Minor Exploration

In my previous posting, I said I was going back to the Silenced Cathedral because I remembered there being an obstacle I can get through with my new force projectile power, so that’s exactly what I did. I got all the way to the proper area, which I found at random, because I couldn’t exactly remember where it was.

NOTE: Silenced Cathedral – Secret Area

In case anyone needs this information later, you need to get to the first huge floor fan in the area and then, instead of floating upwards from it, go through the passage at the bottom.

I forgot to take a screenshot of the destroyable door, so here’s a screen of me hitting the bell.

In any case, I found the place, but whatever I did, I just couldn’t hit the target with my force projectile. You can’t jump and shoot and the auto targeting just wouldn’t lock on to it. I’ll admit, I got a bit desperate, but eventually, I figured it out.

You can manually target and look around in Soul Reaver

I know, it’s probably ridiculous that I haven’t figured it out, because it’s the one feature I really wanted, but yes, you can actually do it. If you hold down both of the camera rotate buttons, you can move the camera around with the arrow buttons. If you’re also charging the force projectile (or preparing to throw a weapon), then you’re also able to target your shot.

My main gripe with the game up until now was that I wasn’t able to look around to see where to go next. I guess that issue is gone now!

The Sound Glyph

The area behind the now destroyed gate was another puzzle with a glyph at the end of it. I had to take some sort of drumstick from a wall in one part of the huge room, jump across tall pillars to a bell with the drumstick. The issue was that I had to switch between the material and spectral realm in order to jump from one pillar to the other, so I also had to throw the drumstick towards the bell first, since I can’t carry anything in the spiritual realm.

Switching realms here causes the pillars to move, but you need to throw the drumstick across first.

From what I can tell, the sound glyph stuns nearby enemies. It’s about as useful as the other glyphs I collected up to this point – not very much. Still, I’m sure it can be convenient when I’m surrounded by a bunch of enemies.

The Drowned Abbey

Once a sanctuary against the vampire menace, this abbey has been drowned by the deluge spilling from this wounded land. Your brother Rahab and his brood, devastated even by the feeble rays of Nosgoth’s sun, overcame their vulnerability to water and retreated from the surface. Now they haunt these ruins, and glide in the darkness of its stagnant depths.

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It took me a while to figure out how to get to the Drowned Abbey. The answer was back in the Tomb of the Serafan, hidden behind a switch in the boss room. When I killed Morlock, I thought that switch was what opened the gate and the way back out of the Tomb. It turns out, the gate opened by itself and the switch wasn’t really a switch. It was a block which I had to hit it with the force projectile more than once in order to push it out of the way and open a new passage.

A hint: The Ship changes when switching realms.

The Drowned Abbey was, naturally, completely covered in water. For an ex-vampire who still has issues with liquids, this was a problem. It also meant that this would be probably the most annoying area of the game.

First you need to jump across these…

Basically, getting through the abbey involved lots of platforming sections where a single mistake would cause you to “switch” to the spectral realm, go back and start over. The first thing I did wrong was that I went through a passage that lead me through some bars in the spectral realm. The problem was that the bars didn’t have flat ground on the other side, so I couldn’t get back through them, and it turned out, they led me right back to the start of the area, so I had to go through the entirety of it twice.

… and then across these, all in one, flawless attempt.

The second problem was the second platforming area, where I had to get through the physical realm and feast leap over a set of beams positioned over water. After that set of beams, there was also a set of stone platforms positioned over a slippery roof which, again, would send me into water. Each of those one its own was hard enough, but I had to do it both without any mistakes, or I would have to go right back to the start. I’m not the person that usually swears, but at this point, I really, really wanted to. Soul Reaver is not a platforming game.

How to Kill Rahab

Eventually, I somehow got through it and finally reached Rahab. The challenge of the Drowned Abbey was definitely not the end boss. Compared to what I just went through, Rahab was easy, though still slightly annoying.

Lights on! You don’t really fight Rahab. You just hit “switches”.

