Forums > Game Forums > Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver > Saving problem??..
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/15/2010 6:07 PM · Permalink · Report
Hey guys, can you please help me? I started playing Soul Reaver, enjoying every moment of it; I jumped and glided around, impaled a couple of vampires, and then jumped into the abyss. Instead of dying, though, I ended up in starting location! I thought it must be a bug of sorts; so I reloaded my last save and... still ended in the starting location!
I checked some FAQs and realized nothing was wrong with my copy of the game; upon loading a saved game, the game sends you... to the starting location!!
Oh no, I thought, it can't be. What's the point in saving, then? Then I found out you could use those weird symbolic portals to go back... The problem is, I clearly remember the "logo" of my last location. It looked totally like the Dreamcast logo. Well, I chose it, and nothing happened! I was still in the beginning of the game! Man... does it mean I'll have to replay the whole initial stretch again??..
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/15/2010 6:26 PM · Permalink · Report
What is a "save portal"? Is it this place with weird rotating symbols? I went there, and I clearly remember the symbol I saw in that cave was like the Dreamcast logo. I pressed all the buttons, but nothing happened, I was still in that first cave...
Spenot (8592) on 7/15/2010 6:38 PM · Permalink · Report
Check at 0:50, I believe those were the save portals, my memory is a bit hazy on the saving.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/15/2010 6:39 PM · Permalink · Report
Youtube is blocked in China.
Spenot (8592) on 7/15/2010 6:59 PM · Permalink · Report
Oh, damn... then I'll try to describe it: it's a huge stone arc, with a spikey sun symbol (with a greenish/blueish background) on it and on the ground before it, on both sides. The first one in the game is basically the first thing you encounter after you exit the room of the Elder God, right at the beginning. Later in the game, their location is sometimes marked with a door, with the same sun symbol on them. If memory serves me right, you always start in that chamber, but you can travel to any previously visited portal.
Lain Crowley (6629) on 7/15/2010 7:04 PM · Permalink · Report
It's been a long time since I played SR, so I may be getting some things wrong and I can't remember exactly the particulars you mention. In SR you can't really die, because you're already un-un-dead. If your body is destroyed in the material world then your spirit is deposited into the spirit world (which is mostly the same as the material world but with crucial differences). If your spirit body is destroyed then the god you met in the beginning of the game will restore your spirit body in his lair. It's impossible to get a game over in SR. By jumping into the abyss you re-enacted the intro of the game.
The "save rooms" are teleporters than can be used in either the material or spirit worlds, but they're all deactivated to start with. When you find a new one you have to enter the room then run through the arch to reactivate it. From then on you can select that room from any other teleporter room. If you did all that and it's still bugging out then there could be a problem.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/16/2010 4:50 AM · Permalink · Report
then run through the arch to reactivate it
So you mean I'll have to replay the game from the beginning because I didn't run through a damn arch?!...
shoots himself
Lain Crowley (6629) on 7/16/2010 5:20 AM · Permalink · Report
Without the cutscenes that should only take like five minutes tops. Plus about half of the vampires in the game stay dead when you eat them, so there shouldn't be much standing in your way after you get out of the underground.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/16/2010 9:30 AM · Permalink · Report
Then there must be a bug... I stood on the glyph. I pressed directional arrows. The first symbol was that pseudo-Dreamcast logo. I pressed A to go out of there. Nothing changed. I was still in that cave.
Oh, and I think I'll be getting a console version of this game. PC controls are absolutely awful here. Looking around with Ctrl key? Have they never heard of a thing called "mouse"?..
Lain Crowley (6629) on 7/16/2010 10:17 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Ash Ligast II wrote--] [Q2 --start Unicorn Lynx wrote--] Oh, and I think I'll be getting a console version of this game. [/Q2 --end Unicorn Lynx wrote--] The Dreamcast version is the way to go. [/Q --end Ash Ligast II wrote--]
You know, I've heard this, but I still can't wrap my head around it. I just can't imagine playing Soul Reaver without four shoulder buttons. Neither version has loading screens, and the DC's graphics never looked significantly better to me.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/17/2010 3:08 AM · Permalink · Report
Can't find the Dreamcast version, so I should just drop this idea. Compared the graphics of Playstation version to PC version and realized that I'd rather look around with Ctrl key than climb on low-polygon, shaking stones :) Bottom line - PC version looks much better, so I'm going to play it.
