Includes solid plat-forming, adventure and puzzle elements but is ultimately anticlimactic in more ways than one.
In Soul Reaver you play the role of Raziel, one of six lieutenants of Kain's Vampire Council. The instruction manual and introduction explain that you have served him for millennia and that by this time the humans have all but been conquered. Through time the six council members have gained evolutionary gifts through there vampirism. Though, when Raziel has the honor of surpassing his master, Kain has him cast into the lake of the dead out of envy. Enter the Elder God who resurrects you and with a commanding voice sets you lose unto the world to avenge yourself by killing your vampire brethren and absorbing their souls. Thus begins the game.
You first begin the game learning the ropes via a tutorial level in which you learn about the different plains of which there are two. The spectral plain is where the souls of the dead roam and time does not pass and the material plain is where the vampires roam and you can interact with objects. While you can enter the spectral plain at any time you wish, there are specific locations and parameters in which you can manifest yourself in the material (physical) world. This game aspect makes for some interesting puzzle elements as you can only use some abilities in specific realms and platforms are at different heights and locations in the spectral plain. Therefor you will often times find yourself switching from plains multiple times in order for you to manipulate your environment in order to progress further. Also taught in the introduction is combat. While in the spectral realm you must weaken your enemies until they become translucent by attacking them with your claws or later in the game, with the reaver blade. Once that is done you must absorb their souls by pressing and holding a button. This is also how you recover health. While fighting vampires in the material plain you must weaken them by attacking with a weapon or your claws until they are stunned and during that period you must either ignite them with a torch, impale them or throw them into water which is deadly to vampires. Once that is done a soul with appear for you to absorb. If you lose all your health you just shift to the spectral plain and try again.
Once you reach a new location often time you find a warp gate. Once activated these warp gate act as checkpoints so that when you load your game you don't have to travel far to reach the place you are trying to achieve your objectives. There are also many side locations that you can reach once gaining certain abilities in which to explore and find bonus items that either increase your health capacity or give you new elemental blast wave attacks
The way in which to gain new abilities in Soul Reaver is to kill your former brothers one at a time in boss battles. These battles are mostly puzzle like and often require you to use your newly acquired abilities and interact with the environment to dispose of your monstrous brothers. Disappointingly however you do not get to fight as many of your brothers as you hope to and the final boss is the most easy of all of them. This is one of my main complains. While figuring out how to kill the bosses can be a mental work out, once you know 'how to' the fights are very easy and as you can never die in this game combat in general is not much of a challenge.
The characters in this game are all extremely interesting and are brought to life with background story and excellent voice actors. The story in this game is really amazing and on top of driving you to play further it also makes this entry into the saga a necessity for LoK fans. Well timed revelations and plot twists earn this game the praise that it received from critics. As good as this games story is it also feels incomplete due to its blatant cliffhanger of an ending.
I thought that the graphics were quite good and there are some interesting effects during your shifting from the different plains mentioned before. Some of the characters look a bit blocky when viewed up close and the animations are average at best but I thought from an artistic aspect that this game ramped up the cool factor with the monster designs and the overall scenery that depicts a gloomy vampire dominated universe. Also worth mentioning is the terrific sound in this game. I already mentioned the great voice acting and I will also say that the music fit the game perfectly as well.
What I liked:
-Great story and script
-Puzzles really challenge your brain
-Artsy visuals that bring the world to life
-Terrific voice work and music
-Ample side quests and bonus items
Main complains:
-Story feels incomplete due to a blatant cliffhanger ending
-Combat lacks challenge and variety
-Some puzzles are tedious