 On the PlayStation 2, Soul Reaver 2 respectively received an aggregate score of 80.71 % and 80 / 100 from rating websites GameRankings and Metacritic. Various reviewers held its storytelling, visuals and sound in high regard, but described its gameplay as dull and unsatisfying. Doug Perry of IGN praised the game's dark atmosphere and intriguing story, but said that it can become tiresome and drag on. He thought the "haughtiness" and drama of the dialogue, particularly between Raziel and Kain, was often overdone, and noted that its gameplay was near identical to that of its predecessor but with less replay value. Perry enjoyed the new puzzles involving the elemental powers of the Reaver for being more complex and diverse than the block puzzles of Soul Reaver, and praised the combat system. He gave the game a score of 9.0, but in his later review for Defiance, he revised his opinion, saying this rating was "way too high" and "that game told a great story, but just didn't deserve that score".
