Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver had its share of problems given a chaotic development cycle, most notably several underutilised areas and a “to be continued” ending. Everything else, judged by 1999 standards, was incredible. A strong narrative with excellent voice work and theatrical performances. A continuous, interconnected 3D environment that could deform to open new paths by shifting between the physical and spectral realm. Metroidvania-like progression with massive puzzle dungeons and plenty of secrets to find. Brutal but simple combat and gimmicky boss fights that never overstayed their welcome. Replaying the remastered version was a treat despite its age. In contrast, replaying Soul Reaver 2 Remastered served as a reminder of how nostalgia can manipulate memories.
Twists, turns, reveals, and theatrics
Soul Reaver 2 was far from a terrible game for the time, and it does some things better than its predecessor. In particular, the twisting narrative, memorable cast, and over-the-top theatrical performances remain a highlight, with a succession of intriguing or shocking revelations that escalate towards an excellent finale.
It kicks off with the final boss fight and in-game ending cinematic of Soul Reaver recreated in CG, with Raziel subsequently pulled from the time-stream by Nosgoth’s Guardian of Time, Mobius. Deeply sceptical of all potential powers manipulating Nosgoth, Raziel forms an alliance of convenience to hunt down Kain. Within the opening hour, he explores the ancient Sarafan stronghold; discovers more of his supposedly noble origins; learns of Kain’s history with the original Soul Reaver blade; and eventually emerges into a lush and vibrant Nosgoth, only to witness the destruction of the Pillars of Balance firsthand. It’s a dense opening, but also one that covers a lot of backstory players may be unaware of if they skipped over 1996’s isometric, Zelda-like, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.
As the captivating unravelling narrative is most likely to push you forward, I won’t spoil too much, other than to say Kain’s prophetic ramblings about the immutability of the time-stream in the first game are used to great effect. Using Mobius’ time-streaming devices, Raziel shifts between Nosgoth’s past and future, delving deeper into the conspiracies that blight it, while both creating and resolving apparent paradoxes. It all culminates in a brutal battle through the Sarafan Fortress that ties into events of Soul Reaver 1, and it culminates in an act of defiance that sets up the appropriately named sequel.
If this thrilling narrative arc had been attached to a game that built upon and refined the original’s open-world structure and gameplay loop, it might have been a masterpiece.
Fun puzzles-dungeons connected by a linear environment full of rubbish combat
Of course, sequels don’t have to stick to the original template, and many of the best come from major changes to the formula. Soul Reaver 2 is not one of those games. I don’t know at what point it was decided the Soul Reaver IP needed to become more action-oriented and linear, but it was the wrong choice without fundamental changes to the combat system.
Perhaps the developers were terrified an open-world structure would impact the narrative pacing, but the result is a mostly linear map, running from the south to north, that you’ll traverse repeatedly across three timelines. There are changes during different time periods that reveal new puzzle-dungeons and elemental forges that allow Raziel to enhance the Soul Reaver with powers; however, far too much of Soul Reaver 2’s 8-ish hour playtime is spent plodding between cutscenes while dealing with weakest gameplay element – the combat.
The first game had a simple but satisfying loop that involved weakening vampire enemies before finishing them off by impaling them with a weapon or tossing them into an environmental hazard like spikes, fire, water, and patches of sunlight. Small groups could pose a threat and encourage you to use secret glyph powers, while boss fights had puzzle-like or movement-based gimmicks. I’ll accept it was also the weakest part of that game, but encounters were sparse, enemy numbers low, battles could often be avoided, and you couldn’t really die thanks the spectral realm mechanic. Soul Reaver 2‘s combat feels unchanged in most aspects, but it plays out very differently.
There’s a new tactical element in how the Soul Reaver immediately consumes the souls of those it kills, becoming more powerful but eventually stripping away Raziel’s health. Unfortunately, Soul Reaver 2 still ends up feeling mindless without the need for specific finishers, and it introduces mechanics that make fights more protracted and irritating. Linear corridors are packed with large groups of enemies that are difficult to avoid; hitboxes feel utterly random, yet it’s easy to get stun-locked by a single enemy; enemies block, dodge, or duck half your strikes, including a new heavy weapon attack; and magical barriers often lock you into a location until you’ve cleared enemies out – a design that feels like shameless padding in the final hours. Even the developers must have realised how frustrating it had become, as Raziel is effectively invulnerable for the final gauntlet thanks to plot contrivances.
Soul Reaver 2‘s saving grace is the aforementioned puzzle-oriented forges and dungeons, large areas with multi-part puzzles that often rely on manipulating mechanical parts and using elemental powers like shadow, light, air, and fire. These feel much closer in design to the critical story locations and rune forges in the first game, with far less combat. Completing a forge activates shrines scattered throughout the world that can imbue the Reaver, providing Raziel temporary abilities that complement the skills he retains from the first game like swimming and climbing. These new abilities feel half-baked, given the linearity of the world, but the puzzles remain a highlight.
Remarkably, Soul Reaver 2 managed to introduce complexities to even the best elements of the game by replacing a save system that preserved the current world-state, for a manual save system with only temporary respawn checkpoints between them. It’s less of an issue on modern consoles with a suspend function but, should your game or console crash for any reason, you’ll be back to the last save point, with possibly up to an hour of gameplay and lengthy cutscenes lost.
Is it still worth playing?
The typical way to end a retrospective is to conclude whether the game is still worth playing and how best to play it but seeing as it’s bundled in with the excellent Soul Reaver 1 Remaster, it’s certainly worth trying Soul Reaver 2 Remastered for yourself.
If you know what you’re getting into and are most interested in the remastering effort, you get a higher native resolution and 60fps (even on the Nintendo Switch), and significantly improved character models. In contrast with Soul Reaver 1 Remastered, other changes feel incredibly subtle, aside from a scattering of new shaded textures that better fit the scene lighting. Many floor and wall textures are sharper, but when flicking between the classic and updated visuals, it was often impossible to tell without getting close to my TV. The voice work and music remain incredible, but by far the most praiseworthy element of these remasters is simply making the games accessible again on modern hardware, in a time when maintaining backwards compatibility is a priority.
Personally, I found Soul Reaver 2’s frustratingly linear design and abundance of rubbish combat a major detriment to the excellent storytelling and puzzling – but that said, I could never truly dislike a game that inspired one of my favourite IPs: Darksiders.
Soul Reaver 1+2 Remastered was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/5.