Soul Reaver 2 Air Forge demo

The Air Forge Demo was a promotional prerelease version of Soul Reaver 2 that centred around an early version of the Air Forge.

Profile

 * Name: Air Forge Demo
 * Classification: Demos
 * Game: Soul Reaver 2
 * Source: Official Playstation Magazine/Playstation 2 magazine
 * Released: October 2001 (issue 12/49)
 * Location: Air Forge/The Air Forge (chapter)
 * Objectives: Recover the Blue heart and return it to its corpse.
 * Related Articles: Air Forge (SR2), The Air Forge (chapter), Blue heart, Debug menus

Role and Contents
The Air Forge Demo was released as a part of the Official PlayStation 2 Magazines demo disc in October 2001. Focusing on one particular area of the Air Forge The demo itself has quite a few different features than the final version of Soul Reaver 2. It includes a cinematic opening not seen anywhere else with Raziel swinging his wraithblade around, a soul flying by and creating the number "2" behind the game´s logo.

The demo starts with a slideshow shortly retelling the ending of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and the course of Soul Reaver 2, followed by a hint on what to do in the demo and control scheme. Then the game loads and starts with a cutscene, which zooms in on different parts of Raziel's body from various angles and finishes up with Raziel´s right eye squinting. The player then can proceed to open the door with the Reaver. One of the most obvious changes is the skybox containing a blue moon and the presence of two Sarafan warriors in the main chamber.

Layout
Raziel starts in the room just past the tunnel where the spirit beacon is in the retail version. Everything prior to this area has been blocked off and is not present in the demo. Only the blue heart path is available, as all other paths are sealed and inaccessible. Once Raziel obtains the heart and brings it to the restrained corpse, the stone gargoyle eats the soul, starts blowing wind and the demo ends.

Differences from the retail version

 * The demo starts in the room just beyond the spirit beacon in the final version,
 * There are two Sarafan in the hub area with the snake statue,
 * Mice are seen on the ground in the first area,
 * Raziel´s health coil only appears after the first door is opened,
 * A large moon is seen in the sky throughout all of the Air Forge,
 * Thralls guard all elemental fonts instead of the shades,
 * Crossed swords serve as an indication of being engaged in combat,
 * During combat, Raziel produces the same audio cue as in Soul Reaver,
 * The Reaver is very weak and it requires several slashes to finish an enemy,
 * The Reaver does the charging up move before inflicting the final blow to the enemy,
 * Souls fly for a second before being devoured by the Reaver,
 * Raziel´s health drops really fast when hit by enemies,
 * There is a golden-blue compass,
 * Debug menu contains all seven Reaver enhancements,
 * Debug menu includes projected shadow option for Raziel,
 * Debu menu also enables the use of the widescreen,
 * Debug menu contains list of all the areas, but none of them can be loaded,
 * There is no map in the radial menu.