Played this game back back in the early 2000s era. I wish they made games like this again. Combat was a bit clunky but the music, story line, and voice acting were fantastic. Obviously left an impression nearly 20 years later.
I'm excited but nervous about the idea of a new game/remake. The voice acting is stellar and I'm not sure how I feel about someone else taking up the mantle.
I like it, but it's not as good as the original Soul Reaver or Defiance.
The biggest issue this game has is the save system. In the first game where you could save pretty much anywhere and just had to navigate back to the last area you were in after loading. In Soul Reaver 2 you can only save at preset points which can be few and far between. There are sections of the game that take multiple hours to complete on a first playthrough, where you don't have access to a save point and quitting means losing your progress.
The world design has also been downgraded somewhat IMO. The environments look much nicer and there's a wider variety of them, but the world as a whole is much less interconnected. The first game was a pseudo metroidvania, where completing an area would unlock shortcuts and everything linked back to a central hub. Soul Reaver 2 is much more linear, and the parts where you do have to backtrack are more tedious as a result.