I love the Legacy of Kain series and the Soul reaver games especially. They encapsulated my childhood gaming experience. So my criticism comes from a place of love. The dialogue, voice acting and world events are spectacular. The poetic prose, the engaging and deep characters, all come together to weave a story that will, if you give it time and attnetion, capture your imagination. Graphics and sound design are also really good. This game was beautiful for the time and the music always fits the mood of the game. With wistful, airy pieces during moments of exploration and tense, battle sequences accompanied by energetic, tribal movements that really make combat feel punchy. Sadly, the area in which this game and subsequent games in the franchise fall flat, is the gameplay, which becomes increasingly limited in scope and interest from this title onwards. Combat doesn't really change throughout the game and it can become boring and bothersome. Puzzles are simplistic, with little real thought required and the 3d platforming is hampered by camera issues that plagued games of the time and make those elements, more often than not, frustrating rather than enjoyable and rewarding. Soul Reaver 2 is carried on it's writing, storytelling and out of this world voice acting. When it comes to the gameplay loop, well, it's about as interesting as "loops" tend to be. Stick it out if you can, to enjoy those things it does better than even modern fare can manage.
I have this game on disc, as part of Myst The collection. But I had issues with sound on that copy so bought one here. This version, runs alot smoother with alot less problems. Unfortunately, the screen resolution is awful here, textures appear muddy, I can barely read the text in books and frankly, that's where you obtain a large amount of the lore and story. It's a shame, as otherwise, the performance improvements and overall stability in this game is much better with the GoG version. Just a shame it's so damn ugly, for a game that is supposedly a remaster of the original.
