Legal troubles and other things lead to Soul Reaver 1 being pared down to half its intended length to make the release date. However, many of the powers, levels, and other assets were still included in the final build and were later uncovered by hackers, including the full voice audio.

The original article that outlines all the changes seems to be down at the moment, but most of the important audio files made their way onto youtube:

Raziel's battle against the Vampire Cult secretly working in the human citadel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv89j7xURH0

Raziel's encounter with his most powerful brother, Turiel. (This audio was cut up and partially used for a fight against a regular enemy with a super-duper power-granting soul):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpUpb8CaYmQ

The original ending, where after killing Kain and gaining the ultimate Reaver, Raziel returns to the giant pipe organ cathedral and plays a hymn that wipes out all the remaining vampires in the world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8E79U385oA

Too bad they didn't end on a high note and entered the outer limits of plot twists.

Soul Reaver 2 is one of THE BEST storyline entries in gaming. I'm completely and utterly glad Soul Reaver was altered. Because of it I am able to experience one of the best storylines in gaming. Soul Reaver would have been just a random revenge game without all the great plot twists and turns.

As for your review. You thought the simple block puzzles of Soul Reaver were more challenging than the well thought out Puzzle dungeons of Soul Reaver 2? All those block puzzles did was have you match pictures up. Soul Reaver 2 was the most puzzle oriented of the series.

Soul Reaver was great exploration, I'll give you that, it had a superior world to explore only bested by Blood Omen's world itself. That was the big thing to the game. Soul Reaver 1 storyline wise is actually one of the weaker entries in series.


Soul Reaver 2 has it's faults don't get me wrong but still it's one of the highlights of the series as far as I'm concerned. I may not have even bothered going back to hunt down and play Blood Omen 1 back in the day if it hadn't been for Soul Reaver 2.

It had nothing to do with legal troubles, and everything to do with simple time constraints and a desire to get the game out within the 20th century while the PS1 was still in use. You are also grossly exaggerating when saying the game lost "half its intended length". In reality, the removed content was only the equivalent of "one largish level" (dev quote).

As for your commentary on how bad it is that they explored the "outer limits of plot twists", I couldn't disagree more. Plot was by no means a failing in this series, ever.

i had no idea about his stuff, thanks for sharing! cant wait to get home and hear more Michael Bell. i could listen to him all day.

i agree with the others though. whatever seemingly negative changed the ending, worked out much better, in my opinion.

i also think SR2 is one of the finest stories in all video game (and written by a woman who didnt cut the balls off her vampires and give them all vaginas. amazing! she actually writes men really well; i love the Uncharted games' stories too!)