Completed Soul Reaver.
Had to look at the guide to figure out how to beat Dumah boss. All other bosses are fought in an enclosed arena, and you need to use environment against them. Here, you can leave the throne room, and he’ll chase you, barely. At first I thought it’s just a bug. Then I thought that maybe you need to lead him to his statue, but he wouldn’t follow. And if he disappears from your sight, he teleports back to the throne room, which reinforced the idea that’s where you need to beat him. But no, turns out you need to lead him through the entire level.
When people say that Soul Reaver story is great, they either mean that the dramatic voice acting is entertaining or that the overall story of the series is great. Because the story of the original Soul Reaver is bare bones.
The last temple was designed by someone who played Mario 64 too much. You need to rotate switches by running around them, over and over. I’m glad I’m playing with an analog stick.
We are also shown some glimpses from the future, where Raziel kills Ariel to get Sun Reaver and then stands with the red Kain Reaver.
The final boss is one of the easiest in the game: you just need to hit Kain three times, and then he escapes to the past through the time machine portal. So it’s not even a complete story, just half of it.
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Tag: Soul Reaver
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Soul Reaver
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Soul Reaver
After obtaining Soul Reaver, Raziel can finally stop lugging a spear around to dispose of vampires, as while in full health, Soul Reaver can do the same. Doesn’t remind of any other game series at all 🤡
Cathedral is the worst of 90s design. You solve a puzzle, and somewhere else a switch opens. And those puzzles aren’t difficult, but they have endless enemies to distract you as well.
The boss of this dungeon confused me, as I thought that you need to aim with the eggs when he attacks. Turns out, you just need to set the eggs on fire before throwing them.
What’s even more confusing is the entire magic system, which I found about only because I was very confused were to go after the Cathedral. So I ended up finding two spells tucked away in secrets, one of them behind a 6-crate puzzle I was sure I was solving in order to progress the plot.
The Big Reveal is that Raziel and other vampire princes were once human Sarafan, paladin vampire hunters.
The “water temple” is not as bad as the spider temple, but it has a lot of platforming, which is surprising, you’d expect there will be a lot of swimming, but you get the swimming skill only after you beat the boss by jumping on tiny platforms, falling from which means you need to jump 8 platforms back, over and over.
I also found the fire upgrade for Soul Reaver, which is nice, because it allows to dispose of vampires from a safe diatance. Less clunky combat is a good thing. -
Soul Reaver
Soul Reaver wasn’t supposed to be set in Legacy of Kain universe at all. It just so happened that Amy Hennig, best known for Uncharted series, was helping with Blood Omen, and then decided that the best way for her idea to get approved is to shoehorn it into existing universe.
Another fact I didn’t know is that there are two versions of the game: PC and PSX have the same models, while Dreamcast had them reworked. Then there’s the remastered version from 2024.
At first I tried the original. I can see how this game is the precursor of the entire action adventure genre on PS2, with its acrobatics, almost mandatory finishing moves and gathering of souls out of dead enemies to replenish your health. Nowadays, though, it’s mostly unplayable, since it was designed before twin sticks became the norm. So camera is an issue.
And since the only way to permanently dispatch of enemies is to throw them at hazards such as water or sunlight, without second stick it becomes a pain.
And you can’t even look up or down. So Remaster it is.
I quickly discovered that the easiest way to dispose of vampires is to always carry a spear with you. Once you impale one, you can always reuse it.
Box puzzles are a genre staple. But it’s actually rare to see you are allowed to get boxes over obstacles and stack them to solve puzzles.The game shows its age: the locations are pretty small to fit PSX memory, and the view distance, albeit better than in the original, is still quite limited. The blood effects are on PSX level as well. When you traverse corridors, camera follows Raziel closely, so you wouldn’t feel discomfort when you couldn’t control it.
