It was the first game in the Soul Reaver series. And unlike games that came later, it's a top-down hack and slash RPG.
You play as Kain, a nobleman resurrected as a vampire, driven by revenge and a slow descent into power and damnation.
Curiously, this is the lone game that was made by Silicon Knights, who would later make Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem for the GameCube.
The later Soul Reaver games were later made by Crystal Dynamics, now known for the "modern" Tomb Raider series.
In terms of consoles, this was a PlayStation exclusive. But it had a bigger impact on PC. And there are a few reasons why.
Console gamers demanded that everything be 3D, so there wasn't much of an appetite for anything 2D unless it was from an established series like Street Fighter or Castlevania. But there was very much an appetite for top-down and isometric RPGs on PC. Which is why Diablo, Take No Prisoners, and Baldur's Gate found a big audience on PC. So Legacy of Kain slotted in easily.
But also, Legacy of Kain is much more of a word-heavy game. Meanwhile, PlayStation gamers were more primed for arcade feel and action gameplay. That's not to say Legacy of Kain doesn't have lots of action, but it's tonally more of a PC game.
Controls were another factor. Inventory management and spellcasting were clunky on a controller, but felt more natural on a keyboard—especially with the function keys, which were standard in PC RPGs back then. It hasn’t aged perfectly, but in the '90s, that control scheme made sense.
Definitely one of the better hack-'n-slash RPGs of the 90s. Grim, ambitious, and still surprisingly fun to play.