By the way, I also compared PS and PC versions of the very first Blood Omen, and PS version looks like something released for SNES! Forget about those consoles...
I got Defiance for Xbox, though. When I saw there was still no mouse support for PC version... and it looks great on Xbox, too.
Donatello (466) on 7/18/2010 5:49 PM · Permalink · Report
PC version makes me cry, honestly. They messed the music up big time. It plays wrong tracks in wrong places in the PC version, and it's especially bad in the "epic" encounter (you know it when you get there), because there's supposed to be a variation of Ozar Midrashim/Raziel's Theme there, but no. Frankly, the faulty music system really ruins the immersion for me, and I'd rather stomach PSX-graphics.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/18/2010 6:04 PM · Permalink · Report
Ozar Midrashim
Ozar Midrashim?... That means "treasure of the sermons" in Hebrew. And "Raziel" means "God's secret". What's with all this Jewish stuff? :)
Slug Camargo (583) on 7/18/2010 11:10 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Unicorn Lynx wrote--]Ozar Midrashim
Ozar Midrashim?... That means "treasure of the sermons" in Hebrew. And "Raziel" means "God's secret". What's with all this Jewish stuff? :) [/Q --end Unicorn Lynx wrote--] You may have noticed there's a big deal on the credits to make sure which stuff belongs to Crystal Dynamics and which to Silicon Knights. Legend has it that Soul Reaver was originally intended to be a story about a bunch of angels and completely unrelated to the Legacy of Kain mythology, but some sort of big legal problem blew up between CD and SK, which ended with CD keeping the script for the game and the LoK trademark, but having to credit SK when they used it. At the time there were rumors about the story being stolen and such, but this is the sort of stuff that will probably never be known for sure.
In any case, that might explain why the names of Kain's children all sound somewhat angelic (with those "el" suffixes and whatnot), and why the links to LoK are rather tenuous, only getting stronger in subsequent chapters of the saga. In fact, Soul Reaver's Kain may very well have been originally intended to be God, if you think about it.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/19/2010 5:53 AM · Permalink · Report
In fact, Soul Reaver's Kain may very well have been originally intended to be God, if you think about it.
Definitely, the (amazing) intro where Raziel grows wings and Kain condemns him to an eternity of suffering is very similar to some stories about proud angels who were certainly punished by God, not by an ugly vampire lord with a dubious fashion sense.
In fact, the original Raziel from Jewish mythology is such an angel. Not sure about the wings story, but that angel did a lot to help humans, a bit like Prometheus; though there are no exact stories of a punishment, it looks like Raziel had to go undercover, but humans can still contact him and receive knowledge and wisdom about God and the world.
Man, those LoK games rock my socks. In a few months or so, I'm going to have one nice cozy marathon, from Blood Omen to Defiance, hehehe! :)
Slug Camargo (583) on 7/19/2010 8:10 AM · Permalink · Report
Heh, been there man.
If you feel like digging around, I used to spend hours at The Lost Worlds. There's a lot of interesting information in there, especially regarding stuff that got deleted or changed from the series. The Soul Reaver section is particularly interesting, since A LOT of content was cut out and can still be found in the game's files. TLW even has an audio file featuring the Elder God in a speech that was clearly intended for the original ending (Soul Reaver wasn't supposed to continue, it was made that way due to time constraints, and eventually the story branched out to what we know today).
Also, a guy called LOKFanatic wrote an insanely comprehensive plot guide with the timelines of all the games and a lot of observations and theories about what's what in that crazy, accursed land of Nosgoth :P
Finally, though slightly unrelated, the Uncharted games were written by Amy Henning, the writer of the Soul Reavers and Defiance. I don't know squat about Uncharted since it's a PS3 exclusive, but if this woman is at the helm, it might be worth checking.
Lain Crowley (6629) on 7/19/2010 5:56 PM · Permalink · Report
I'd actually heard the opposite: that the alternate ending was there as a backup if they couldn't convince the publisher to let them end on a cliffhanger, and that the ending in the game was the intended one. What was cut for time reasons was the vampire fanatic's temple inside the human city. Also there was one other thing cut that they had a plan to hastily add in just to wrap up all the loose plot threads and instead just left it dangling at the end of the game, but I won't go into details since that's a bit spoilerish.