Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (PlayStation)

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Developer: Crystal Dynamics Publisher: Eidos Interactive Platform: PlayStation Released in US: August 16, 1999 Released in EU: 1999 This game has unused areas. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused sounds. This game has anti-piracy features. 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.

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

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 PAL regions, like 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 unfortunately prevents the European version from being played on a PlayStation 3 due to the software emulation setting off this measure. Note, however, that this protection is present only in the PAL version of the game; it is not present in the North American NTSC (NTSC-U/C) version.

(Source: Copy Protected PlayStation games list, MVG's video about copy protection schemes on PS, tested through Mednafen and Duckstation emulators)