The area he was in was circular, with a bunch of platforms positioned evenly throughout it. I had to jump from platform to platform, avoiding Rahab’s shots and keep firing my force projectiles at windows along the walls. Once all the walls were destroyed, the light destroyed Rahab. The annoying part was that getting hit by Rahab would usually throw me into the water, which would mean more annoying platforming to get to the top and back into the material realm.

Killing Rahab got me another very useful ability. Water wouldn’t hurt me anymore and I could now swim in the physical realm.

More Exploration

Of course, this meant I was now able to explore even further and get more upgrades. The first thing I did was to go back to the entrance of the Silenced Cathedral, where I’ve already seen a health upgrade I couldn’t reach before. Now, I could do it by swimming on the left side of the Silenced Cathedral moat.

While I was there, I also explored the right side of the moat, now knowing where it would lead me.

The Sun Glyph

The right side of the moat took me to a huge area with a bunch of Morlock enemies and giant machinery. The whole region, which is probably a more fitting name than “area”, was one huge puzzle, which eventually led to a room with the Sun Glyph, the most powerful glyph of the game.

I had to solve some block puzzles involving pipes, hit a bunch of switches to activate a lighthouse and then enter the room with the glyph and finally switch to the spectral realm at the right moment to pick it up.

Once you activate the beacon, the Sun Glyph is almost yours.

I think it was worth it, though. First of all, this means I probably cleared the hardest puzzle in the game without knowing it. Secondly, the sun glyph is extremely strong. It outright destroys most enemies around me when I use it. It costs a good chunk of my mana, but by now, I have plenty to use it twice or possibly even trice.

In any case, this is where I ended my game. Next time, I’ll probably do some more exploring, since there’s bound to be items I missed. I know for sure there are two glyphs I can still find, as well as some health upgrades.

Where to Go After the Cathedral

This time in The Soul Reaver, I took the opportunity the save system gave me by always putting me back in the first area to look around and explore some more. It was worth it to. I ended up wandering into the human citadel again and found a brand new upgrade. This time, it was an artifact that outright doubled my spell points, allowing me to use my two glyphs much more frequently.

This magic upgrade was the first I found and it doubled my spell points.

I then went back to the outdoors area with the huge skull, hoping to finally find the way further, but after a good half an hour of aimlessly looking around, I found nothing. Eventually, I gave up, saved my game and ended my session.

It kept itching at me, though, so I started the game up again and deiced to listen for the Elder God’s advice by standing on the platform in the starting area. This time, I listened carefully and realized he was telling me to go “past the pillars”. Then it dawned on me. The pillars are where I fought Kain. The outdoors area was just the place where I got my stone glyph, nothing else.

Sometimes the graphics really shine. Not this time.

With this knowledge, I went back to the Sanctuary, talked to the spirit at the Pillars of Nosgoth and immediately found a climbable wall which led me to my next destination.

Tomb of the Sarafan

The ancient tomb of the Sarafan, once impenetrably sealed… Now, ravaged by Nosgoth’s upheavals, its mysteries lay exposed. In the time of Vorador, centuries before Kain was made, the Sarafan warrior priests waged a merciless war against the vampire tribes of Nosgoth. Emboldened by righteousness, they committed unspeakable and indiscriminate acts of violence – massacring fledglings and ancients alike, they decimated entire bloodlines in mere decades. Now their husks lay here – murderers enshrined.

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The Tomb of the Sarafan was a short area, but it represented a huge part of the story. It was also filled with the first class of vampire enemies I encountered in the game. I got some practice with the Soul Reaver, though, so getting rid of them was much easier now. All it takes is some patience and a single proper hit with the Soul Reaver, followed by a stab, to completely obliterate them.

I guess Kain loves irony.

I ran through the passages, found and activated the portal and then finally entered the tomb by passing through a gate in the spectral realm. Once I got in and shifted back to the material realm, the realization happened. The Serapan heroes enshrined in the tombs, the humans celebrated as saints were Raziel and his brothers. Kain has a weird sense of humor, I guess. He raised his mortal enemies as his first lieutenants.

