If they would have introduced a map or compass like in SR 2, then this would have been a belter of a title...ah well....
Anyway, the game play is really simple when it comes ot fighting enemies....typical hack and slash doo-dahs.....you face enemies that vary in strength, agility and fright....except for those green slaughs encounter in the spectral realm....those little buggers are such an annoyance!!! After you have destroyed a boss, you acquire special abilities such as swimming and climbing walls. The bosses are quite scary...although Kain looks a bit squichsed up to be honest!!!! Its a good thing the intro movie clears him up before hand!!!! And hats off to Blood Omen 2, Soul Reaver 2 and LOK: Defiance for sorting him out too!!!!
But...and this is a big but.....there is a high canhce of you getting lost in this chapter of the LOK series....ok fair enough, there may be just one or two tedious puzzles to encounter, but to think that you have to run around a lot, almost losing track of where you are heading to, just puts you off the game....if I didnt refer to the walkthrough hosted on this site, I would never have completed the game......
The graphics are very good, to say the least...I liked the very last level within the caves, all those colours melded together.....I also liked the gothic architecture, the paintings and so on, which gave a really eerie (but at the same time, awe-inspiring) feel to the game....
I reckon this game falls flat on its face when its comes to finding your way around...otherwise its not a bad game...its a good thing Soul Reaver 2 came out shortly afterwards, otherwise we would have been dumbfounded by the storyline....oh, and the gameplay is much better in SR 2....with more hack and slash and less twiddling your thumbs resolving uncanny architecturual ruins, running around like crazy around time dials, getting lost in a place you have been to about 10 times, etc.....