The Top Shelf: The Second Round 036: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2

Welcome to The Top Shelf, a weekly feature wherein I sort through my extensive PS2 collection for the diamonds in the rough. My goal here is to narrow down a library of 185 games to a svelte 44: the number of spaces on my bookshelf set aside for my PS2 collection. That means a whole lot of vetting and a whole lot of science that needs to be done - and here in the second round, that means narrowing our laser focus to one game per week (at least). Be sure to check out the Case File Repository for more details and a full list of games/links!

Extra Note: We've entered Shelftember! In this much-vaunted month, we will be processing one of the second round entries every day. I'll be spending one hour apiece with each game - inspired by DanielKempster's backlog-clearing series "An Hour With..." - and determining its fate from there.

Oh boy, where do I even start with Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2? The Legacy of Kain series was originally conceived by Silicon Knights of Eternal Darkness/Too Human/Denis Dyack's protacted and embarrassing meltdown, and then picked up by Crystal Dynamics, at the time known for Pandemonium and Gex and these days for the Tomb Raider reboots (another hand-me-down). In the case of Soul Reaver 2, it continues directly after the first Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for PS1, and is the middle entry in a five-game gothic fantasy epic that follows the ill-fated vampire lord Kain as fights his own destiny as well as Kain's maligned vampire lieutenant Raziel, who is betrayed and exiled to the abyss by his master and later returns as a soul-devouring wraith seeking to destroy Kain and his progeny. The plot of these games is extremely convoluted, as it follows several incarnations of the land of Nosgoth throughout time and through a spectral parallel dimension, and trying to pick up all the relevant plot details halfway through its five game arc is tantamount to madness. It doesn't help in this particular case that Soul Reaver 2 is far more narrative-heavy than its predecessors, with a linear progression that has Raziel chase after Kain through a time portal to understand the deeper machinations and conspiracies that caused Nosgoth to fall into an endless state of decay ruled by Kain and his vampire legions.

On the plus side, the Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver games have always had some superlative writing behind them. The Soul Reaver games in particular were written by the well-regarded video game fiction author Amy Hennig, known for the Uncharted series and perhaps less so for Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, and it's entirely explicable that Soul Reaver 2 would want to capitalize on this endowment by pausing every five minutes for long monologues and cutscenes featuring their principal cast pondering the metaphysical ramifications of their actions and eloquently expressing their hatred of one another. Unfortunately, since I have no idea what's going on, most of this wonderful writing is lost on me. I wander around, not realizing I can pass through portcullises when in Raziel's spectral form or many other mechanics from the first Soul Reaver that the game expects me to remember, with no map to guide me or tutorial section to peruse for help. Enemies appear, but you can run right past them if you so choose: the only reason to kill them would be to devour their souls, which Raziel needs to stay in the material world for extended periods. The titular Soul Reaver, Raziel's phantasmic blade that held such prominence in the previous game, is briefly reintroduced before its rules change completely: rather than serving Raziel, it decides to turn the tables and entrap its host instead, causing his health to drop the longer he chooses to wield it. The actual combat in the game is appealing enough; there's a lot of locking on and evading around blows in a circle, letting you quickly get behind opponents and hit them with a quick combo or two, but with no experience or character progression or other resources to be gained beyond health refills I've been skipping as many of the fights I deem unnecessary as possible. Most of my opponents so far have been humans anyway, and I sort of figure Raziel is a little more altruistic than that even if these are some really crappy humans.

I don't think it would be remiss to say that Soul Reaver 2 is a fine game from what I've seen from my allotted hour. I'd heard the sequel was rushed out the door slightly after the success of the first, but it seems to have made the transition between generations smoothly enough. I remember the first game looking great on the PlayStation 1, especially with the transition effect between the material and spectral worlds, and as a game released relatively early in the PS2's lifespan Soul Reaver 2 retains the gothic beauty of its world and the visually distinct characters of Kain and Raziel, both looking far more monstrous than the regular humans around them. However, it became clear to me quickly why I didn't continue playing Soul Reaver 2 around the time I originally bought it: the lore is so intensely deep and dependent on the earlier games that I knew I would have to complete those first before I could make any headway with all these cutscenes about pillars of balance and the Sarafan and time streams and The Elder God and a dozen other named NPCs I've either yet to meet or have already met but forgotten about. I'm not sure I ever completed the original Soul Reaver, but I'd always intended to before moving onto this game, possibly after also completing the original Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for any germane plot details it might contain. Regardless of its quality, Soul Reaver 2 is definitely not the preferred jumping off point for this particular franchise. It'd be like starting Game of Thrones several seasons in: sure, it's rad how violently that guy just died, but who the hell was he?

Result: Eliminated. (But only because catching up sufficiently with the Legacy of Kain series to understand this game is a little outside this feature's scope.)

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