like gog's better for some reason. i don't know, what do you think, should i get it from gog or from playstation?

Ugh, not quite the easiest question to answer. Though i guess your own answer would be what would you care more about the sound or the graphics?

If I were forced to choose, I'm not a fan of Sony myself but if you are planning on being with Sony for awhile even beyond to the PS4 and such. I may suggest going with the Playstation version.

Now the resolution of the game will be far lower, as its just emulating the PSOne title. The PC version can look very crisp and clear because you can spike the resolution way up.

However the PC version is devoid of a lot of soundtrack (dynamic music) that changes and plays based on whats going on. The PC version just loops the same small tracks over and over. So you are getting a much much more rich sound experience on the PSN version.

Also you are guaranteed a flawless experience on the PSN version, the game will play just fine being a console title on a console. I had bought the PSN version of Blood Omen and Soul Reaver for my PSPGo back when I still had it. The PC version there's always a chance you may be one of the unlucky few that have some issues with how it plays, problems with sound or graphical glitches.

Which also lets me say this, you may want to consider picking up Blood Omen on PSN if you are going to go that route anyways. Blood Omen is the absolute true first game of the series, before Soul Reaver and will set up the base history and lore of the entire series. It's not necessary to play Blood Omen to understand Soul Reaver, but it gives you a deeper understanding and is especially beneficial when getting into Soul Reaver 2 and onward.

If you play them and become a fan, you can always buy the PC version later just to have it.

Ouch seriously! Music is quite important for me. While the high resolution made the game look nice in a way that no Playstation game could, I find it is much more important to hear the soundtrack as it was originally supposed to be. Dynamic soundtracks are cool, and I also fear that a dynamic soundtrack converted into a simple loop a single track soundtrack, probably was done by someone that didn't care very much.
Since I'm not going to buy a Playstation any time in the foreseeable future I just bought the GOG versions of LOC: SR and LOC: SR2 and will later take, ahem justice (self-entitlement) into my own hands and play the original Playstation version of LOC: SR on my computer.

Do you know if Legacy of Cain: Soul Reaver 2 was converted to the PC in the same shoddy way? The graphics looked so nice for that one, it would be a shame to not be able to use the high resolution available in the PC version. Well at least the PlayStation 2 has a higher resolution than the PS1.

This sub-par way of treating the soundtrack of the PC conversion s reminds of the conversion of Rayman Forever. They ran out of space on the CD for that one (why not make it a two CD release then?) and cut out a lot of the soundtrack. Also, instead of having a unique tune for each level of the world, the PC version just loops all the themes for that world regardless of which level you are on.

Thanks to both of you, and to GOG for releasing these games.

Soul Reaver 2 content seems to be identical between both versions of the game. In fact the PC version would be the clear victor, because it received a patch which fixed some bugs and the game doesn't suffer the forge glitches that would require a lot of backtracking that is a semi frequent occurrence in PS2 SR2. So in the case of Soul Reaver 2 for PC not only are you getting a more bug free version but also like SR1 you can up the resolution and such to make the visual experience more pleasing than SR2 on PS2 would provide.

Also about Soul Reaver 1 if you want the best experience possible. The Dreamcast Version of Soul Reaver 1 is by far the best. The game supports the dynamic soundtrack but also the actual poly count was upped Giving Raziel, Kain and various spell effects more visual flair, longer draw distance, better enemy models.. etc. It was completely overhauled in the year or so it was being ported over. The Dreamcast version also has tighter controls than either other version of the game. It's by far the best version of the game, an excellent port.

Thankyou :)

There are some differences. Most important is the bonus content, which was removed from the PC version for disk size reasons (PS2 PAL version is missing some of them as well). These can be easily found but they are not in the official release.
PS2 version also has some additional graphic effects that are not in the PC version - for example like in this video at the 3:10 mark.
Overall graphic differences are still on the PC side though with higher resolutions and anisotropic filtering. It's really impressive how well this game is holding up in that department considering it's age.

seems to me like the pc should almost always have better graphics, becuase the pc can evolve into a better machine almost overnight with all the latest technology being available at the time of release, however, consoles stay the exact same technology wise for like 7 years, until the next release comes out. someone told me that they dumb down games for the pc becuase they want to release it on the consoles too, and the consoles are lagging behind.