Do I need to play Blood Omen 1 first or I can just play Soul Reaver 1 and 2 without knowing the lore?

Do I need to play Blood Omen 1 first or I can just play Soul Reaver 1 and 2 without knowing the lore?
LoK thread I guess

Just play SR1, SR2, and Defiance.

No, but it's worth playing.

You don't need to play Blood Omen at all.

All the lore you need is perfectly explained in the opening cinematic.

All you need to know

Nobleman Kain gets killed by brigands, is resurrected by a necromancer called Mortanius who belongs to a group that protect and maintain 9 pillars that are tied to the health of the land. Some time before, someone murdered Ariel, one of the members of the group, the Circle of Nine, and her lover Nupraptor went mad, sending psychic shockwaves to all the other members, corrupting them. Kain manages to kill the brigands, but then hears the voice of the necromancer, who tells him that they aren't the real ones responsible, that there is a dark plot afoot, and you then basically go on a quest to kill all the members of the Cirle, as Kain needs to bring a piece of them and place it next to the respective Pillar to restore it.

But when he's killed them all, he learns that, in order to restore the last pillar, he'll need to kill himself. Unbeknownst to him, he had been marked as a guardian of the pillar, and had similarly been affected by Nupraptor's psychic corruption. But when it came to it, he couldn't kill himself, and then meets the architect of the whole plot, a being from another dimension that was being kept out by the Pillars themselves. The whole murder plot was to weaken the Pillars, which acted as the seal, so he could escape from his prison.

Kain then erects a throne on the pillar he was supposed to guard and then 1500 years alter, Soul Reaver 1 takes place.

How hard is this to find on Dreamcast? I just got one and I'm looking for good games to get for it.

SR 1, 2 and Defiance tell a coherent story. Blood Omen 2 is also pretty fun and explains a few plot points, but isn't 100% necessary.
LOK is the shit, btw. Part of me wishes it would get resurrected, but part of me is happy for it to stay in the glorious past.

There's not really that much related to Blood Omen happening in Soul Reaver. It's all ancient history, and all you need to know gets explained in the sequels when they becomes relevant.

It's pretty cheap on eBay. Unless you want a new or sealed copy or something, but even then

>Part of me wishes it would get resurrected
FUCK YOU, VAMPIRE!