Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

"The Legacy Continues even Greater!"

My personal favourite game for the Playstation or Dreamcast Soul Reaver is an awesome game. This game is pretty much completely different from its prequel Blood Omen: The Legacy of Kain, its even made by Crystal Dynamics while Blood Omen was made by Silicon Knights. This time around you play as a very unique character named Raziel, a former vampire who's been killed and revived as a soul-eating wraith while the last games main, Kain, is the main antagonist.

We find that out of the two options at the end of Blood Omen, the sacrifice yourself to save the land or ruling it, the latter is the canon one, thus Nosgoth is plunged into darkness. It seems Kain has gained some Vampire Leutenants of his, each gaining their own abilities but Kain always got them first. When the "hero" of the game Raziel gains wings before his master Kain, Kain thought it was blasphemy and out of what seemed to be jealousy, he had Raziel tossed into "The Abyss" a swirling watery grave.

After many body parts of his (including his jaw and wings.) were burnt from The Abyss, Raziel was saved by a being known as "The Elder God" who tells him to have his revenge on his bretherin and Kain and says my favourite line in the game: "Become my... Soul Reaver... My Angel of Death...". Raziel later learns he no longer drinks blood, but eats souls as a substitute and that he is also immortal, instead of dieing when he takes too much damage he leave the Real World, or "Material Realm" and enters the Spirit World, or "Spectral Realm" in which he must eat souls to obtain his full strength and then find a portal to return to the Material Realm. If he dies in the Spectral Realm he returns to The Elder Gods Lair.

Raziel has many things he can use to his advantage, in combat he cant actually kill his Vampire enemies unless he impales them with a weapon, or throw them into fire, water, sunlight or something that'll impale him. Speaking of weapons there isnt much of a choice of weapons, most of them are just different versions of spears (a matter of fact, I cant remember any non-spear weapons.), but there is still the "Soul Reaver", a weapon you find during the game which gave the game its title. Once you've obtained the Soul Reaver you can only use it in the Material Realm when you're at full strength, if you are hit, you'll have to eat a soul to get it again, in the Spectral Realm however it is always at your disposal and you never lose it. The reasons why not to stay in the Spectral Realm is the fact that you cant open doors or move blocks there and any health upgrades (you can upgrade your health by finding 5 of these special items.) you get will not effect you in the Spectral Realm, you'll always have the same maximum health.

Raziel amazingly still can use his wings, not to fly but to glide, this allows him to reach places a bit out of his reach. Raziel also gains a new ability for every boss he defeats such as wall-climbing and the ability to swim (Raziel starts with the weakness of water, thus he'll die if he jumps in it.). Raziel must use each ability he obtains to allow him to reach new places, if you had all the abilities at the start, you could go anywhere in the game right at the beggining! You can also find hidden bonus areas that are not required to complete to finish the game but will allow you use special abilities to use during combat. These abilities are called "Glyphs" and are added to the same menu you use to swap between the Spectral or Material Realm (you can switch to the Spectral Realm from the Material at any time.) I believe it is very neccesary to obtain at least one of these.

One of the bad features of the game is the puzzles, while many of them are intelligent and mind-bending most of them consist of moving blocks, flipping them over and putting them in slots which gets VERY, VERY, VERY boring after awhile. Many of the puzzles involve doing one thing in the Material Realm, then swapping to the Spectral Realm to do something else and then finding a portal to return to the Material Realm to finish the job, this is better than the blocks though many of these puzzles still involve blocks aswell and thus gets boring too.

In my oppinion Soul Reaver is a great game with an even better storyline, the gameplay is awesome and the combat is top-notch even though the puzzles get boring once in awhile. The way you progress in the game is my favourite kind of all, you fight a boss and use his ability to reach the next until you finish the game and it is much more fun than it sounds. Soul Reaver is most definently a game to own whether its for the Dreamcast or Playstation, buy this game its my favourite in the Legacy of Kain Series and it could damn well be yours.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/06