Soul Reaver 2

"All of the worst elements of the first game, and none of the best"

The first Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain was a moderately fun game. It was surprising to see a sequel/spin-off to Blood Omen come out so many years later, and especially one that was so different from the original. Soul Reaver gave us a bleak, grey and brown landscape that you could traverse without load times between different areas. The game advanced as you encountered your mutated vampire brethren, dispatching each and eating their souls, each one granting you new abilities that allowed you to progress to new areas of the world and bypass barriers to bonus areas in places you’ve already been to. Advancement and bonuses also frequently required solving an endless stream of tedious block-flipping puzzles. The gothic storyline was compelling, the bosses were grotesque, and the kills were satisfying. However, the enemies were rather sparse and repetitive after a while. Grunt battles all took mostly the same strategy, but you could stealthily approach an enemy and impale him from afar by throwing a spear-type weapon to avoid a confrontation. All was more or less good until the ending. After a long, boring, repetitive run past identical landmarks (reminiscent of the Simpsons episode where Bart meets the owner of the Itchy and Scratchy animation studio, and he explains that backgrounds are often recycled to save time and money, while they walk past the same cleaning lady and water cooler 6 times, but in this case less funny), the “final” battle is followed by the most anticlimactic game conclusion in Playstation history; possibly the most disappointing “to be continued” in recent memory.

Now, reading this so far, one might imagine that this is a review for the first game, which it isn’t. Nonetheless, I needed to point out some of the important elements of the first game, because Soul Reaver 2 keeps the worst elements of the first game while eliminating the best elements. Though some game elements are improved, in general this is the most disappointing game sequel I have ever seen.

Graphics
As one should hope for, the PS2 Soul Reaver looks better than the PS1 outing, and woe be to any game developer who is unable to achieve this feat. Breaking free from some of the limitations of the earlier machine, we are able to get an adventure game that isn’t set by necessity in a bleak, colorless world. In Soul Reaver 2, even though some of those dark & dingy areas are thrown in for effect, fitting as they are to the storyline of this series, we also get to see some gorgeous, well-lit natural settings, though they are few and far between. You can experience the joys of beautifully rendered lakes, rivers, waterfalls, grass, snow, towering cliffs and majestic strongholds. The swamp is less impressive, but fittingly so. The character models are quite detailed, some more than others. My initial impression was that Raziel, your main character, looked too compact when I first saw him in a non-CGI setting, compared with the first game, but this feeling went away as I adapted to the new presentation. At least he moves like the original. Kain and the large fire demons you encounter are especially impressive visually.

Lighting is varied and natural, coming from sources such as the sun, glowing gems, or torches. I was pleased with the light-imbued reaver you obtain, because it actually illuminates the environment around you. Some areas were too dark, in my opinion, especially the underwater cavern, where you have to stop and look around a lot to find the glowing stones that mark your path. The special effects are nice. Examples of these are flying souls, blood effects, gusts of wind, and the spouts of elemental energy that you encounter.

Sound
I generally don’t have much to say in this area in my reviews, beyond whether or not the music is annoying, but the sound in this game is superior to many. The music is nicely orchestrated and exciting, enhancing the adventure of the game. The voice acting is where the game really shines, though. The voices from the first game return, with the addition of new cast members, most notably Rene Auberjonois, who played Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Unfortunately, the character he voices has only one scene to star in, but it’s a scene that is highly anticipated due to the course of the plot. Other voices are rich, in deep tones, and with some kind of archaic English accent. It’s a very good thing that the voice acting is so superb, because the game includes a very large amount of spoken dialogue. You even hear some enemies shout lines to you and to each other as you approach them and engage in combat, and characters make appropriate grunts and huffs while fighting as they give and receive hits. Other sound effects are fine, with the exception of your footsteps. They vary with the type of terrain you run on, but they often seem too loud. Since you run around a lot, and I mean a lot, this sound gets slightly irritating before too long.

And now after these two mostly positive aspects of the game, we come to the core of the matter...

