This is a column dedicated to the most overlooked feature of the Playstation 2: Backwards Compatibility. Although we all have our sleek black Playstation 2\'s with its plethora of awesome games and sweet graphics, we also hold the key to one of the largest videogame libraries ever created totaling well over 400 games in North America alone including some of the greatest games ever devised. Each week, on Monday no less, this column will bring you an old classic worth picking up at a cheap price for your PS2/PSX that\'s definitely worth exploring one more time. Now, on with it... This week (04-02-01):
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Backstory: First of all, I would like to say that I have never had a chance to play Blood Omen, the first in the Kain series and because of that, I\'m not even going to bother touching up on that in any way, shape or form. Now that that\'s out of the way, let me tell you about Soul Reaver.
Soul Reaver takes place in the land of Nosgoth, a world ravaged and deformed by years of war and destruction. Kain, the hero of Blood Omen, is now the high ruler of all of Nosgoth and has created eight or so "brother" vampires in his image to do his bidding and enslave the humans. Every vampire goes through and evolution much like that of his master shortly after his change. However, one vampire, Raziel, evolved before Kain could sprouting illustrious wings that could allow him to fly across huge expanses. Kain, jealous of his brethren\'s change in state, ripped the wings from Raziel\'s back and cast him into the sea burning off his flesh and leaving him an empty shell for nearly an eternity.
Now, thousands of years afterwards, Raziel has been awakened by The Elder, a being who feeds upon the souls of the humans, to do his bidding and restore the natural balance of souls to sustain the Elder\'s life. In return, Raziel can seek out those who betrayed him and take revenge upon their bloody souls. Yah yah, it sounds dramatic, but hey, it\'s pretty friggin awesome to see it in the beginning of the game and carry it on up through the tutorial. In addition, the voice acting adds a whole level of depth to the title. The voice acting is just beautiful through the whole game and the voices of both the Elder and of Raziel are superb.
How it\'s played: Basically, Raziel sucks. He sucks souls from the dead and absorbs them into his own energy. The souls sustain him in the material plane, a plane which is the same as the one you are sitting on now with your big ass reading this review. If your life drops to zero on the material plane, you are immediately transported back to the astral plane where you must reabsorb souls to push your life back to full so you can return to the material plane. You can use any method necessary to eliminate your prey such as sharp stabbing objects, fire, sunlight, and water.
In addition to vanquishing evil, or the more evil form of evil if that even makes any sense, you must solve multiple puzzles involving blocks, steps, formation, glyphs, and moving between the astral and physical planes. In addition, there are even puzzles that require you to use specific elements to handle certain puzzles such as water and fire. The puzzles range anywhere between easy and difficult depending on how far you are in the game, but the progression is quite fair and the use of the planes as well as the environment is astounding.
Speaking of environments, each area you come to introduces a new set of enemies as well as a new villain. With each new villain you defeat, you inherit their special power increasing Raziel\'s status and making him the ultimate fighting machine. For example, the first enemy you fight, Raziel\'s brother, has the ability to pass through walls and after defeating him, you absorb his soul and gain his ability. There are roughly 8 villains in all and 8 abilities to learn such as swimming or climbing. Even the Soul Reaver, a mythical sword used by Kain in Blood Omen, is an acquired weapon later in the game allowing you to pretty much detonate any body in your path. The Soul Reaver is, well, pretty much the most awesome creative weapon I have ever seen.
Playstation 2 Enhancements: It\'s decent for the Texture smoothing, but the increased read speed adds only minimally to the experience especially since the loads times in the game are already cut down to as short as they possibly could make them.
Overall: The music and voices rival those of Metal Ger Solid, a true benchmark for games in my opinion. The gameplay elements are also quite well done utilizing so many different moves and controls for Raziel. You can glide, swim, suck souls, stab vampires, pass through walls... just your basic weird but cool as hell stuff. There\'s quite a bit of slowdown however and there is a LOT of backtracking in the game to explore new areas you never had the chance to explore before. backtracking is not my most favorite thing in games, but for some reason, it works really well in Soul Reaver seeing as how every area you need to backtrack to uncovers a whole new vast area for exploration. The game in itself is quite amazing both action and puzzle wise and is a great title for both gameplay and story.
Price: Anywhere between 12.99 and 19.99
Availability: High
Where to look: Pretty much anywhere that has a few old PSX titles.
Next week: Resident Evil
