2.5/5 ★ – Brendan88's review of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2.

Holy cow what a disappointment. I found Soul Reaver 1 to be a pretty clever and fun game, although rough around the edges (in part due to issues with the Steam version of the game). I figured the second one would be a straight improvement, but its a downgrade in almost every way. The writing and voice performances, which seem to be the main draw of the series anyway, are still extremely good. There's no denying that. I found the story to be a lot more confusing and less satisfying than the first game, largely because they bring in an absolute ton of lore from the first Legacy of Kain game that I'm just not familiar with. That's more of a me problem than a game problem. But there's also a lot of time travel and paradox talk that I don't think really amounts to much. The world design, and the level design, however, take such a sharp down turn from the first game. The whole game is basically one long twisting path. You walk down it, you walk back. Down and back, Down and back. That's the game. There's no real exploration, no side paths, no secrets. Even the spectral realm, what seems like it should be a defining feature, feels very underutilized. There is the only the path, with numerous combat sequences and the puzzle-focused forges along the way. The forges were my favorite parts of the game. They felt more like the Tomb Raider - esque challenges I was used to from the first game, and this game is a lot better at doing puzzles than it is at combat. Combat is more hack and slash than before, with some annoying enemies that all have more range than you. Most of the time I found combat to be extremely frustrating. The enemies attacks come too fast, with too much reach, your dodge and block too slow. I do think the Soul Reaver weapon itself is more of an interesting trade-off in this game, though. Balancing the extra damage with the loss of health was a fun mechanic that led to the most enjoyment I had with the combat system. Overall there's a couple good ideas here, but the world feels so small and limited that I couldn't help but feel majorly let down.