I shifted back to the spiritual realm inside the tomb chamber and fell to the area bellow, where I was able to get back to the material plane and fight the next boss.

Morlock

I’m not sure if I missed it, but I didn’t catch the game telling me the name of this boss. Instead, I googled it afterwards and found out it was Morlock. In any case, I’m not sure if I should even consider Morlock a proper boss. I hit him a few times with the Soul Reaver and then impaled him like any regular enemy. I’m not even sure he has more health than some of the slightly stronger versions of regular enemies.

I can’t really call this guy a boss.

The ability he gave me, on the other hand, was well worth the boss status. I can now emit some sort of ranged force projectile which stuns weaker enemies and activates various switches, the few of which I’ve already seen in the previous areas.

As soon as I got hold of the ability, I got back to the portal and went to back to the outdoors area, where I remembered one of these switches was blocking the way to a health upgrade. I had to climb all the way to the Stone Glyph tomb to get to it, but it was well worth it, since it was my tenth upgrade, meaning my health has now increased for the second time.

I’m also pretty sure I saw one of these back in the Silenced Cathedral, so I’ll probably go there next. For now, it was time to take a break.

Zephon

As I thought, the area with the next boss, Zephon, was right after the teleporter room I unlocked in the Cathedral, just before I saved my game and ended my last session. Teleporter room, you ask?

Soul Reaver has a method of navigating through the world similar to the Castlevania and Metroid series. Come to think of it, the game basically is a metroidvania. When you load your game, you start at the very beginning, but you can get to your last location relatively quickly thanks to the fact that you unlocked shorter routes by pushing blocks and hitting switches, but more importantly, because you enabled portals which take you from the portal room near the beginning to a portal room in one of several game regions.

I guess “spider” was an understatement. I don’t know what that thing is.

In any case, I fought Zephon. I’d say he was even slightly easier than Melchiar, since he didn’t push me into the spectral realm even once. All I had to do was dodge his claws and hit them when they get stuck in the ground. This would cause an egg or something like that fall out of his body. I had to set the egg on fire and throw it at him. After three of this, he was down and I got a new ability – I can now climb certain walls.

Exploration

With a new ability, it was time to get new stuff, so that’s what I did. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything decent in the Cathedral, but I distinctly remember there being some health upgrades in Melchiar’s area, so I went there. I also decided to go check out the entrance to the Cathedral but the one health upgrade on the tall cliff next to the shore was still unreachable.

The walls which can be climbed with the new ability are clearly marked.

I was going to get a few more upgrades I vaguely remembered previously seeing, but I ended up taking a route which I thought would take me to a secret area, but actually took me to the next region of the game. I’m not sure what this new region is called, but it contains a skull of some giant creature. I ended up climbing right to the very top of the area, where another block puzzle was waiting for me.

The Giant Skull Area

The objective was to first flip all of the blocks to their correct orientation and then push them into their respective slots on a large fresco (check me out, I’m using smart words!). The puzzle alone was not hard to figure out, but my problem was finding the last two blocks in the lower area of the room, where the statue was.  I found the first block in one of the corners of the room, but the second one was nowhere to be seen. After some walking about, I finally found it in the previous room, on top of a balcony.

The Stone Glyph

It turns out this wasn’t a new area, though. Solving the puzzle “just” gave me a brand new spell. Oh, and by the way, the spells in this game are actually called glyphs. This one was the stone glyph.

I solved the puzzle, but I can’t yet say it was worth it.

What happened next was that I made a huge mistake. I went outside the stone glyph area and figured out I had to glide to my next destination, but I missed the jump and ended up all the way back at the bottom, next to the giant skull. It took me about fifteen minutes to get back up there, mostly due to the difficult jumps I needed to do half way through.

