SteelAttack said:gamingeek said:My local shop is miles and miles away in the centre of town.
It is probably run by a grumpy middle aged man who smokes cigars and talks to himself.
You have to go downstairs into the basement for the retro section. It's like a fire death trap.
Dvader said:gamingeek said:My local shop is miles and miles away in the centre of town.
It's been so long since I played Soul Reaver, what's the story of this series again? The main character used to be human right?
Yeah it was simple. Its been 1000 years since Kain desided to stay alive and destroy the world. Raziel is one of his 6 "children", he evolved wings before Kain did so Kain threw him into a void. In the void a giant squid thing called the Elder God saves Raziel and tell him that the vampires ruined the circle of life as no souls pass on, Raziel must be his Soul Reaver and kill Kain and his brothers.
He kills most of the brothers, fuses with the Soul Reaver sword and finds out he was once a Sarafan priest in his former life many thousand years ago. The sarafan were vampire hunters. At the end he confronts Kain but Kain opens a portal in time and jumps in, Raziel follows. The end.
EDIT: Oh the story of the series, well that would require pages of writing. The very basics are that Kain, a dude that was born as the pillar of balance (there are nine members of the world tied to the nine pillars that give life to the world, when one dies another is born, when Kain was born the circle was plunged into choas and the pillars were corrupted) was corrupted by evil forces and used to kill the circle, Kain had a choice to save the world by killing himself or rule it but send it to damnation, he decdided on the latter. Only many years later he finds a way to alter time so that he may still live and save the world, Raziel is the key to altering the course of history, the rest of the series is a time traveling adventure as they try to rewrite history.
Has there been a decent conclusion to this story?
Get to Janos Retreat yet?
Ya know what always surprised me about Soul Reaver 2 the most? Its a PS2 exclusive.
It was originally supposed to be a Dreamcast game...then they canned that like was all the rage at that time & moved it to the PS2. You'd think an Xbox and Gamecube port would have been done, but no, much like Red Faction 1 it stayed exclusive to PS2. I always found that odd considering Blood Omen 2 released on all 3 consoles, then Defiance on Xbox and PS2.
I remembered the action part of the game vividly, as I recalled most of the game world is nothing but a disguised linear corridor propelling you to your next area. Enemies litter the world as if this game were Devil May Cry. Combat is improved over SR1 but its a far cry from what I would call a good action mechanics. They removed the need to finish off your enemies which gave SR1 a unique element. Here you simply slash until they die, you can still finish them but its all for show. They reworked the Soul Reaver and now its a super weapon that you can summon at will. Use it too much and it drains your life, also if you kill an enemy with it there is no soul for you to absorb. Basically you need to manage when to use SR and when not to, that element gives the combat some semblance of strategy.
The game structure is no longer open world, now its extremely linear, there is one path that takes you from one end of the game world to another. There is massive amounts of backtracking as there are no teleporters, any time you need to return to a previous location you must make the full journey back the same way you came. As the game thrusts you into different time periods the locations get a minor make over, maybe a new enemy or two will show up but in the end you are just traversing the same path over and over. There are ZERO secrets, not one hidden powerup, nothing to do but the main quest. Cutscenes break up the running and fighting, thankfully they are very well done. Even though the story is a bit of a mess (when you are dealing with time travel how is it not a mess) it stays compelling because of the great voice acting and rich characters.
If the game was all action and running around a giant hallway it would be a bad game with good production values and story. Thankfully there are the puzzle segments which break up the monotony, these areas house the Reaver elemental powers. I see them as mini Zelda dungeons, each is an elaborate location with a multi-tiered puzzle that makes use of your various abilities. For once you have to think about where you need to go and what you need to do. Every ruin is different and they all make use of the new powers you gained before. This segment of the game is brilliant, it is everything I want from an action/adventure game. The only thing really missing was a boss fight in each area, for some reason this game has zero boss fights and that hurts. Sadly these segments come and go so quickly and for some reason your powers find no use (well they basically serve as keys and the game forces you to every location that makes use of it) in the outside hallway world.
