The story begins after the bad ending in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain takes place. Kain is now in control of Nosgoth, which is in a horrible state. We are introduced to Raziel, the first-born of Kain's vampire lieutenants, who we'll be playing as. One day, Raziel reveals newly-grown wings while in front of Kain, who immediately decides to tear them apart before throwing Raziel in the Lake of the Dead as punishing for surpassing him in vampiric ability. Raziel is destroyed by the whirlpool, but he is resurrected as a wraith by The Elder God and made his "Soul Reaver."
The Elder God tells Raziel that he must kill Kain and avenge his own death, and to do that, he must also destroy his brothers. The Elder God controls the Wheel of Fate, a cycle of reincarnation of souls that circle the Wheel in a loop of fate. Since vampires are immortal, however, their souls do not spin with the wheel, and as the Wheel stalls and is unable to spin, the land of Nosgoth falls further into decay. By killing his brothers as well as Kain himself, the Wheel of Fate will be able to spin again and fend off the decay of Nosgoth. Along with that, Raziel will be able to avenge his own death.
Unlike the first game, this game is entirely in 3D and works much like the usual 3D platformer of the day. The D-Pad moves around, X jumps and Square attacks. Circle lets you absorb souls (more on that later. R1 lets you sneak while moving. R1 and R2 together allow you to go into first-person mode and look around with the D-Pad while the buttons are held. Select lets you select spells, while Start pauses and also allows you to save the game.
By following the path in front of you, you'll run into the first of many gates in the game. You'll want to find and activate all of the gates in the game, as they will allow you to go from one place to another quickly and easily. Just stand on the plate in front of the arch, and you'll activate the gate. You can press Square to engage the gate, but this is the first one you've found so far, and you won't be able to teleport anywhere else...yet. You can see the other gates by pressing Left and Right, but you won't be able to enter them with Up because you haven't activated all the other gates yet. Pressing Square again lets you exit.
Beyond the gate, you'll learn the game's controls. You'll find out that instead of hungering for blood, you will now be requiring souls for sustenance. Whenever you see a green light flying around, you can hold the Circle button to attract the soul towards yourself and then absorb it, refilling the spiral gauge in the lower-right corner.
When you fill up your health gauge (or what passes for one), the barrier beyond the soul fountain opens, and you'll be able to continue on. You'll then learn to jump with the X button. If you jump into a ledge, Raziel will grab on, and you can pull yourself up with Up on the D-Pad or drop down with Down.
Holding L1 lets you crouch, and if you jump while crouching, you'll be able to perform a high jump, which lets you perform a jump straight up into the air that is higher than your normal one. This will let you grab some ledges that your normal jump will not allow you to reach. If you move while holding L1, you can do a duck walk, but enemies can still notice you, so it's better to sneak with R1.
Pressing X a second time and holding it while in mid-air allows you to glide. From there, you can use the D-Pad to control yourself as you slowly descend, if you need to.
You'll then learn to fight. Holding R1 while facing an enemy will allow you to focus on them. From there, you can beat them up with the Square button. You can also dodge by pressing X while moving in any direction as you hold R1. The two enemies here are lost souls who cannot find rest, and you'll need to hit them until they turn transparent, which will cause them to run away from you. From there, you can hold the Circle button to absorb them and their souls, which in turn will refill your energy.
The blue lights on the ground are portals that take you from the spectral realm, where you are now, to the material realm, which is the land of the living. When your energy gauge is glowing, it is completely filled. When your energy gauge is completely filled, press Select while standing on one of these blue lights, then use the one spell that is available to you by moving it to the center with Left and Right on the D-Pad and pressing the Square button to cast it. This will bring you to the material realm.
When this happens, your gauge will go from straight and angular twists to a perfect, circular spiral. The gauge will then slowly trickly down as time passes, but that will change later in the game. Until then, keep beating down enemies and maintain your strength.
Your energy bar not only goes down from the passage of time, but also from taking too much damage from enemies or hazards. If you lose all your energy, you'll be kicked back to the spirit realm, and you'll need to refill your energy back to full in order to return to the material realm. Some hazards, such as water, will outright kill you and send you back to the spirit realm. You'll want to avoid going completely into deep water. Thankfully, you don't die in this game. Water will have no effect on you while in the spirit realm, and you'll be able to move around in like on dry land.
You'll soon run into vampire-like creatures that are the children of Dumah, one of your brethren and one of Kain's vampire lieutenants, feasting on a corpse. You'll need to defeat them like you did the undead enemies from earlier, but fighting enemies in the material realm is a bit different. The controls are the same, but this time, you'll need to beat them up until they are stunned, then you'll need to do something to kill them.
There are multiple ways to kill stunned enemies. The first is by impaling them with something such as a pole weapon. If you can grab a pole weapon, you can fight with it, and then press Triangle in front of a stunned enemy to impale them. When an enemy is dead, you must feed on their soul with the Circle button, or else they will be revived and you'll have to fight them again. You won't be seeing this until a little bit later,
You can also throw them into things such as water, fire, sunlight or sharp objects protruding from the wall. To do this, beat up an enemy until they are stunned, then you must hold Triangle to pick them up. Keep holding Triangle to keep them above your head, then release the Triangle button after facing something that will kill the opponent. From there, you can absorb their soul with Circle to feed on their soul and regain strength. You must be unarmed in order to pick up and throw stunned enemies.
As you fight enemies, they do show wear and tear and start getting bloodied, which I find a nice touch for a game from the late 1990s.
Sometimes, you will be able to move blocks. To move a block, walk up to one and hold Square. Raziel wlll dig his claws into them. While holding Square, use Up, Down, Left and Right on the D-Pad to drag the block around. There will be times when you will have to move blocks around to get to other places. You can only move blocks in the material realm; blocks will be frozen in place in the spiritual realm.
This is where learning to use first-person view mode will come in handy for the first time; as a matter of fact, you'll be using it everywhere you go just to see where you can go. It's up to you to figure out how to get there.
You'll soon reach the outside world, and you'll find out that Nosgoth is truly in ruins and that centuries have passed since Kain killed him. The Elder God then explains the events at the end of Blood Omen where Kain condemned Nosgoth to doom and destruction by destroying the Pillars of Nosgoth instead of sacrificing himself to restore them. It will be up to us to change things...
