Received positively by players and the gaming press, Raziel was praised by
GameSpot's
Greg Kasavin, who wrote in his review of
Defiance that "it's rare enough to find a truly memorable main character in a game, let alone two", and closed deeming the title "one of those rare games whose characters and story to some extent supersede the problems in the gameplay".
Electronic Gaming Monthly suggested in a 1999 preview that players "think of [Raziel] as a
Solid Snake for the undead crowd [...] just the type of bad-ass, take-no-guff, not-quite-a-hero hero we like to see in our games. The key to this guy is more than just his rugged, rotten looks. Raziel's got a backstory so completely deep and sinister he's sure to become the poster boy for the
Goth generation. [...] Heck, he's a bad guy even bad guys are afraid of."
Official UK PlayStation Magazine similarly welcomed Raziel's debut in
Soul Reaver, showcasing him on the cover of issue 43; his story and in-game appearance were endorsed, and in a comparison with
Tomb Raider III, his free-flowing character animation was described as making "
Lara look like a glove puppet". According to Tokoya of
PSM, Raziel "captivated gamers with his dark character design and interesting, yet ominous, story."
EGMs Shane Bettenhausen appreciated that "Raziel took lemons and made lemonade, channeling his rage into heroism." Reviewing the
Dreamcast port of
Soul Reaver,
IGN's Jeremy Dunham described Raziel's narrative as one of the most convincing he had ever heard, echoed later in the site's review for
Legacy of Kain: Defiance, which described the series' cast as "just damn good at talking like vampires, tortured souls and gods". GameSpot included
Soul Reaver in a 1999 list of ten
computer games with the best voice acting of all time, stating about Bell that "you'd never guess that the same person carried out all those voices", and of the cast "there's not one weak link in the bunch, and together they create one of the best examples of voice acting in a game for PC or consoles". In contrast, Douglass C. Perry of IGN felt Raziel's (and Kain's) dialogue in
Soul Reaver 2 was overdone, stating that "overwritten text makes them sound like caffeine-imbued English students verbally jousting in their first semester in college", but liked the advancement and rebalancing of Raziel's personality and aggressiveness, and enjoyed his depiction, stating that he "looks magnificently decripid ". Steve Faragher for
Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK likewise wrote that "Raziel and Kain philosophizing endlessly about their destinies, or talking about life, death, demons and free will [feels] rather more like a particularly depressing episode of
EastEnders than an action/adventure game," but he considered Raziel "an undeniably intriguing lead character whose invisible battles with his own inner demons may turn out to be as interesting as any of his battles with physical foes." Jesse Galena of
The Escapist said in a retrospective that "the delivery is solid. Raziel has a poetic way of speaking, both when he's talking to others, and when he's musing to himself about something the player needs to know. His dialogue is engaging, and the voice acting is enjoyable, especially in that
PS1 style."
Popularity Alongside Kain, Raziel was selected by IGN's readers as one of ten heroes most wanted to appear in the 2008 fighting game
Soulcalibur IV, and was ranked ninth on
EGMs list of top ten badass undead that same year. In 2009, he was inducted into
Diehard GameFANs list of top ten video game vampires (dubbed "Not A Vampire #2"), and was included as one of GameSpot's 64 All Time Greatest Game Heroes, while Thunderbolt ranked him as ninth on their list of the top videogame
antiheroes. In a
Dreamcast retrospective, Topher Cantler of
Destructoid described Raziel as "a truly likeable character as well as a badass". In 2012,
Houston Press listed the character's demise in
Legacy of Kain: Defiance among the top five most heartbreaking video game deaths, while IGN also listed Raziel and Kain among gaming's most notorious anti-heroes and "complex characters with a great backstory, and truly awesome anti-heroes, be they fighting against each other to enslave or save the world, or teaming up against greater threats". That same year, GamesRadar ranked him as the 56th "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in games, adding that "as pissed-off vampire antiheroes go, few wear the title as proudly as Raziel".
The Washington Posts Gene Park regretted in 2021 that "while
Metal Gear needs no introduction, it's been 18 years since Raziel snarled his vows of revenge with a Shakespearean lilt".
Darksiders' creative director
Joe Madureira, former
Capcom artist and game designer
Akiman, and
Clash of the Titans concept artist Tsvetomir Georgiev have also created
fan art interpretations of the character, while
Ben Starr, voice actor for
Final Fantasy XVI protagonist Clive Rosfield, singled Raziel out as the other video game character he would most like to play.
Critical analysis Faragher noted parallels between Raziel and
Michael Moorcock's characters
Elric of Melniboné and the
Eternal Champion. He observed that "in Moorcock's stories heroes are singled out against their will to fight in epic conflicts. They are pitted unwittingly into battles between the forces of Chaos and Law with the object of restoring the balance between the two – and thus harmony to the multiverse. Moorcock's most enduring creation was the noble albino sorcerer Elric who wielded a sword called
Stormbringer that ate souls. Not a million miles from the hero of this game." For
Kill Screen, Sam Zucchi likened Raziel's character arc to the journey of a
Kabbalist: "with the wraith Raziel, the game neatly inverts the traditional gnostic division between imperfect flesh and perfect spirit by rendering the spectral realm as one of horror [...] To rephrase this in a more pointed fashion, Raziel pursues his creator by navigating Kain's emanations." He highlighted that "Raziel's very name—a name meaning "Secrets of God" in Hebrew—invoke[s] the
Kabbalah, where God sustains the world via a series of emanations or manifestations and the aspirant must travel up this system in order to attain understanding. [...] That Raziel must confront the lowest of Kain's children first and ascend up the hierarchy cements the parallel between his quest for revenge and the Kabbalist's quest for enlightenment." Writing for
Game Developer, Ben Serviss praised the effectiveness of Raziel's characterization in spite of his grotesque appearance: "you essentially play a zombie vampire who runs around killing monsters and eating their souls for energy. Yet by humanizing the events that lead up to player character Raziel's destruction and rebirth, the focus is on the characters and not the spectacle, creating meaning where most games are content to throw set pieces and playthings at the player in an attempt to cover up the absence of meaning ... [the game] sets Raziel up as a tragic figure that you feel for". Serviss empathized with the character: "Raziel has been destroyed, but has somehow been reborn. The reveal of his missing jaw and blue glowing eyes hints at an unholy quality, but you don't remark on the monster he's become. Instead, as he throws the scarf over his shoulder to hide his deformity, you feel for what he's gone through and lost." He felt "that Raziel is a noble creature put upon by Kain, and not a horrid monster in his own right." However,
Edges Edwin Evans-Thirlwell conversely felt that Raziel lacked nuanced motivations: "Kain's ability set lacks the mystique and sophistication of Raziel's. He is, however, a more involved character, where Raziel is driven simply by revenge."
The Chinese Room's Dan Pinchbeck, contributing to GamesIndustry.biz, wrote that "you could also tell that all of
Soul Reavers writers really, really loved their characters - particularly Raziel and his brothers. Or they did a damn good job of making it seem as if they did. Even though they're comic book and larger than life, they feel distinct and you engage with them on a narrative level."
NMEs Dom Peppiatt praised Raziel as an immersive player avatar: "you – Raziel – felt hunted and vulnerable at every turn [...] desperate, immortal and frail all at once." Peppiatt felt that "Raziel – at once a sympathetic character and hateful for his self-righteousness – is the perfect counterpoint to Kain, a hero playing the role of a tyrant king." ==References==