MediEvil

MediEvil is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by SCE Cambridge Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. The game is set in the medieval Kingdom of Gallowmere and centres around the charlatan protagonist, Sir Daniel Fortesque, as he makes an attempt to stop antagonist Zarok's invasion of the kingdom whilst simultaneously redeeming himself.

This article is about the 1998 game. For other games in the series, see MediEvil (series).

MediEvil
European cover art
Developer(s)SCE Cambridge Studio
Publisher(s)Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s)Chris Sorrell
Producer(s)Chris Sorrell
Designer(s)Jason Wilson
Artist(s)Bob Harison
Writer(s)Jason Wilson
Martin Pond
Composer(s)Andrew Barnabas
Paul Arnold
SeriesMediEvil
Platform(s)PlayStation
Release
  • EU: 9 October 1998
  • NA: 21 October 1998
Genre(s)Action-adventure, hack and slash
Mode(s)Single-player

Development began in 1995 at Millennium Interactive in Cambridge under the working title of Dead Man Dan. The visuals are heavily influenced by Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Originally conceived as an arcade-style shooter for platforms such as Windows and the Sega Saturn, Sony's purchase of SCE Cambridge Studio evolved the game into a PlayStation title. The game received mostly positive praise from critics upon release, with praise including its blend of Halloween themed visuals, but was criticised for its controls and cumbersome camera work.

It was released in Europe and North America in 1998, and in Japan in 1999. It was also re-released on the PlayStation Network in 2007. It was followed by a sequel, MediEvil 2, in 2000, and a PlayStation Portable remake in 2005 titled MediEvil: Resurrection. A PlayStation 4 remake was released on 25 October 2019, to enhance the graphics and experience of gameplay.

Gameplay
The first level

The game takes place across a variety of levels, many of which require certain objectives to be performed to progress. Sir Daniel Fortesque can use a variety of weapons, consisting of close range weapons such as swords and clubs to long range weapons such as crossbows.[1] Many can be charged for a powerful attack and some, such as the club, can be used to access areas that are otherwise inaccessible. When not possessing any items, Dan is able to rip his arm off and use it for both melee and ranged attacks.[2] Dan can equip a shield alongside weapons for defence, but shields have a limited amount of strength and are therefore best used sparingly. Throughout the game, Dan can visit gargoyle heads of two varieties: green ones offer Dan information while blue ones allow Dan to buy services or ammunition by using the treasures he finds.[3]

Dan's health is determined by a health bar, which reduces when Dan is hit. It will deplete completely if Dan drowns or falls from a great height. If Dan runs out of health, the game will end.[1] Dan can extend his maximum health by collecting Life Bottles, which will automatically refill his health bar if it drops to zero. Also hidden throughout the game are Life Vials and Life Fountains that replenish Dan's health and fill any empty Life Bottles Dan has.[4] In each level, there is a hidden Chalice of Souls which can be collected if the player has dispatched enough enemies (some Chalices are awarded via other means). Certain enemies have no soul and therefore do not count while the levels "The Sleeping Village" and "The Haunted Ruins" include NPCs with "good souls" that will reduce the Chalice percentage if killed. If the player clears a level with a Chalice in hand, Dan is warped to the Hall of Heroes, where he can speak to a hero who will give him rewards, such as weapons. If the player finishes the game with all the Chalices, the true ending is revealed.[1]

Plot

In the year 1286, an evil sorcerer named Zarok plotted to take over the kingdom of Gallowmere with his undead army.[5] It is told in legend that the champion, Sir Daniel Fortesque, led the King of Gallowmere's army to victory and managed to kill Zarok before he succumbed to his mortal wounds.[6][5] In reality, however, Dan was struck down by the first arrow fired in the battle, with the king choosing to cover it up and declare Dan the "Hero of Gallowmere".[5] Zarok, meanwhile, went into hiding.[5] 100 years later, Zarok reappears, casting a spell over Gallowmere to plunge it into eternal night, awaken his undead army and steal the souls of the living.[6] However, in the process, he unwittingly revives Dan, who has over time become a skeletal corpse, missing his jaw which fell off and the left eye he lost in the battle of Gallowmere.[6] Having been unable to ascend to the fabled Hall of Heroes for his ignoble death, Dan uses this opportunity to defeat Zarok, save Gallowmere and earn his place as a true hero.[7]

