| Game | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver |
| Release | September 8th, 1999 |
| Genre | Action Adventure |
| Publisher | Eidos Interactive |
| Developer | Crystal Dynamics |
| Time Played | 18:46:30 |
| Buy It On | Ebay |Amazon |
Ok. I wanted to like this game! I did for the first half of it. Then… YA FUCKED IT ALL UP! A beautiful story wrapped in so much abysmal gameplay, crappy controls, block puzzles, uninventive game mechanics, and uneven frame rates from hell! Eat Their Souls in PSXSLAYER #0014 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, my angel of death!
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver PS1 Review – Philosophy, Vampires, and Gaming Immortality – The Negative Press – Here is what those fat cat video game websites feel about this game, here is the slang banging cuss filled Douche Loder version of those words. (You can cram that 85% up your ass and Metacritic can shove that 91% up their ass)
Seriously… if you played this on PlayStation and think the gameplay in this game is of the best ever… I worry for you.
Soul Reaver Story
One of the few things I do not find atrocious about this game is it’s story. Following the events of Blood Omen, Kain commands an army of vampires. One of the head lieutenants is Raziel. Raziel one day grows wings. Kain doesn’t like that. So Kain, rips off Raziel’s wings and casts him to an abyss to boil as vampires don’t like water.
After spending an eternity under water, Raziel is awakened by the Elder. The Elder helps Raziel to gain revenge against his band of brothers, including Kain.
I do not find the depth of this story as compelling as Blood Omen, but hey, its pretty good. Definitely better than the gameplay. LOL, we’ll get to that soon enough. But, before we get to that, I have to point out one thing I do not understand. Raziel grows wings, the vampires are evolving. That enrages Kain. But Kain has no problem with every other asshole in his clan turning into weird ass shit.
Soul Reaver Story 8/10
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Soul Reaver Gameplay
Ok… Well, remember how Kain consumed blood to gain health, well, you are playing as a Soul Reaver. Destroy your enemies and consume their souls! I am fairly convinced of two things. Firstly, this game was created to tone down the violence of the original because some asshole said T games sell better and secondly, a lot of you are easily persuaded to play T rated games… and believe they are better.
Well, this game starts off strong. You assume control under the lake of the dead. Raziel unlocks access to teleporters throughout the game. You can save whenever you want. The issue here is, you do not start where you save after loading. You start at the lake and teleport to wherever you left off. Make sure you complete your section before turning the game off. Backtracking is a bitch.
You kill bosses and gain their abilities. Those abilities are your keys of progression. Look around closely and see all the things that you can’t access and remember them because when you get the ability to progress you will want to revisit these areas.
This game is overrated as fuck. It has cumbersome platforming that is disjointed and a pain in the ass. It’s hard to see where you are going to fucking land in a game that doesn’t show shadows. Seriously? Block puzzles? You follow up the awesome action of the first game with BLOCK PUZZLES? Flip the block, flip it again, flip the fucking block, flip the fucking block…OHHHHHH…. and you only have to do this once? FUCK NO!!! 18 FUCKING TIMES! If it’s not bad enough that you are flipping blocks like this is Tomb Raider, you are going to be encountering enemies while it happens.
So, in the start of the game, fighting enemies isn’t too bad when you find out you just got to impale them when they get stunned. Well, further into the game you will unlock the Soul Reaver. The Soul Reaver only activates when you have full health. There are plenty of times where there is no weapons to use so you got to keep your health up to max, if you get hit once, its time to commit suicide… I mean turn to the spectral realm.
Yep. That fun little fucking stupid bullshit ass excuse for a progression mechanic is in this like it was in Soul Reaver 2. There are many points where you will get stuck once again and not know what to do and then turn into a ghost and go OHHHHHHH thanks for wasting the last 20 minutes of my life game!
For a game that doesn’t let you die it sure as hell makes you want to kill yourself.
Soul Reaver Gameplay 6/10
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Soul Reaver Difficulty
So, difficulty isn’t really the issue with this game. There are some tough fights and puzzles that will annoy you but for the most part it’s not that difficult. We are about to get to the two major issues with this game soon enough.
Oh yeah. The boss fights are super easy, every single one of them is a gimmick fight.
Soul Reaver Difficulty 7/10
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Soul Reaver Graphics
So, yes the textures and the models are pretty ok looking… THAT FUCKING FRAMERATE THOUGH, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!?! How? How did you fuck the framerate spikes so fucking bad? DAT ARIEL BE LOOKIN THICCCC THOOO!!! Can more wannabe nerd girls cosplay that? Please?
Soul Reaver Graphics 6/10
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Soul Reaver Controls
And the creme de la shit! The biggest fucking issue with this game. You got em all. Input lag issues. Camera issues. Dude not doing what button you pressed issues. AND YOU HAVE TO PLATFORM WITH ALL THIS SHIT AGAINST YOU!
Seriously that constrict mechanic and trying to run circles around something is laughable at best. But you know the game is rated T so half of the people who played this game think its fan-fucking-tastic.
Soul Reaver Controls 3/10
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Soul Reaver Sound
I am going to drop the angry guy routine for one second. This soundtrack is fucking amazing. The voice acting is fucking amazing. The sound the Soul Reaver makes mid slash, fucking amazing.
Soul Reaver Sound 10/10
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The AI gave this game a 85%, I give it
Soul Reaver Overall Rating
%
Rating
The next PS2POCALYPSE game is #0025 25 To Life. The Next PSXSLAYER game is #0015 Assault Rigs. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was TV-666EP#PSX-0014-4/2-0025-0/OV38. Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was played before this, Assault Rigs to be played after this.
About the Author: Re_LodeR was born in the 90s and lives in Michigan. Hobbies including complaining about video games and life, Listening to a lot of niche music and enjoying classic flims like Die Hard. This guy is a huge Simpsons fan and likes to watch wrestling.
He can be found on Twitch, contacted on Discord, and you can email him at ReLodeR@thenegativepress.com