| Game | Soul Reaver 2 |
| Release | October 31st, 2001 |
| Genre | Action Adventure |
| Publisher | Eidos Interactive |
| Devloper | Crystal Dynamics |
| Time Played | 22:25:51 |
| Buy It On | Ebay | Amazon |
I was really looking forward to #0008 on the PS2POCALYPSE, Soul Reaver 2. I liked this game all up until the first Tomb Raider dungeon. Oh boy, if you LOVE Soul Reaver games, you are gonna hate me for this one. Keep in mind, I like Legacy of Kain, I do NOT like Soul Reaver.
Unveiling the Legacy: Soul Reaver 2 – A Dark Journey Through Nosgoth – The Negative Press – This is the link to what the AI thinks about this game, now we can jump into what I think about this game.
The only codes that exist for this game are for unlocking things you get for completing the game, its just bonus art.
Alright. So a long time ago on the original PSXSLAYER challenge I had played Blood Omen, dude that game is awesome. Vae Mother Fucking Victus! I looked forward to playing Soul Reaver ever since completing Blood Omen. I personally still have not played Soul Reaver 1 at the time of writing this review as this play happened at the end of January and I have now beat every single Legacy of Kain game except Soul Reaver 1. Soul Reaver 2 just isn’t anywhere near as awesome as Blood Omen… Blood Omen 2 is a different story altogether, but we will get into that on the next review. Soul Reaver 2 is just a boring, dark (lighting wise not story wise) dismal game in my opinion as a game, the story and storytelling is awesome. The game is just a backtracking, dimly lit, puzzle factory of boredom. You can impale people though that’s pretty cool, but lets get into this shit in depth. I also have noticed an emerging pattern that Soul Reaver 1 is widely loved by North American audiences where Soul Reaver 2 is widely loved by European audiences, I wonder why.
Now I do respect this game for what it is, I personally just believe it could have been done much differently.
Soul Reaver 2 Story
Now I sit here somewhat blind in trying to comprehend the start of this game as it takes place right after Soul Reaver 1. As stated earlier, I still have yet to play this game. Now I am a fan of Metal Gear Solid, so I am no stranger to being bombarded with countless cutscenes but GOD DAMN RAZIEL, YOU DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN THE DOOR OPENED AND HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT IT AFTER EVERY FUCKING DOOR OPENING.
With that being said, this game is filled with dense story and nuance. In this game we follow the Story of Raziel, A vampire that was cast to the depths of the abyss from Kain because Kain was insecure or something. But then Kain now realizes he needs Raziel to stop the stupid annoying squid monster from controlling the world or something. I don’t know. This game is all about warping time and death to destroy the past to alter the future or some shit. It’s a good Sci-Fi story. Many people look at these as horror games but I say this is a very nice Sci-Fi fantasy type game.
The voice acting is great, the cutscenes are very dialogue heavy and the fans of this series seem pretty happy with it. There are times where I feel you are given more story than needed but that’s me. I’m sure people feel that way when playing Metal Gear Solid and that I think is a perfect game.
I don’t quite understand what is going on at the end of the game when Raziel is killing the shit out of his friends and himself and how that doesn’t create an immediate time paradox, but in a way it does or something but that should erase Raziel from existence, it doesn’t… still that part is pretty cool.
What I do not like about this game is that you get stripped of your abilities in the start and the game just focuses around backtracking and fucking with time just to get our abilities back. Thats kinda dumb. JUST LET ME HAVE ALL MY ABILITIES FROM THE RIP! Just make it mandatory to have NEW abilities. By abilities I mean the different types of Reaver elements we get to wield.
I cannot give this game a perfect score for it’s story as I never played 1 so I still have a hard time truly understanding what the fuck is going on here but we got Kain in the background talking shit, we got Moebius trying to manipulate Raziel into believing Kain has to be killed and the squid guy trying to tell Raziel that he is god. IDK its interesting but not perfect. Its the gameplay of this that pisses me off.
Soul Reaver 2 8/10
Soul Reaver 2 Gameplay
When this game first started, I thought it was sick as fuck. We are running around impaling the shit out of these assholes, eating their souls, being an overall undead badass. So Moebius strips Raziel of his abilities, whatever, mandatory regaining abilities bullshit as the catalyst fine, I can deal with that. Same shit new engine, ok. The problem doesn’t lie in that with this game. The violence is fine, the fighting is ok. THE FIRST DUNGEON PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH I JUST STOPPED CARING ABOUT THE WHOLE FUCKING GAME.
