Walkthroughs & Tips

Review by: kain50bc

Reviewers Score: 8 / 10

Posted: September 21, 2005

Soul Reaver 2 is a sort of continuation of the Legacy of Kain series, which started on PC. It follows the story of Raziel, a vampiric like demon. Raziel possesses a weapon known as the Soul Reaver, hence the title. This weapon feeds off the souls of Raziel’s slain enemies (as you will know if you have played Soul Reaver). Raziel’s past is not a happy one, as you’ll find out during the game, due to the vampire Kain, who was the “hero” from the previous games.

Graphics 7/10

The graphics of this game are awesome! I particularly liked the Soul Reaver, looking much better than it did in this game’s predecessor. And the weapons of the game are very well depicted, including fighting with them. The cut scenes in the game are pretty cool as well, although there aren’t too many important ones. The only dodgy part about this is the impaling and the walls. Sometimes I would see Raziel impale thin air when he should have been running through his enemy. But hey, at least your enemy died anyways.

Sound 8/10

The sound is great as well. Although it has been a while since I played the game, I can still recall all the noises, creaking doors, sparking blades and the dimension shifting sound. The voices were excellent and very fitting to their characters. The music department was a bit quiet in the game, but who really needs it when you’re busy exchanging blows with enemies? More noises would’ve been good too, different sounds from different environments would have been nice.

Control 9/10

Very easy to learn the controls of this game. It mainly consists of your traditional jump, slice, consume and shift dimensions. Ok maybe some aren’t so traditional. If you played Soul Reaver you should know most of the controls anyways. Not all of the buttons are used but I think that you can customize them to what feels comfortable, but I didn’t bother with that when I played. The only annoying thing is turning, there’s nothing more annoying then trying to force unresponsive controls to turn whilst you’re being hacked up by little men with swords and big freakin’ monsters.

Story 10/10

Excellent story continuing from the first Soul Reaver game (obviously). Recently Kain has somehow obtained demi-godlike powers which Raziel dislikes. So naturally Raziel faces off with Kain and ends up worse off as he’s sent to a place familiar to him (trying not to give much away). Confronted with hordes of lads with swords he proceeds to go through them to reach Kain again, he discovers more about Kain, the soul reaver and himself. Trust me, even mums doing the ironing will watch the story line while you play the game.

Gameplay 7/10

Very, very fun stuff. An excellent combat system that is fairly interactive with the surrounding environment. You can pull swords and axes off the walls and run your enemies through with them. You can get torches and set them alight. What more could you want? It’s the other aspects of the game that are somewhat irritating. Jumping gaps and ledges has always been the gamers bane and while not too frequent in this game there’s enough to give you the almighty you-know-what’s. The only other problem is that the fighting can get a bit repetitive as you use the same strategies with the same weapons on the same enemies. There are 3 weapon types though they change shapes and colours and whatnot through the game (eg. axe changes to a staff but same fighting swings etc.). The enemies mainly consist of human guards waving axes and swords about until near the end where the big freakin’ monsters come in. And bosses? From what I can remember there are almost none.
And everyone, take note of thing you can do when you shift dimensions. Have bars in your way? HA! Not a problem in the spectral realm of this game, Raziel can “shift” his way through the bars onto the other side. Pretty sweet eh?

Replayability – 2/10

The big downfall of this game, and I guess of any adventure game. I played the first part of the game a few times before I finished it and I really enjoyed the chopping up parts. But when you finish the game there’s no reason to play again, short of weekend boredness and feeling like hacking up things when other games don’t do it as well. Maybe fans of the game may like to finish it again months later due to nostalgia but no other reason.

Buy or Rent?

Definitely rent. I finished the game in about 7 hours (because I didn’t have a memory card LOL). Pro gamers will have no trouble with this game and its unlikely you will feel like playing it again once you’ve finished it.

Overall – 8/10 – Play it once ‘cos once is enough for this type of game.