Gameplay
Flow
For the first hour or so of the game, here’s how things go: Cut-scene, run around for thirty seconds, watch another cut-scene, run around a little more, maybe fight a couple basic enemies, cut-scene, advance a little more, cut-scene... You get the idea. The story is advanced entirely through these cut-scenes, which generally involve only dialogue. For the longest time, they seemed to be only variations on Raziel talking about how tired he is of everyone trying to use him as a pawn; he really goes on and on about it time and time again, while those he converses with try to convince him that they’re on his side. After a while, I didn’t really care who was trying to use who and who Raziel could trust. They were just all so pompous and annoying. At least the voice acting is good, keeping these scenes from being too horrendous. Most of the cut-scenes involve important information that let you know what you should be doing next. Unfortunately, they cannot be paused or replayed, so if the phone rings, a fire engine drives by with its sirens wailing, or your girlfriend tries to talk to you, you could miss out on the line that tells you where to go now. The major events can be read in script form in the “dark chronicle”, but often it’s the smaller ones that tell you the next immediate step. On that note, in the first Blood Omen, the dark chronicle feature let you re-watch any cut-scenes you had opened up. In Soul Reaver 2, you can only read about them.

Story
I mentioned the story, and it’s a pretty decent one for an adventure game, albeit a convoluted one. It seems that Raziel is moving through time, being thrown bones by other characters with different aims, trying to learn the truth of the history and future of Nosgoth and his destiny. The story hinges on historical paradoxes and cycles of time, and many events come full circle over time. I haven’t decided yet whether it’s deep or just way out there. It might be best not to try to understand it all too literally. But once again, as in the first game, the story is cut short, leaving you hanging unfairly, and of course paving the way for a sequel (which will hopefully be the last).

Moving about
The world you travel around is sadly much smaller than in the first game. In the first, you often needed to use the warp gates you activated to move around without wasting too much time. Here, the world isn’t quite big enough to need that type of device, but you’ll wish it had them anyway. Essentially, you move back and forth between two major areas via a long, convoluted pathway, in which enemies are scattered to presumable make it interesting, as you run back and forth, back and forth, several times over. Granted, you cross this path in different time periods, but the differences in the environment are minimal. Especially annoying were the indoor and underwater caves that you had to find your way around by using glowing stone path markers. Nothing of consequence ever happens in these caves.

Puzzles
All of this back-and-forth movement is simply to reach new doorways that can be opened as you acquire different elemental aspects to your reaver blade. Because these aspects have no other inherent properties other than letting you enter certain areas, it all seems a little too contrived. For example, let’s look at the fire reaver. In Soul Reaver 1, obtaining this object let you immolate (set on fire) your enemies from afar. In Soul Reaver 2, it does nothing special related to fire, other than operating the devices that can only be operated by that element. When you use it in a fight, or shoot blasts at enemies, you might as well be using any of the other types of elemental energy, or none at all. It makes no difference. And while lacking in quality, the weapon enhancements in Soul Reaver 2 also lack in quantity. You get only 4 elements: light, dark, air, and fire, and as already said, you only need different ones as a plot and puzzle device to extend the gameplay. Compare this to Soul Reaver 1, where you could obtain the powers of force, stone, sound, water, fire, and sunlight, and use this is full-screen bursts to obliterate your foes.

This lack of reaver modifications also leads to the lack of puzzles in this game. In the original, there were major puzzles for each of the 6 elemental glyphs, all of which were optional, as well as to reach 5 bosses. Soul Reaver 2 features only 4 major puzzles, and one minor one. Granted, the ones that are there are greatly improved on the first game’s, which largely consisted of flipping and pushing blocks. These puzzles take a bit more reasoning out, and involve different elements like light reflectors, air vents, fire and blood. They are reasonably challenging. In fact, while I was playing, it was the first couple of puzzles that starting me enjoying the game after all the endless conversations I had to sit through and made me think, “Hey, this game is alright, I’m enjoying it now.” Little did I know that the fun would quickly come to an abrupt end as the game finished prematurely. I mentioned the 5 bosses in the first game. Well, Soul Reaver 2 has exactly ZERO bosses. Part of the fun of the first game was defeating a boss, which always took unconventional methods, as you didn’t stand a chance against them hand-to-hand, and then absorbing their abilities. In Soul Reaver 2 you already have all of these abilities, so that game mechanic wouldn’t work, but it would’ve been nice to have something to fight other than the endless stream of grunts.

