Soul Reaver 2

I love the first soul reaver, it had a great story and fun gameplay that actively rewarded you the more you explored its world. It may not have been finished, however what it did have to offer was more than worth the price of admission and definitely had you wanting to see where it went from that cliffhanger ending. Suffice to say, this is a disappointing follow-up to that game as it appears to have picked up not where it left off, but rather where it was originally meant to end without bothering to fill you in on what you missed out of in that game.

Because this game picks up where the original was supposed to end rather than where it actually ended, we have a story that makes very little sense as Raziel seems to have all but abandoned his quest for revenge against Kain given how he had multiple opportunities to kill him but doesn't for one reason or another. The first game was meant to end with Raziel achieving his revenge and killing Kain only to then realise the elder God had used him to cleanse the age of the vampire and Raziel travelling back in time to amend his mistake only to be intercepted by mobius, thus setting up the events of this game. It actually ended with Kain escaping Raziel in the time machine and Raziel being intercepted by mobius despite mobius also wanting to kill Kain due to events from blood omen where he was the main antagonist in that games story. The fact that mobius forms an alliance with Raziel despite his castle guards attacking the vampire makes less than no sense, and yet it's among the less wtf aspects of the story because of the games inability to fill players in on what's happening in this new timeline of events. Now I could forgive the story bring a mess if the gameplay was any good, however the gameplay can best be described as little more than a tech demo for what the ps2 has to offer as there's very little to do throughout the game besides travelling through the vast empty landscapes that's meant to be nosgoth for next gen hardware. The fact that the world doesn't even attempt to resemble that of the previous game is bad enough, however it's the fact that we traverse through the same areas albeit at different points in time is what makes this game tedious as unlike its predecessor, there's no secrets in these areas despite them being far more spacious that would otherwise encourage exploration even though there's no collectibles to be found anywhere. One thing that can be found are save altars which are necessary for saving your progress as opposed to the original where you can save at any time albeit not in your exact position, I didn't like this change as there were plenty of games by this point which allowed you to save wherever you want in your desired position at this point in time.

The one element preventing this from being an irredeemable game are the elemental powers applied to the soul reaver (OK two as the voice acting is still immaculate even if the characters are saying complete nonsense in the story) these powers are based on four of the six elements (lightness, darkness, wind and fire, with earth and water being absent here.) These allow for some interesting puzzles which are more fleshed out in defiance but are nonetheless a welcome addition to this otherwise tedious experience. I guess another element I liked was the art direction as although the level design was bland and way too spacious, I did like the Egyptian and Chinese architecture in some of the temples as well as the skybox in these areas due to the colour pallet this game went with. It's just a shame it was largely style over substance in these areas as I feel the developers could've done a better job overall.

Overall, this was a massive disappointment, it's not terrible as the game does work and has nice visuals to offer, however the story is a mess, the gameplay is dull (don't even get me started on the combat) and the characters are heavily underutilised. I mean, what's the point I'm having the elder God if he doesn't appear anywhere outside of his chamber?