As Dan travels across Gallowmere, fighting his way through Zarok's hordes and confronting all manner of beasts, he soon arrives at Zarok's lair, fighting off Zarok's skeletal personal guard using the souls of his old allies retrieved by collecting the Chalices.[7] After also managing to defeat Zarok's champion, Lord Kardok, (who also died from being struck in the eye in the battle of Gallowmere by Dan's crossbowman and second in command, Canny Tim) Zarok turns into a powerful monster, but Dan manages to defeat him.[8] As Zarok uses his last breath to cause his lair to collapse in an attempt to take Dan with him (inadvertently crushing himself in the process), Dan escapes and Zarok's magical influence over the land is thwarted, restoring the souls back to the living and putting the dead back to rest.[9][10] With the magic cast on him also wearing off as a result, Dan returns to his burial chamber where he once again enters eternal slumber.[10] If the player has managed to collect all the Chalices, Dan will ascend to the Hall of Heroes, where he is hailed as the rightful Hero of Gallowmere.[11]

Development

Development of MediEvil begun in late 1995 at independent developer Millennium Interactive in Cambridge.[12] Chris Sorrell, previously known for the James Pond series of games, created the original concept for MediEvil and served as the game's creative director.[13] Sorrell joined Millennium, with whom he had been working with for a while, after completing James Pond 3. When asked what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to work with someone on the visual side. Jason Wilson, who would be the designer and a writer for the game, met up with Sorrell and began working on MediEvil.[12]

Don't care about graphics! Do care about processes!

–Dave Burrows, explaining the studio's development process in a retrospective "post-mortem"[14]

According to Sorrell, the first design proposal for the game had the working title ‘Dead Man Dan’ and described a game that was initially a fusion of Capcom's Ghost'n Goblins combined with the art style of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.[13] As development progressed, lead artist Wilson pushed the game into more of a Zelda role playing game-influenced direction as opposed to the original arcade-style concept. Looking to attract a major publishing deal, Millennium Interactive initially began working on multiple platforms including Windows and the Sega Saturn before giving Sony of Europe a working demo of the game. Impressed by the progress, Sony signed MediEvil to be an exclusive PlayStation game and commissioned SCE Cambridge Studio as Sony's second studio in the United Kingdom, after Psygnosis.[13] During the production of the demo, there was a programmer for each platform.[12] Millennium was having financial difficulties and wanted to secure a publisher quickly. Sega and Microsoft were also interested in the game.[12]

SCE Cambridge wanted the game to possess a unique lead character, thus Sorrell worked with script doctor Martin Pond whilst creating an expansive backstory for the lead protagonist, Sir Daniel Fortesque. Pond came up with the idea that Sir Daniel could have been a pompous failure in life whose reincarnation was his one shot at redemption.[13][15] This idea, along with the player-character's unusual appearance, turned appealing to some sectors of the gaming community, as lead designer Wilson later recalled that female gamers considered Sir Daniel to be endearing, and was considered a sex symbol in France.[15]

Sony's acquisition of SCE Cambridge (which occurred within six months of Sony agreeing to publish the game[12]) helped ease financial strain on the project, but did not assist the studio's inexperience with making 3D games.[15] The takeover was also "quite intimidating" to Sorrell and Wilson, who had not held conferences. Sorrell stated the concept of conferences was "totally alien".[12] He felt that the game started to feel like a major project after a few meetings.[12]

Sorrell admitted in a retrospective interview that MediEvil presented "a mountain of challenges", since they, as many other developers at the time, were new to 3D gaming. He also admitted that some members of the team spent long nights without sleeping in order to finish the game on time.[15] He described it as "a huge learning project" for the team.[12] During development, the Cambridge team played beta versions of successful platformers such as Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot which helped them understand how they might solve some challenges in building a 3D action game for the first time.[13][15]

