After playing the original Soul Reaver, I wasn't very enthusiastic about the sequel, given the sad and chronic habit that sequels have of not living up to their predecessors. Much to my suprise and delight, Soul Reaver 2 not only met my expectations, it surpassed my hopes. At most, I expected a good conclusion to the abrupt ending of the original. What I got in addition to that was an engaging roleplaying game, some of the most beautiful graphics I've ever seen on a console, and a story that got me incredibly excited for the next installment.
The game, to be fair, is a little disappointing in two respects. First, it has a feeling of being unfinished. Not surprising, as the production was somewhat rushed to switch the technical platform from the PSX to the PS2. In the game, there are four elemental forges that Raziel activates, and there looks to be three additional ones set up in the game that seemed to not make it under the wire. Secondly, the game's running time is rather short. Most players seem to have finished the game in about ten hours, give or take, where the original Soul Reaver took much longer.
But to balance that out is incredible graphic artwork - Nosgoth in its past eras is brought to life in a way matched by no other game I've seen. The voice acting is unparalleled: Michael Bell, Simon Templeman, Paul Lukather, Richard Doyle, Anna Gunn and especially Rene Auberjunois have given their characters a depth of vitality and realism that make the experience even more engaging and make the player forget for a while that it's just a game. Everything accomplished by the technical and artistic teams, however, have served to provide a beautiful setting for a truly fascinating tale, a story that has clearly been in the works since the very beginning of the series and is just as clearly not fully revealed... and I'm not going to reveal it here. You're going to have to buy the game just like I did.
