I grew up with games like these being talked about, like being the heralds of great interactive arts that not only was a hallmark of amazing storytelling, but also phenomenal interactive gameplay moving hand to hand with its strong narrative, the gothic masterpiece that it is.
Yes, this is a remaster of two games, but I want to separate both games, and do one each. To capture the full breadth, old PS1 titles that they might be. Yeah, they're AI upscale, but with added additions and improvements too. This is my first time playing these, but knowing the originals didn't have an in-game map. Woof, that must've been rough.
A journey paved by deception, anguish, misgivings, vengeance, and the deeper faceted monologues about challenging faith and illusion of choices. Also, vampires and gothic PS1 visuals looking spruced up. Damn, what a glow up.
It seems faith has planned things for Raziel, a man wronged by his master for naturally evolving to his prime, hoping to be his successor before getting his wings clipped and thrown into the abyss. Such a folly by Kain himself becomes his hubris, with an elder god granting him corporeal form.
So yeah, he has to journey through the realms, fighting a bunch of ghouls, shifting between dimensions. In fact, that whole dimension shifting changes every scenario from combat to puzzle solving. Real head spinner too, especially when the majority of the visuals assets glow up, the environmental design is super elementary. Doesn't help with tedium, either.
The writing here feels so superb, like there is a sense of classness to it all. How it articulates, expands, even going as far as to properly translate the tone and emotion through the complexity of it all. Raziel's pain in lost is felt here, and it's just some crayon mesh castle.
God, I miss video games when they simply boil down to well written mythos, and immerse you without much of a second thought. I missed them like that. But yeah, this game seriously hasn't aged well in terms of combat. A lot of that involves target locking, camera is fixed on Raziel's movement. Dodging, and attacking enemies to knock them out.
They can be killed through fire, silver, or water. Same way Raziel could too, but he can be in the realm of the death, and then return to the living by sucking souls. It's never simply, sometimes there's no way to kill them, and I have to bypass around. Foes exist in various forms in the realms of the living and dead. Letting my intelligence figure out how to solve situations like these, including puzzles, even makes the environment part of the main narrative.
It's like throwing their body everywhere, the camera gets finicky before finally throwing at the right 60-80 pixel position or shoving torches or lancers right at them. Another mechanic is soul sucking, I suck souls in both realms, and have to in order to stay alive.
It gets seldomly tricky, tho, when multiple enemies are present. They are moving around, and avoiding attacks, but once they attack, they're vulnerable. Intriguingly challenging ways to tackle battles, before throwing to their doom. Also, don't forget the soul sucking. I impaled one on a lancer, soon as its spirit was leaving, sucked it up, and used the lancer to kill the other.
Puzzles at times involves realm shifting, since I can't climb certain surfaces unless they warp in the spirit realm. The camera doesn't help, tho, especially when it hugs the walls. There are also moving boxes, even going as far as lifting them up or dropping downwards. I had to use the lift function to also rotate some boxes to suitably adjacent to matching symbols.
Some places are furthest out of reach, sometimes even places not crossable until some point later in the game. Yeah, this involves backtracking, and ah, if you haven't gotten bored by the less stellar visual presentation already, just be thankful the map exists here.
Designated teleports exists, these are also like save checkpoints, where if you leave the game, you come back to it. Unfortunately, that also means returning to where I was, the map is somewhat helpful, but it is still trickier getting around places. You don't have a compass or objective figure holding you to the destination. Oh yeah, enemies also respawn.
Exploration is non-linear, often times the areas either uncrossable due to barriers or enemies too strong to deal with. You always follow where the objectives tell you to go. Outside that pedestal puzzle just to constantly shift realms, and crossing over to the other side, I finally have a boss battle with this big guy (Melchiah). In a cage, I had no idea what to do, till I found these gates.
Got him trapped multiple times, and then the lever is to be pulled, where he has to be at the center before he realm shifts through them. Tricky controls notwithstanding, I did it. And I also got his abilities phasing through caged doors. This game got a whole lot more interesting.
Amidst the tedium, even my labor was graciously rewarded. This game isn't called Soul Reaver for nothing, the legendary poster sword became mine when I went up against Kain. Though he isn't dead, the story has other plans for him. Took me 3hrs to get there.
There are items to scour for too, like power ups and stamina pieces, finding five of the latter permanently increases the health. There are temple areas requiring puzzle solving to unlock certain powers as well. Forget fighting two or three foes, just blast them in one area. Unlike modern games, it's not super engaging. But the story is something too substantial to miss.
There's truly nothing like this game. The sword later becomes a more useful weapon as well as tool. I'm more hopeful with Soul Reaver 2 now, and thankful for Crystal Dynamics in letting people like me who missed the title, having a chance to play again in better form.
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