Soul Reaver 2

"Too short, too repetive with a good story"

The PSone title Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was ranked high by many professional reviewers although I fail to see why. Although it did present a few good ideas and had some of the best 3d graphics on the PSone at the time. It just felt like a mediocre adventure title, it lacked certain something to make it a classic.

I was interested on Soul Reaver 2 (SR2) because it continues the storyline of SR1. I wanted to see what happened to Raziel (the main character) and Kain (Raziel's evil creator). The good thing is that SR2 gives more emphasis to the story that was decent in SR1 but was taken forward too little before the game ended.

Story 8/10

The best part of SR2 is it's story. Set in the medieval land of Nosgoth that is occupied by vampires and demons and stuff. Raziel (a vampire at the time) who was cast by Kain (older vampire and former master of Raziel) in to a place called the abyss (it's a place with a lot of waterfalls and water is harmful to vampires) Because Raziel had spawned wings before Kain had. Kain envied Raziel so much that he thought he would kill him by doing this, but boy was he wrong...

An age old consciousness called the Elder God then revived Raziel at the bottom of the abyss, but Raziel wasn't a vampire anymore he was what could best be described as a Soul Reaver. Raziel could now devour the souls of vampires and other bad creatures and apart from that he could now shift between the physical and mental realms.

This stuff happens in the beginning of SR1, but must be clarified here because you wouldn't understand anything about the game otherwise. You can also view the intro of SR1 in SR2 which is a nice extra and explains the above better than I did.

As SR2 begins Raziel has just come out of a ''time streaming device'' which simply allows you to travel in time. Now in Nosgoths past when times were still good, Raziel meets a sinister man called Moebius that seems to be Raziel's ally but obviously has some evil grand plan.

SR2's story revolves around time-travelling so you get to see Nosgoth in many different eras. Although this sound like a great idea it doesn't really work here, because you can't travel in time when you so desire, it is chained to the story and can be only done in key points in the game. This also means that you can't solve puzzles by moving in time like in Chrono Trigger and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Now all the time travelling offers is to see the exactly same places with minor differences (in the past it's summer and the weather is sunny, in the future it's rainy and dark). Still the game has a nice plot with turns and twists and decent voice actors.

Gameplay 8/10

Gameplay hasn't changed from SR1: you can run, jump, climb and float trough Nosgoth. Fighting is okay, you can pick your enemies weapons after killing them, but there are basically only two types: short in range, but agile swords and long range axes/spears. You kill your enemies by locking on to them and slashing them to bits and pieces (yes, you can chop of the head of your human opponents and devour their souls). The fighting is great for awhile but gets really repetive before too long. Raziel also has his own unique weapon called the Soul Reaver that is very strong, but the catch is that it devours your enemies souls and it's own will grows too strong after awhile of this and it will soon start devouring Raziel! as the story progresses you can start to imbue the Soul Reaver with different elemental properties to solve puzzles.

Raziel can devour the souls of his foes, this is how you regain health after losing it.

Graphics/Audio 7/10

SR2's graphics are okay 3D graphics. The graphics engine is obviously the original SR1 engine brought up-to-date. The characters have a lot of detail and animated facial expressions. I suggest you look up some screenshots because they will tell more than thousand words. Overall good graphics.

The audio is average with no memorable pieces of music, but good voice actors as mentioned before, and your basic slash and hack sound FX.

Repetivness 5/10

SR2 is very repetive. Let's just say that there is a very small and linear area to explore. you'll just end up backtracking after backtracking of course in different eras which helps a bit.

Overall 7/10

Good story with decent graphics/audio give this title a 7

Rent or Buy

Soul Reaver 2 is a great rental I really think you should play it, but don't buy it! rent it or borrow it from a friend and you'll get an OK videogame experience

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/02, Updated 08/07/02