Sony requested that MediEvil should support the PlayStation analogue controller, which Sorrell described as a "particularly fortuitous event" as it allowed them to capture much more fluidity and intuitiveness within the game. New concepts such as camera and character control presented many drawbacks and required the team to try out a number of approaches before settling on solutions that seemed to work. The team finally settled on the concept that MediEvil would support both analogue and digital camera-related controls for balance reasons.[15] Sorrell stated that a spline camera view was the first attempt, but he disliked it due to the lack of freedom for the player to feel as if he was exploring. It was then changed to a free-form camera view, which "just worked".[16] There were also many levels and ideas from the original concept that the team were forced to remove due to time or budget constraints. There was intended to be a platform-oriented section of the game where the player would control the worm that lived in Daniel's skull. Concept art and a separate level was created for this section, but it never materialised into the game.[17]

Humour drove the game forward for Sony Cambridge Studio. Jokes were reflexions on how the team operated. Sorrell explained that the humour was a "happy accident", and that he used it only when he thought it appropriate. Wilson said that the team were "youthful and silly", and they liked horror films and comedy. He thought the humour was "a natural extension of our personalities".[12]

Paul Darrow voiced the character of Zarok

Music

The original soundtrack of the game was composed by Paul Arnold and Andrew Barnabas, the musical duo more commonly known as "Bob & Barn". SCE Cambridge instructed them to compose a Danny Elfman-influenced score, similar to those of Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Batman Returns.[18] The music was created using electronic synthesisers to simulate an entire orchestra and organ.[19]

The 2005 PlayStation Portable re-imagining MediEvil: Resurrection used parts of the MediEvil score, along with original elements composed by Bob & Barn that was performed by a live orchestra and choir.[19] An album was made from this music and signed copies can be purchased from the artists' website.[20]

Marketing and release

Sorrell explained that, during the marketing campaign, the team were frequently asked to go to graveyards for photo-shoots. These usually went without incident, but on one occasion a vicar asked them why they were filming on church property. They lied by telling him that they were students filming a documentary on churches.[15] Marketing campaigns also incorporated Sony Cambridge Studio's humour.[16]

MediEvil was first released in North America and Europe in October 1998.[21][22][23] The Japanese version, titled MediEvil: Yomigaetta Gallowmere no Yūsha,[lower-alpha 1] was released on 17 June 1999.[24] The character of Fortesque proved unpopular there, because they considered the idea of a skeleton being the protagonist strange.[15] The game was later released with C-12: Final Resistance in a two-disc pack on 9 May 2003.[25] It was also re-released on the PlayStation Network in 2007.[26] In 2011, MediEvil was ported to Android, although it is only compatible with PlayStation-certified devices such as the Sony Xperia Play.[27][28]

Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings80%[21]
Review scores
PublicationScore
CVG[29]
Edge7/10[30]
GameRevolutionA-[31]
GameSpot8.2/10[32]
IGN7.8/10[1]
5.9/10 (PSP)[33]
Next Generation[34]
Know Your Mobile (Android)[28]

The game received positive reviews from critics upon release. It received an aggregate score of 80 percent from GameRankings[21] and was mostly praised for its Halloween-influenced atmosphere by many critics.[33][2] IGN's Chris Roper praised the game's sense of humour and unique presentation, but was skeptical about the game's "sloppy" controls and disjointed level designs, noting that the game's graphics did not age well over time as compared to the PSP remake which offered superior graphics and gameplay.[33] Game Revolution similarly praised the humour but criticised the game for being too straightforward and "easy to master", noting that the graphics and gameplay were slightly inferior to that of Banjo-Kazooie,[31] Edge's reviewer believed the game is "well crafted in some respects, underdeveloped in others": the "ingenious" feel was praised, but many levels were felt to be simple cases of maze navigation.[30] The reviewer of Computer and Video Games criticised the game's repetitiveness, but said it "looks nice, and plays OK".[29] The reviewer of Next Generation liked the dark humour, but complained about the camera, saying it does not smoothly keep up with the character. The conclusion was that MediEvil merely repeated what had already been done.[34] Joystick's reviewer thought that MediEvil would be a new whim for players.[35]

