Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (PlayStation)
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver |
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Developer: Crystal Dynamics This game has unused areas. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page |
Soul Reaver is the second game in the Legacy of Kain series. Featuring a seamless open world and a morbid post-apocalyptic story, it helped innovate many conventions that are commonplace in action-adventure games today. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and over-ambition, the game had to be severely stripped down to meet its deadline, resulting in the entire last third being cut and an infamously abrupt ending. So it unfolds...
To do: Shift At Will, Ariel/Kain Reavers, unused passage in Melchiah's Territory. |
Contents
Sub-Pages
Prototype Info |
Prerelease Info |
Notes |
Unused Audio Words unspoken. Many. |
Unused Maps
City 10 and City 11 are two passageways that would have connected to the Undercity, a large area cut from the final release due to programming issues, via the Human Citadel. While these can be loaded in-game with hacking, they are not programmed to connect to City 9 or with each other.
City 10 | City 11 |
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Oddities
- The Underworld is normally inaccessible in Material Realm due to it being closed off, and even using Shift-At-Will, which allows Raziel to shift without a portal, the game will still disable shifting when Raziel gets near. Despite this, if the game is hacked so Raziel can shift anyway the Underworld can be accessed in Material. The geometry is slightly different, but most notably the entrance tunnel is underwater, indicating that the entirety of the Underworld is intended to be underwater like later games.
- Under very rare circumstances, such as moving so fast via glitches the game can't keep up, a 'Streaming' message will display on-screen, indicating the game needs time to stream from the disc before continuing.
Debug Menu Remnants
Despite the debug menu itself being removed from the final game, there's remnants of debug functionality still lurking in the final game.
Camera Unit Info
Display this with the following code and press L1 + L2/R1 + R2:
D00CE5E4 FAFF 8002F554 0000 D00CE5E4 F9FF 8002F554 0006
This seems to display what the latest area the camera needs to be rendering is, using the internal file names for locations.
Along with this, several pieces of dialog still remain in SLUS_007.08 at the following hex offsets.
0xBE740:
-abs -rel -center unknown format control: %s YES NO %d FRTE %d INS %d /%d FRTE %d Focus XYZ(%d,%d,%d) IDLE %d PCT IDLE ZERO DRAW %d Far Plane =%d Fog Near = %d Fog Far = %d Military Time %04d FMEM %d FreeSaveMem %d AREA DRM = %s CAM TILT %d DIST %d Loading From CD: In Queue(%d) hub Sound RAM usage... Sfx ID %3d loaded Ref count=%d Using wave ID %3d Sfx ID %3d **LOAD ERROR** %ld sfx loaded (%ld waves) using %ld bytes SRAM Free Sram:%ld Largest Free Sram Block:%ld
0xBED04:
eaggots eaggot healths particle force soul sreavr glphicon paths raziel Cameraunit: %s Processing unit %s Military Time %04d %s%d
0xBEDF0:
raziel__ Spline %s%ld playto %d preveFram=%ld frame=%ld endOfSpline=%ld, maxFrames=%ld Spline %s%d : clip(%d,%d) prevFrame=%d, frame=%d Spline %s%d prevFrame=%d, frame=%d
Anti-Piracy
Some PlayStation games released after 1998 (especially in Europe, Oceania and South Africa) contain the LibCrypt protection system developed by Sony, in order to curb modchips and illegal copies on the system.
The LibCrypt functions on the software level in two ways: by detecting a modchip upon bootup of the game and by detecting an illegal copy through a 16-bit key located in the subchannel data of the disc. The first check is to see whether or not a modchip is installed on the system. As earlier modchips are active by default, all that is necessary to detect one is for the program to return data from a modchip. If it detects it, the game crashes immediately. This was mitigated by pirates with so-called "stealth" modchips, which turn off immediately when loading disc region data during boot-up. However, the second check now comes into play. The second part functions as a part of the game. It decrypts the 16-bit LibCrypt data key stored in the subchannel of the disc and stores it in the coprocessor of the system. If the data is incorrect, the game implements its anti-piracy measures. As most CD burners cannot properly replicate subchannel data on the disc, a pirated copy, whether burned directly to another disc or as a disc image, trips the anti-piracy measure by default.
A modded system allows for a backup, a pirated copy, or a legitimate copy of the game from a region different than the console, to start normally. However, with LibCrypt, the game can crash, freeze or perform tricks to prevent pirates, depending on the title.
In the case of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, the game freezes upon encountering the very first enemy in the tutorial section. This does not occur on the PAL version if played on a PlayStation 3 as the software emulation as the software emulation config stores an entry for the game. Note, however, that this protection is present only in the PAL version of the game; it is not present in the North American version.
The Legacy of Kain series
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Windows | Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain |
PlayStation | Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain • Soul Reaver (Prototypes) |
Dreamcast | Soul Reaver |
PlayStation 2 | Soul Reaver 2 • Blood Omen 2 |
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- Games released in 1999
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- To do
- Legacy of Kain series
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