Eventually, I got back up there and this time used the camera and jumping in place to look around for a bit, before I made another attempt at jumping. I found the right spot and ended up right next to another portal room. This is where I saved the game.

Also, I didn’t get the chance to try out the stone glyph yet, so I have no idea what it does.

Exploration

After getting my now abilities to pass through barred gates, I spent about thirty minutes exploring every place I’ve already been to and I’d say it was worth it. I got a total of four health pieces, meaning I need only one before I get an actual health upgrade. I also got my first spell, which is something I completely forgot exists in this game. The spell basically knocks back everything around me, which doesn’t seem extremely useful at first, but if I’m next to a body of water and surrounded by enemies, it becomes extremely useful.

I got a few of these.

The Sanctuary

Eventually, I got tired of the exploration, so I went to the Sanctuary, which was the huge locked building half way between the huge whirlpool and the Elder God’s lair. To enter, I had to use my new ability, but other than that, the area was pretty straightforward. Soon enough, I got to the throne room surrounded by the corrupted Pillars of Nosgoth, where Kain was waiting. There was a short conversation where Kain basically hinted he knows something Raziel doesn’t and then the fight started.

Again, I love the voice-overs in this game. They are of extremely high quality.

One hit from Kain was enough to push me into the spirit realm, so I had to be really quick on my feet. He did manage to “kill” me a few times before I landed my third hit on him, but once I did, the fight was over and, through a series of events, I got hold of the Soul Reaver, both in its material and spiritual form. It only appears in the material plane when my health is full, so thanks to my skillful play, this basically means I don’t have it most of the time, but it makes the spiritual realm extremely easy, so getting killed is now just a minor nuisance.

With Kain gone, for now, it was time to go to the next area of Soul Reaver – The Silenced Cathedral

The Silenced Cathedral

“Once a testament to mankind’s defiance of Kain’s empire, this towering cathedral now stood derelict, the humans who worshiped here, dead for centuries. Its architects conceived this tower as a holy weapon against the vampire menace, a colossal instrument of brass and stone. The cathedral’s pipes, once tuned to blast a deadly hymn, now stood silent, and these vacant spaces whistled their impotence.“

The Silenced Cathedral used to belong to humans, but is now under the occupation of the Zephonim – the clan following the vampire Zephon. I haven’t seen Zephon yet, but I’m guessing he’s some sort of a spider, since his vampires look and sound very much like spiders. They can climb walls, use webbing and have a tendency to respawn quite frequently, which I found extremely annoying.

Lot’s of puzzles like this one in the Cathedral.

The region consisted of several huge areas with puzzles mostly involving climbing and activating various machines to create air flows which allowed me to get to higher-up areas. Probably the hardest one was near the end, where I had to find, get to and activate three different valves and fix three pipes before I made the air flow strong enough to lift me up to the main area of the Cathedral.

Also a lot of enemies like this one in the Cathedral

Once there, I had to break the shielding on four more switches, activate those and then do some other thing I can’t remember right now, because this is about where I stopped playing. What I do remember is that there were three block puzzles where I was constantly being interrupted by enemy respawns, as well as a couple of secret areas where I found more health pieces. Yes, this means I got my health upgrade.

I also had to fight some human enemies, which I’m guessing are vampire worshipers, since I can’t think of any other explanation on why they would be there. In any case, human enemies just mean free health, so I wasn’t bothered by that.

The Soul Reaver series was on sale recently on GOG.com. This series is one of those that takes me back to my childhood even though I never actually played most of them. In fact, I only ever read about Blood Omen, played the Soul Reaver demo once in my early PlayStation days and actually started my blog with Defiance, but ended up abandoning it due to a game breaking bug. I remember being sort of scared of the Soul Reaver demo and having  a hard time figuring it out, but I also remember how cool it was to throw a spear at an enemy or impale it with one.

I wish prerendered video cut scenes would make a comeback.

