Developed by: Crystal Dynamics | Published by: Eidos Interactive | Played: 08/21/02

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Great animation, sound, and art style. It is very colorful, imaginative, and professionally put together. It gives off an ethereal, mystical feeling that is very intriguing. The graphical quality was top notch too (for PS2).

A story that touches on the good, evil, fate, ethereal, and spiritual subjects. It was done pretty well.

Each area has a different feel - castles, river forests, caverns, tombs, etc.

The obstacle courses that you had to endure were all unique, put together well, had lots of variety, and were imaginative.

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The story was really strange and hard to follow. I'm a vampire fighting humans, but not all vampires are bad, and not all the humans are good, and sometimes I fight vampires too. First I think that bad guy is Kain, then it's the Sarapham guy, then it's the elder god squid, then it's some guy weaving the web of fate that I haven't met yet... and it just keeps getting more and more obscure as you progress. Then the theme at the end, "History abhors a paradox", was even more obscure and vague. The more I thought about it's meaning and how it relates to the rest of the story, the less it made sense.

The talking style the characters use with the poetic long-worded speech is kind of strange until you get used to it. All of the characters use this same speech pattern, which takes away from diversity. This style of long worded speech makes the game kind of unattractive. It might be interesting if just one of the characters talked that way, but not when all the characters do.

The levels are often times difficult to navigate, and it does a bad job of letting you know where to go. Often times the place that you are supposed to go to next is hidden in the shadows, or hidden from view and hard to find. Then there are pitfalls that you fall into before you can see them. The lack of a map makes it all the more frustrating. The game also does a bad job of telling you when to switch to the ethereal plane and not. Underwater controls are strange too. Although this isn't so bad once you get used to it.

Complex controls take some getting used to, and aren't all that intuitive.