Every element of Soul Reaver is improved and expanded here: more combat (still repetitive, but sometimes syncing nicely with some plot events), more complex puzzles (though they're still nothing to write home about), a deeper story with, as always, great cutscenes and voice acting (which -- let's face it -- is the main thing that makes us wanna keep playing the LOK games).

The fact that the same basic elements were improved already makes want to give this a higher score than the one I gave to SR1. Alas, there are some things I didn't quite like: the combat system is somehow more frustrating than SR1's; I didn't like the heavy emphasis on backtracking (compared to SR1's exploration of different areas as you progress through it) because it gave me the feeling of repetitiveness, even though it's a short game; finally, the story kinda got weirder and weirder to a point when I started missing the simplicity SR1's plot. I also didn't like the evolution of Raziel's personality; I mean, sure, it's more varied and distinct than in SR1, but his sudden cockiness and "cool cunning guy" posturing during some cutscenes threw me off a bit, I miss the constantly simpler, colder and more serious Raziel from the first game (but Kain's portrayal is WAY better here than in SR1, that's for sure).

Overall, it's pretty good for what it tries to accomplish, and I look forward to playing the next games the series has to offer.

The game's grown on me ever since I've originally posted my review, specially after playing it a second time on the Dreamcast instead of the PS, so I'm bumping the score. In any case, you can still read my original 2.5 stars review for the PS version below.

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Awkward controls and camera, extremely unchallenging, repetitive and predictable gameplay, useless and unnecessary features, tedious and anticlimactic boss fights, short duration and a very underwhelming ending would make me really dislike this.

This didn't really surprise me; the LoK series seem to be much closer to interactive novels at times rather than adventure games, so it's the story that actually kept me wanting to finish the game and I think they did good job at that.

The aesthetics are also cool, though they're way edgier and more cartoony than those of the previous LoK game, Blood Omen. Personally, I prefer the latter's more realistic and dark fantasy tone, but this one's alright and I guess many people will prefer it to the older one. There are some intriguing changes though, such the writing chaging from rune-inspired characters to more arabic-like ones; I guess this can be explained by the time skip, but it doesn't make much sense to me (at least they're cool, though).

Talking about some actual positive points for a change, the graphics are nice and the soundtrack is really good, fitting well with many of the dungeons without becoming tiring after a while. I also like the voice acting quite a bit, being way less dramatic than its predecessor's. This increases the game's appeal as a visual novel, so that's nice. Unfortunately these won't compensate for the negative points, which have to do with much more crucial elements and can't be reasonably downplayed.

Overall, quite a mixed bag, but maybe you'll like it more than me.