As I said, I abandoned playing Defiance, but I liked the style of the series, so I decided to give it a shot with the first game in the Soul Reaver series, after finding it on sale. I know Blood Omen is the actual first game and I know it’s supposed to be awesome, but it seems to be quite different in style to the other ones, so I decided to skip it for now.

Does Soul Reaver work on Windows 8?

Short answer? Yes, yes it does.

A slightly longer answer would be that it runs fine, but it has some issues. The GOG version runs in full 1920×1080 resolution and my generic DualShock rip-off controller works, but it has issues with analog controls, so I have to play with the d-pad.

The sound also sometimes has issues where it stops working or works on a delay, bit this only happens after lengthy playing sessions. Other than that, the game works nicely and the experience is very enjoyable, provided you don’t have an issue with graphics.

It can look nasty up close, but most of the time, the game looks nice enough.

Actually, I’d even say the graphics are fine, even impressive, considering the era. The models are of low fidelity, of course, and there are no facial animations, but this is offset by extremely nice voice-overs.  The soundtrack is amazing and very atmospheric. It fits the game perfectly. Raziel’s wing animations and the shift between the material and the spectral realm are also very nicely animated. I wonder if the game looked as good on the PlayStation as it did on the PC, because I don’t remember it.

The Plot

The story of the game is that Kain doomed the world of Nosgoth by not sacrificing himself to restore it. Instead, he raised a bunch of vampire lieutenants and basically besieged the entire world. Now, vampires mutate over time, gaining new abilities, etc., so Raziel, the protagonist, somehow managed to develop actual wings.

The Elder God is a “Cthulhuesque” creature.

In an act of jealousy, Kain tears of Raziel’s wings and throws him into the Lake of the Dead, a large, natural whirlpool. Since Raziel is a vampire, the water kills him, but some time later, he gets resurrected by an entity calling itself “The Elder God”, as a soul reaver – a creature that feeds on souls like a vampire would feed on blood. Apparently, the vampires threw the flow of souls out of balance, so it’s now Raziel’s job to kill his brothers and restore the balance.

Killing Melchiah

The first part of the game was sort of a tutorial. This game was quite complex for its time and it introduced a few very original elements, so the Crash Bandicoot style of introductions was pretty much out of the question. Still, the game doesn’t consider the player completely incompetent, so quite a lot was left for me to figure out on my own. This caused me to get stuck on some puzzles along the way, but also made it feel so much better when I finally did figure it out.

The puzzles up to now were mostly leaver and block based.

Eventually, after familiarization with the realm shifting feature, some relatively easy block pushing puzzles and a lot of fighting with zombie vampires, I got to the area belonging to Raziel’s former clan. I got all the way through it, circled back and unlocked a shortcut to the back area by pushing a block on top of another one and creating a new route, I got really stuck.

I couldn’t find any way to continue. Every single new route I found and tried ended up needing another ability to get further and the Melchahim clan lands seemed to be fully explored. I actually ended up wandering into the human city and took note of a lot of items I’ll be able to pick up later, but I wasn’t able to advance the story any further.

Eventually, though, I did figure it out. The shortcut in the Melchahim area wasn’t a shortcut. I was supposed to move the two blocks to the side a bit to unlock a whole new route, which lead me to a larger block puzzle. After using some braziers to collapse a whole floor, I finally opened the gate to Melchiah, Raziel’s brother and the first boss.

Melchiah is not a pretty guy!

Defeating Melchiah was another puzzle. I had to lure him under a bared gate and drop it on him. After that, I needed to do it with a second gate and finally lure him into the cage in the center and drop a huge grinder on top of him.

Defeating Melchiah gave me my first ability. I could now pass through bared gates in the spectral realm. Nearby in the area, there was a gate like that which lead to a room with an item that increases my health, so I collected that soon enough. I need to collect five of those to actually get an increase, though, so there wasn’t any change in my stats yet.

The Elder God let me know where to go next, but for now, I think I’ll do some exploring of the areas I was already in, to see if there’s anything else I can collect.

By the way, did I mention the music in this game is awesome?

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