I have finally got my hands on the old US PSM issue no.19, which houses the most interesting preview and strategy guide for the cut content of Soul Reaver! All credit goes to Whitney from Silent Hill site, who kindly uploaded the pages regarding Soul Reaver and thanks to Kevin who contacted her.
SR1 is refered to as "Kain 2"
This page has rare shots of an early Soul Reaver, when Raziel held it like a sword. Also notice the caption under Turelim vampire (Dark Demons part) saying: "This Aluka boss grants Kain the ability to breathe underwater." which has every single word in it wrong! The page also mentions that Raziel mission is to exterminate all the vampires in Nosgoth and that humans would give you tips.
From this page, they included a strategy guide (Guide for an unreleased game? This is rather unusual and premature). Adepts are called "acolytes" in their description and mentions the Melchahim as "Skinner clan", while refering to Necropolis as area called "Melchahim" instead.
On this page, Rahabim are called "the Aluka clan" and also mentions two cut abilities - Shift at Will and possession. Shift at Will will be gained after 2/3 of the game and that Raziel can now access Sound Forge, Sound Glyph, Force Glyph and Undercity. It also describes how would possession ability work in great detail.
This page deals with Glyphs. Strangely, it describes the Sunlight Glyph being the weakest (only stunning enemies instead of burning them) and Force Glyph is put as pre-last (while it doesn´t kill enemies like Sound and Fire Glyph do).
My fellow SR1 researchers Kevin Chatmajo and Aevum have found interesting collections of old images from many gaming sites. Some of them are previously unseen images of alpha and beta versions of the game.
Sources: allgame, GIA, Player´s Choice Games, Gamespot, MobyGames, Gamer´s Hell,
Also, check another version of Sanctus Christus SR1 video (in French) which has tons of unseen footage:
Great article - but I have one question - did they actually play a version where the missing content was still available and in the game? If they wrote this themselves based upon experience than maybe somewhere there lies a version on a dusty disk in some journalists drawer which could be considered the unedited version of the game :)
ReplyDeleteThanks :) I think what they got to play are certain sections which were complete at the time and they got handed info about the forges and bosses on paper (they wouldn´t otherwise know the dev names for the clans - Aluka, Skinner and wall crawlers).
DeleteYaay :D
ReplyDeleteMan,i love the Raziel Alpha model,plus,it's funny they confused him with Kain just for being in the title "Legacy Of" LoL.By the way,talking to the humans would be pretty cool,and in the screen seems like the man is talking to you,which is really nice :D Anyway,what's the blue thing above "The city dwellers will react to your presence..." phrase? Seems like the Reaver viewed from a distance. o.O
ReplyDeleteHaha, yeah, it´s pretty funny they did :D Yes, that´s the early wraithblade model :)
DeleteCool,I wonder what was it doing there though...maybe it was meant to be picked/dropped like other weapons?Or was it placed there only for test something?Who knows,lol...
ReplyDelete