Combat
The combat system and controls from the first game were preserved, and that is a good thing, as the control scheme is pretty easy to use. Combat has evolved slightly, making dodging, blocking, ducking and lunging more important. You also frequently encounter a greater number of enemies at one time, increasing the strategy and care needed in battles. For the most part, though, the enemies take only one of 3 forms: swordsmen, pikemen, and gunners, with each new incarnation having slight variations in their attack patterns. The challenge is increased as you encounter demons, and one particular type is a real pain to fight, but in the long run combat becomes pretty repetitive, and enemies are placed mostly just to try and keep your long run back and forth along the same path interesting. The lack of enemy variety is echoed by the lack of weapon variety. Basically, you can pick up a sword or a staff, and each has it’s own little 3-swing light combo and 2-swing heavy combo. Though swords and staffs look different as you progress, they handle exactly the same throughout. This was a problem with the first game, but at least that one also included vases and rocks that you could either throw or smash over your enemies’ heads. Also very conspicuously missing are the fun fatalities of the first game. Granted, since you aren’t fighting vampires, a stake through the heart or immolation isn’t necessary, but that was part of the fun. In Soul Reaver 1 you could throw enemies onto spikes, into sunlight or water, set them on fire, or impale them. Here, once you kill an enemy, to finish it off you give it a weak swipe with your claw or weapon. Even if you don’t, it’ll just fall over and die for good. This was very disappointing.

Though some battle elements are weak, as I said the increased variety of melee combat kept a bit of challenge up, especially as you encountered tougher enemies, most notably the larger demons. But you’d think that after all the practice you get fighting enemies over and over again as you run back and forth across the section of the world that is open to you, and fighting some stronger enemies as you advance, you would have an opportunity to prove how good a fighter you’ve become by giving you a real challenge towards the end. Any other game would. Depressingly, in Soul Reaver 2 you get rewarded for all your hard work by a series of fights in which you are completely invulnerable to harm. Sure, the enemies can hit you, and it might take you a long time to knock them down for good, but the chances of you dying are zilch, meaning that you might as well not even try to fight well. Add this to the lack of bosses and the tweaked combat system can only produce a limited amount of fun.

Replay value and bonuses

Let’s see... No secret areas, no optional power-ups, no boss challenges... Will I be playing this again anytime soon? I seriously doubt it. If you loved the story, you could go through it again for the cut-scenes, but since the script is readily available in the game menu once you finish it, there’s really no need to endure the endless back-and-forth travel and series of minor skirmishes. All told, the game gives you the full experience the first time through. If you really wanted to, though, it would probably only take half the time it did the first time, because you’ll have figured the puzzles out already. Finishing the game gives you a code that unlocks a bunch of “making of” features in the game menu. Some of these are neat, like the footage of the voice recording sessions, while other selections are unimpressive, like the 3-drawing collection of concept art. There’s also a re-made CGI of the first Soul Reaver’s opening cinema which is quite attractive. But since you can look up the code and unlock these things without playing the game, this feature is no reason to finish it on its own.

Conclusion

I don’t know what the motivation to release this game in its current state was, when the developers must have known the disappointment it would have created. Yet despite this, the deep storyline, and several of the game elements were intriguing enough to capture attention. Obviously, there will be a sequel (which, it turns out, will be Legacy of Kain: Defiance, starring both Kain and Raziel, and not Soul Reaver 3). I would guess that the developers had a lot of great ideas for a vast, engrossing game, but were pressured to put something out at the time that they did. I would have rather waited a couple more years and played a sequel that completed the story started in the first Soul Reaver, but unfortunately, market forces don’t often heed my opinion. Soul Reaver 2 , while presenting some promising elements, is ultimately a disappointment.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/03