Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
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| Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 | |
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| Developer(s) | Crystal Dynamics |
| Publisher(s) | Eidos Interactive |
| Series | Legacy of Kain series |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows |
| Release date | PlayStation 2: NA October 31, 2001 EU November 23, 2001 JP February 14, 2002 Microsoft Windows: NA November 20, 2001 EU November 30, 2001 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: M USK: 16+ ELSPA: 15+ OFLC: MA15+ |
| Media | 1 DVD (PS2) 1 CD-ROM (WIN) |
| System requirements | 450 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 16 MB video card RAM, 8X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 8.0, 850 MB available hard disk space |
| Input methods | Keyboard and mouse, gamepad |
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 is a video game that was released on the PlayStation 2 and PC. It is the sequel to Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and the third game in the Legacy of Kain series. It was released in 2001 by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive to limited success. The game follows the journey of the wraith Raziel as he travels through time for answers to his destiny while meeting with and being manipulated by various beings, including his vampire murderer and former master, Kain. The game was praised for its involved storyline and improved gameplay from the first game, but was criticized for no side-quests and being easier than its predecessor.
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[edit] Story
The game begins by retelling the final battle with Kain in the original Soul Reaver. The vampire-turned-wraith Raziel confronts his former master Kain in the Chronoplast, a large time machine. Raziel attacks Kain before Kain escapes into a portal to the past. Raziel pursues Kain and is met by Moebius the Timestreamer, and finds himself thirty years before the events of the first Blood Omen game. Moebius reveals that Kain is at the Pillars of Nosgoth, and while Raziel distrusts Moebius, he seeks Kain out there regardless. On his way out of the Sarafan stronghold, he finds the broken pieces of the Soul Reaver as wielded by William the Just during the first Blood Omen. Touching the broken weapon augments Raziel's spectral version of the Soul Reaver, awakening a parasitic entity inside it while repairing the material Reaver. Raziel confronts Kain at the Pillars, and Kain reveals he has plans to change history to avert the consequences of his decision, when his past self refused to sacrifice himself to restore Nosgoth and doomed the land to eternal decay. Kain tells Raziel that his choice was a two-headed coin with neither side appealing to him, but he hopes to find a way to force this coin to "land on its edge" and present him with a third option.
Kain vanishes, and Raziel continues northward and finds himself in the lair of The Elder God, who claimed to have revived Raziel in the first Soul Reaver. The Elder God chastises Raziel for not killing Kain at the Pillars, and confirms that Moebius is one of his servants. Raziel presses further and finds another area of ancient construction - a Reaver forge that imbues the Soul Reaver with power of darkness. After exiting the forge, Raziel finds a conciliatory, the vampire Vorador, who hints at a profound secret and reveals that the deceased vampire Janos Audron once knew this secret. Raziel backtracks to a shrine he saw near the Sarafan stronghold, using the dark Reaver to enter it. Inside the light elemental forge, Raziel imbues the Reaver with light and uses it to re-enter the Sarafan stronghold. In the stronghold Raziel again meets Kain, who tells Raziel the Soul Reaver is the only way history can be changed, as he did so when battling William the Just with a future incarnation of the Reaver. Kain hands Raziel the material Soul Reaver and tells him he is destined to kill him here. The spectral Soul Reaver coils around the material Reaver and acts of its own will, and Raziel is faced with a dilemma: kill Kain and submit to fate, or establish his free will by refusing. Raziel narrowly adverts dealing the death blow, changing time yet again before Kain vanishes.
Raziel proceeds further and encounters Moebius in his timestreaming chamber, forcing him to allow him usage of the time machine and send him to the past. Rather than arrive during Janos Audron's lifetime, as Raziel was hoping, Raziel finds himself far into the future where demons have overrun Nosgoth by virtue of Kain's corrupt and continued existence. Raziel retraces the path he took in the past, encountering Ariel, the ghost of a Pillar Guardian who blames Kain for the state of Nosgoth, and the Elder God, who Raziel accuses of being a parasite on the Wheel of Fate, not the hub it turns on as the Elder God proclaimed previously. Eventually Raziel enters the mountain home of Janos Audron, ruined since its inhabitant has long since been dead. Here Raziel meets Kain, who claims that dark forces are mustering against both of them. Raziel again refuses to kill Kain, now believing that Nosgoth's corruption has been influenced by forces other than him.