The game is simply not as good as Soul Reaver 1 or Blood Omen. It tries to be an action game and fails at it. It keeps remnants of what make SR1 excellent but those moments feel like a tease. SR2 gets put into that sea of games I would score a 7, good but ultimately forgettable. Next up is Defiance, at least this game fully embraces the idea of being an action game, sadly its still not a great action game but at least it has a solid identity unlike SR2. I recall enjoying Defiance more than SR2, lets see if that is still the case. Plus that game has the greatest battle and moment of the entire series, I don't remember much of Defiance but I will never forget that epic battle.
gamingeek said:Has there been a decent conclusion to this story?
The ending is kind of left open. It concludes the story arc but it could be seen as the start of a new adventure.
edgecrusher said:
Get to Janos Retreat yet?
Best part of the game hands down. I had completely forgotten about it. Its funny I remember the crappy parts of the game but I forgot all the cool ruin parts. Made it more exciting for me as I played it.
Blood Omen 2 will be the one game in this replay that I do not play simply cause I don't own it. Back in the day I was actually more excited for BO2 than SR2 cause I figured a game like the original BO in 3D would be amazing. Plus I like Kain better as character, he has much cooler abilities. Sadly this game was handled by a different team in Crystal Dynamics and the drop in quality of evident. It is widely considered the worst in the franchise and its almost a side story as it doesn't really impact the plot of the SR storyline at all. In fact the instruction manual of Defiance doesn't even cover the events of this game in its series recap.
I ended up renting this game after reading the poor reviews. I was glad I did cause it was simply average, the only bright spot being the characters and story. The gameplay was of a standard linear action/adventure game. You move from one section to the next fighting bad guys and maybe doing a simple puzzle or two. Kain would reacquire many of his abilities from the first BO, stuff like mind control and mist forms. You'd think a game with such interesting skills would have interesting gameplay to match but that is not the case.
I rewatched some gameplay videos to remind myself how this game was. What I noticed was how slow and clunky the movement looked. The fluidity that Raziel controls with is gone, here it is replaced with an almost tank like control. The combat is slow paced and stiff. Nosgoth is only Nosgoth by name, the beautiful landscape is exchanged for generic looking cities, docks and industrial areas. Clearly this game does not have the same level of polish that the rest of the series enjoys.
I recaped the story and as I remembered it was mostly pointless. It simply introduced you to the nameless enemies that have been working behind the scenes. Characters that were dead are alive again with no explanation. I learned that the excuse is that this games story takes place in an alternate timeline created by the events of Soul Reaver 2, but BO2 never mentions that. Blood Omen 2 was a game with a lot of potential and it did have some good ideas which were never fully realized. If any of you have thoughts on this game go ahead and share them.
We have come to the conclusion *tear*. Defiance came after SR2 and BO2 almost ruined the franchise's reputation completely. I remember there being much less excitement surrounding the release of Defiance when compared to SR2. Instead of the series riding triumphantly into its glorious finale it limped across the finish line. Now I recall that I felt Defiance was an improvement over the previous two games and a good ending to the series, I am not sure others feel the same, I believe reaction was mixed.
What I liked about Defiance was that it fully embraced the move to become an action game. It didn't waver between two styles of games wondering what it wanted to be like SR2. This was an action game first and they built the game around that concept. I love that you control both characters, they play similar enough for it not to get confusing but different enough to feel like you have variety.
At this point in the story Doc Brown would have a hard time figuring out what is what or when is what. I remember this games story being as complicated as Soul Reaver 2, at least this time the bad guys had a face and all the damn teasing about the future is over, at least I think it is. I honestly don't remember much except that Kain and Raziel have an epic battle and it ends with a sort of open ending.
I expect to enjoy this game more than Soul Reaver 2. My memory seems to be pretty damn good cause how I have felt replaying all these games is basically exactly how I remember I felt about these games. I remember feelings more than I do actual details of the games, I can recall "I really loved that game" but I wont be able to remember specifics.
I've actually never played Defiance, and I really wanna grab it as I have for years now. I was so pissed that they turned Legacy of Kain into a Sword of The Berserk/Devil May Cry clone that I refused to buy it.
Maybe I'll hit up Ebay...
As for Blood Omen 2, it wasn't the best game ever, but I do remember enjoying the playthrough. As Kasavin put it in his review at Gamespot, an average Kain game is still better than no Kain at all.
edgecrusher said:
I've actually never played Defiance, and I really wanna grab it as I have for years now. I was so pissed that they turned Legacy of Kain into a Sword of The Berserk/Devil May Cry clone that I refused to buy it.Maybe I'll hit up Ebay...