I will cover the darkness issue in graphics, I will cover the not really being able to die part in difficulty.
Firstly, I think it is cool that you can turn into the void version of Raziel. I think its cool, you get beat up, you go there and swallow some souls, find a respawn pad and come back swinging. What I DON’T LIKE, is that shit moves to make certain parts beatable in that mode. You can run around forever trying to figure out what the fuck you are supposed to do and then go to the void version and be like ohhhh that platform moved 3 feet, THANKS FOR THE CLUE ASSHOLES.
So, what pissed me off in the first reaver dungeon (the light reaver dungeon) so much that I almost threw the controller out the window? I ran all around this place, inching further with the mindrot of the way that the dungeon was laid out, looking all over for a ladder or something to grab onto… bro. You guys put that moveable pillar in such a position that it doesn’t even look like something I am supposed to move, you also made the glint of it so faint that it doesn’t even look like shit when you walk past it, YOU ALSO PUT SOMETHING IN FRONT OF IT SO YOU HAVE NO WAY TO EVEN NOTICE IT. I was in that dungeon for like 3 hours for no reason.
All these dungeons are made up of this stupid dumb shit. There is always just some super obvious thing to do that is just covered by some stupid poor gameplay mechanic. So we collect these new Reavers and move forward… The real laziness of this game is the 3-time backtracking. Instead of making a giant map you just made it to where you go from the start to the end, back to the start, back to the end, back to the start. THAT IS FUCKING LAZY. I don’t care that timewarping makes new areas and shit, its fucking lazy.
The real fun begins at the last 10 minutes of the game when you get the Soul Reaver weapon and become invincible and start killing the shit out of everything in god mode. Too bad the real fun only lasts for a short time. Also I have a gripe with that when you go to the spectral void (which is a mandatory thing to do in certain sections) everything you killed reanimates and you have to kill em again.
For the most part the game is just OK. I do not understand the legend that surrounds this game. It’s just OK. Impaling people on the battle axes is the best part though.
Soul Reaver 2 Gameplay 6/10
Soul Reaver 2 Difficulty
Two things here. Firstly, the puzzles are just so damn stupid. The real difficulty lays in the puzzles not making it at all obvious what to do. If you guys just made it a bit more obvious about what shit can be moved that would be a totally different story, but ya didn’t you made it as blind as possible. Now what balances that out is that you can’t really die in this game. You get many checkpoints that you don’t have to actually use because when you die in your physical form you go to the spectral from and just absorb souls, heal up and respawn.
Soul Reaver 2 Difficulty 7/10
Soul Reaver 2 Graphics
Ok so, The graphics are good, but you can tell they wanted to release this game as a late PS1 title instead of an early PS2 title. It’s just barely a PS2 graphic powerhouse. Where if you look at Ace Combat 4 which was released the same year, it was already impressive what type of graphics the PS2 was putting out. I don’t think it looks that great for its time. This game was favored to be Dreamcast title, not a PS2 title. Had they actually streamlined this to have more PS2 functionality, it probably would have been a better game, its not like the Dreamcast was going to be around that much longer anyhow..
Soul Reaver 2 Graphics 6/10
Soul Reaver 2 Controls
Don’t make attack and the action button the same fucking thing please. Don’t make it to where the camera fights you as much as the enemies do please. Please don’t deadzone the controls when walking through doors. So many control drops, so many blunders here, it should of been smoother dammit.
Soul Reaver 2 Controls 6/10
Soul Reaver 2 Sound
So the soundtrack was pretty good from what I remember, and the Voice acting was pretty sweet. I can said that the sound is probably the second strongest aspect of this game seconded only to the story.
Soul Reaver 2 Sound 8/10
The AI gave this game a 78%, I give it
Soul Reaver 2 Overall Rating
%
Rating
The next PS2POCALYPSE game is #0009 Blood Omen 2, The Next PSXSLAYER game is #0002 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Soul Reaver 2 was TV-666EP#PSX-0002-0/2-0008-3/OV9. Rygar: The Legendary Adventure was played before this, Blood Omen 2 is 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