Kain departs, and Raziel continues to the air forge and imbues the Soul Reaver with air power. Here, as in the previous forges, Raziel finds murals depicting a war between the two ancient races, one of which possessed wings and championed the Soul Reaver as a holy relic. These beings eventually built the Pillars of Nosgoth to seal their enemies in an alternate dimension, but not before their enemies inflicted them with bloodthirst and immortality, transforming them into the first vampires. Using the air elemental Reaver, Raziel finds another timestreaming device and finally arrives during the time of Janos Audron, a time when the Sarafan vampire hunters have hunted the race to near extinction. Raziel enters Janos' restored retreat and finds a lair built inside the mountain with towering architecture meant for a winged being. Raziel creates a path to Janos' mountain-top inner sanctum where Janos reveals himself as the guardian of the Blood Reaver, a vampire weapon that drains the blood of its victims, which Raziel is inexplicably drawn to. Suddenly, Sarafan storm the retreat, and Janos teleports Raziel away to sacrifice himself to save him. Raziel realizes that he was has been tricked into creating a path that non-winged beings could use to find Janos, allowing the Sarafan to find him as well. Imbuing the Reaver with fire from the nearby forge, Raziel returns to save Janos, only to arrive to see his human self, a Sarafan priest, cut out Janos' heart. The Sarafan leave as the retreat collapses, and Raziel swears vengeance as Janos dies urging him to reclaim the Blood Reaver the Sarafan have taken.
Raziel pursues the Sarafan to their stronghold, encountering demons on the way, confirming it was an unseen force, not Kain, that beset them on the future Nosgoth he had visited. Raziel infiltrates the Sarafan stronghold and finds five of his vampire brothers, also Sarafan. Moebius appears and uses his staff to nullify Raziel's spectral Soul Reaver, forcing him to take up the material Blood Reaver against the Sarafan. Raziel uses the Blood Reaver to kill his brothers and eventually impales his Sarafan self with the Reaver. Afterwards, the spectral Soul Reaver coils around the material Blood Reaver, and the two attack Raziel and drain his energy. Raziel realizes his horrible destiny - to become the soul-devouring entity in the blade that transforms it into a soul-stealing weapon, and thus be stuck in an eternal time loop. Suddenly, Kain emerges and watches, and as Raziel's soul begins to slip into the Reaver, he realizes this moment was the "edge of the coin" that Kain had been waiting for. Kain draws the Blood Reaver from Raziel, separating the two blades again and stopping Raziel from being drawn into them. This event changes time yet again, and as Raziel slips into the spectral realm, Kain, possessing new memories created by the altered timeline, tries to warn him about the "Hylden". As Raziel materializes in the spectral realm, he finds the spectral Soul Reaver still bound to him, and realizes Kain has not changed his destiny, merely postponed it. This ending leads into the events of Legacy of Kain: Defiance.
[edit] Reception
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Soul Reaver 2 was met with positive reviews. IGN gave it a 9.0, praising the dark atmosphere and intriguing story, but noted that it can become tiresome and drag on. The reviewer also thought the "haughtiness" and drama of the dialogue, particularly between Raziel and Kain, was often overdone. [1] The gameplay was noted to be near identical to the first Soul Reaver game but with less replay value, although the new puzzles involving the elemental powers of the Reaver were enjoyed for being more complex and diverse than the block puzzles of Soul Reaver 1. The improved combat system was also praised.
Gamespot gave the game a score of 8.8, finding the gameplay to be similar to the Tomb Raider series, also published by Eidos Interactive. The change from block puzzles to elemental puzzles were also praised, as was the combat system.[2] However, the game was noted as shorter than the first game with fewer sidequests and puzzles and almost no boss fights, while the original Soul Reaver had seven. The fact that the sequel still did not give a definite resolution to its storyline was also criticized.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ IGN Staff (2001-10-02). Soul Reaver 2: Legacy of Kain Review. IGN. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
- ^ GamespotStaff (unknown). Soul Reaver 2 for review. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
[edit] Sources
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