As for Blood Omen 2, it wasn't the best game ever, but I do remember enjoying the playthrough. As Kasavin put it in his review at Gamespot, an average Kain game is still better than no Kain at all.
Sword of the Berserk reference, nice. 
The game thinks its DMC but fails horribly in making the enemies a challenge and giving the player an interesting combat system to play with. You have about 5 combos you can do and you learn 5 more which are simply done by pressing the stick toward an enemy when pressing an action button. You earn exp by mixing up your attacks, all 5 of them. When you finish an enemy you can choose to regain health or feed them to the soul reaver. The soul reaver has a bar, it raises as you fight and as you feed, once filled you enter a rage mode where you can unleash an area spell. None of that is really necessary cause the enemies are all very simple. They are punching bags, like DMC you can launch them into the air and beat them senselessly. They take all sorts of damage before dying. Unlike DMC there are no combo meters, no grades for how well you performed and no challenge. About the inly cool think is that you can use telekinesis to throw enemies into objects or off a balcony to their deaths, its like having basic force powers.
Kain and Raziel both control the same way, the combat is exactly the same only the animations change. The biggest difference between them is Raziel's added reaver powers which you have to relearn from SR2 and the spectral realm. So far the puzzles if you can even call them that have been as basic as they come. I just got the dark reaver and it allows you to become invisible, so far its only used to open doors that would otherwise be locked if they saw you coming, basically nothing more than a fancy key.
At least the music is good, this game reuses music from Soul Reaver 1. Its not original at all but hey its the best soundtrack of the series so if you are going to use something use that. So far it feels like the worst of SR2 all over again but without the awesome ruins sections. The game really needs a boss fight, or tougher enemies, anything to break up the repetitiveness of it all. I guess it gets better, I remember enjoying the game some what, as of now I am confused as to why.
I just came back to say that Shadowman pisses over this franchise from a great height.
It was so good they made it into a movie.
Seagal refused to shave his head and tan up though.
I bet you'd enjoy Blood Omen 2 more than Defiance now that time has passed.
@ GGedgecrusher said:
I bet you'd enjoy Blood Omen 2 more than Defiance now that time has passed.
No, BO2 was messy in many more ways. I will take an average action game over BO2. I am further along and there are a few decent enemies but for the most part everything seems very easy. I think I will be rearranging my rankings, SR2 is better than Defiance at this point.
Dvader said:edgecrusher said:
I bet you'd enjoy Blood Omen 2 more than Defiance now that time has passed.No, BO2 was messy in many more ways. I will take an average action game over BO2. I am further along and there are a few decent enemies but for the most part everything seems very easy. I think I will be rearranging my rankings, SR2 is better than Defiance at this point.
I thought it was always known that Soul Reaver 2 was better than Defiance. Legacy of Kain is a series that pretty much got progressively worse as the franchise went on, after the first 2 games. Defiance definitely reviewed worse than all the other games, I remember that.
edgecrusher said:I thought it was always known that Soul Reaver 2 was better than Defiance. Legacy of Kain is a series that pretty much got progressively worse as the franchise went on, after the first 2 games. Defiance definitely reviewed worse than all the other games, I remember that.
BO2 was reviewed the worse by far. Defiance has a 79%, SR2 was 80%. Both rated too high. You fill find mix opinion on whether or not Defiance is better than SR2.
Right now I am still a bit bored with Defiance. The last level I did at least had some puzzles. Raziel's gameplay is far more interesting cause of the different reaver blades. I am basically avoiding combat unless I have to fight, I am sick of it. There are some decent enemies but they are spaced out to much, most of the time its the same boring grunts from the start of the game. I already maxed out each characters move list, I have zero incentive to fight anymore. Also this is the first game of my playthrough with weird glitches, I have fallen through the level, I have gotten stuck in a stone, the camera has gotten stuck on something. Its nothing serious as it has only happened rarely and there are checkpoints everywhere so it doesn't hurt but its noticeable when the rest of the series outside of BO2 was so well made.
It is probably run by a grumpy middle aged man who smokes cigars and talks to himself.