So I've never played this before and I have a simple question. Does it save you exactly in your spot, or does it save at the last checkpoint à la MGS1? I'm sort of afraid to check where is saves me...

Your progress is saved exactly when you save, but you resume back in the Underworld with the Elder God.

The warp gates make it fairly easy to get to around, so getting back to where you need to go is never much of a chore. Just remember to activate the gates when you see them.

@royce_mccutcheon: That's pretty frickin annoying. I'm having so much trouble figuring out which gate is which.

I got this game on Dreamcast when it came out, but it wasn't until last month that I finished it on Steam, and then played through two as well. Good games. Started Defiance, but then moved on. It was enjoyable as well, but I had enough of Soul Reaver at the time. You'll get used to the portals. It's not that hard to just walk into it just to see which one you're supposed to be at. It's pretty much a non issue. What are you playing this on? If it's on the PC, did you manage to get a controller working with it? I think I may have been able to, but I used the wrong one, so I used the keyboard, which isn't ideal, but surprisingly worked just fine.

@ntm: PSOne classics. Gonna have to respectfully disagree with you about the portals. The symbols alone are not enough. Generally speaking I'm spending most of my time getting lost and looking up guides.I want to write a user review for this game and it is rapidly heading towards threesville.

@slaps2: You walk into on, see if it's where you're currently wanting to be, then walk out if it's not and try the next portal; by the end, it's up to you to remember what sign is which, which I found relatively easy. Honestly, this being a personal issue, I'm not sure how you can use that against it. It's one thing to like an aspect or dislike an aspect, but I don't think the portal aspect is a subjective matter. Sure, it's not perfect, but I wouldn't say getting lost with them should be a factor. Also, if you just focus enough, you're probably not going to get lost; it sounds like you're not very enthusiastic about it, so some interest may be lost along the way, and you resort to a quick way of getting about. I'd have to disagree with you about those aspects. The hardest part is perhaps getting stuck on a puzzle, or trying to figure out how to beat a boss, and even that isn't too bad.