Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver misses the mark with a handful of key technical issues.
Unique boss fights
Gothic style
Quality dialogue
Cons:
No sense of direction/next objective
Repetitive gameplay
Frustrating controls
"Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver" is an action/adventure game for the Sega Dreamcast (also on the Playstation One and PC). It stars a vampire turned wraith named Raziel who sets out on a quest of vengeance against his former master Kain, who out of an act of jealousy, condemned Raziel to death for evolving a pair of wings before himself. Spared from complete obliteration by the Elder God, Razel was turned into a wraith not only for revenge, but to do the Elder God's bidding in saving the world of Nosgoth that tethers on the edge of destruction.
The player takes control of Raziel who has the ability to travel from the spiritual world to the physical world. While in the spiritual world, Raziel has no "physical" body, meaning that he cannot interact with the environment. As the game progresses, it becomes necessary to travel back and forth from the spiritual and physical world in order to find hidden routes that would be inaccessible in the one world but easy access in another.
The gameplay is simple, too simple at times. Most of the time the Raziel will simply be hacking and slashing his way through the enemies, but unless he has his Soul Reaver (full soul gauge) or some sort of weapon nearby, he cannot vanquish the enemy with mere strength, there has to be some sort of killing blow. The boss fights, however, are a different story. Trying to hack and slash his way to victory with a boss will get Raziel sent back to the spiritual world fairly quickly. Raziel will have to think quickly on his feet and study his surroundings, as they will be key in taking down the different bosses.
Most of the puzzles will involve rotating and pushing different boxes into its proper place; nothing difficult, but it becomes very mundane and dry each time. The gameplay does offer power ups for Raziel to obtain, whether it's through boss fights or hidden Force Glyphs. Some power ups allow Raziel to access places that he couldn't otherwise (swimming, climbing ability), allowing him to find other hidden treasures or to advance the story. There are even power ups to strengthen Raziel's main weapon, his Soul Reaver.
The controls in the game are fairly straightforward; Raziel can attack monsters, sneak by crouching, jump and glide with his tattered wings, and even feed on the soul of monsters. Speaking of feeding, Raziel can't "die" per se; he has a "soul gauge" (for lack of a better term) in both the spiritual and physical world. When Raziel's soul gauge is completely drained in the physical world he returns to the spiritual world, and if the gauge is completely drained from there then he returns to where the player first started the game.
The controls, while simple at times, can become a nightmare when attempting to do some of the more finesse or precision movements. The game calls for many, many times where the player must jump or glide from platform to platform or tightrope walk across a narrow catwalk, the controls will not comply with the player; whether it's because Raziel over commits and slips off the edge, completely misses the platform because the timing of gliding is too strict, or because the directional controls are too sensitive and Raziel falls off the narrow walkway.
The objectives can be very unclear and too non-linear. While there are in-game hints on the next objective, they are too vague most times, especially since the locations of landmarks and areas can become confusing with no sense of true direction with everything scattered. This isn't to say that the game should hold the player's hand every step of the way, but it shouldn't blindfold and leave the player stranded in the wilderness either. Soul Reaver does institutes a warp system that allows Raziel to quickly travel from one place to another. While nice, the symbols do little to point the player in the correct direction from where they left off unless the player makes a note of it themselves.
The VMU merely displays the name of the game, "Soul Reaver", nothing special. Soul Reaver does boast updated graphics over its counterpart on the Playstation One. The gothic theme conveyed in the game is very prevalent and well done. The dialogue in the game is also a high point of the game, with the voice actors doing a great job giving the story and the important cutscenes meaning and seriousness through their voices.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver can offer a modest amount of fun if the player can look past the fumbling controls and the repetitiveness of the gameplay.