The music and atmosphere were the mostly praised aspects of the game. Many reviewers compared the visuals to be similar to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, Joe Fielder of GameSpot credited MediEvil for its original look and number of unique puzzles, but criticised the camera work, summarising that a "tighter camera control" would have been a necessity.[32] Randy Nelson of IGN considered the game to be a homage to Capcom's Ghosts & Goblins, stating that the game took too many inspirations from others and not enough innovation was put into it to make it "unique". Nelson praised the environment of the game but considered the gameplay to be best suited for "a mindless hack-'n-slash romp".[1]

The Android version was described as "rather expensive" by Damien McFerran of Know Your Mobile, but he praised the humour and the amount of content, which he said made the game stand out from other 3D action games on Android.[28]

Sales

The game has been re-released as a "PlayStation Platinum" title in 1999, meaning it sold at least 400,000 copies in Europe.[36]

Remakes
  • In 2005, a "reimagining" was released on the PlayStation Portable under the title MediEvil: Resurrection. The gameplay is similar, but there are several additional minigames and plot elements.
  • An eponymous PlayStation 4 remake was released on 25 October 2019. It was developed by American studio Other Ocean Emeryville.[37] The original 1998 game can be unlocked in the remake by completing special objectives.

Notes
  1. MediEvil: Yomigaetta Gallowmere no Yūsha (メディーバル 〜甦ったガロメアの勇者〜)
gollark: TEDx is a SCP, obviously.
gollark: See: reverse engineering.
gollark: TJ09 does do the ignorance is strength thing pretty well.
gollark: Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. War is peace.
gollark: Big TJ09 is watching you.

References
  1. Nelson, Randy (22 October 1998). "MediEvil – IGN". IGN. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  2. Levine, Andy. "MediEvil review and overlook". GamersHell. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  3. "E3 2011: MediEvil Moves: Deadmund's Quest Off-Screen Gameplay Part 2". IGN. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  4. "MediEvil overview". IGN. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  5. "The Legend of Sir Daniel Fortesque". MediEvil PlayStation Manual (PAL ed.). Sony. 1998. p. 1.
  6. Strategy Guide, p. 6.
  7. Strategy Guide, pp. 8-111.
  8. Strategy Guide, pp. 110,111.
  9. SCE Cambridge Studio (1998). MediEvil (PlayStation). Sony. Scene: End. Level/area: Zarok's Lair.
  10. SCE Cambridge Studio (1998). MediEvil (PlayStation). Sony. Scene: Outro.
  11. Strategy Guide, p. 111.
  12. "Behind the scenes of MediEvil". GamesTM. 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  13. Dutton, Fred. "Behind the Classics: MediEvil". PlayStation Blog. PlayStation US. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
  14. Iain Simons (7 September 2005). "Postcard from GDC Europe 2005: Postmortem: SCEE's WipEout Pure". Gamasutra. UBM. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
  15. "The Making Of: MediEvil" (PDF). Retro Gamer. No. 49. Bournemouth: Imagine Publishing. pp. 60–63. ISSN 1742-3155. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  16. GamesTM (2015). "Behind The Scenes MediEvil". Retro Volume 8. Bournemouth: Imagine Publishing. pp. 126–131. ISBN 978-1-78546-122-4.
  17. "MediEvil developers Q&A". MediEvil Boards. ProBoards. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  18. Ittensohn, Oliver. "Interview with composer Paul Arnold". GSoundtracks. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
  19. "Sumthing Else Music Works Announces Release Of The Original Soundtrack CD For The PSP video game MediEvil Resurrection". Game Industry. Gamer Network. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  20. "MediEvil Resurrection Original Soundtrack Album". Bob and Barn. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  21. "GameRankings score". GameRankings. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  22. "Medievil". GameSpot. CBS Interactive Inc. Archived from the original on 28 November 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  23. "Checkpoint: Events and Software Releases". Computer and Video Games. No. 204. Peterborough: EMAP. November 1998. p. 40. ISSN 0261-3697. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  24. メディーバル 〜甦ったガロメアの勇者〜 まとめ [PS]. Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  25. "MediEvil / C-12: Final Resistance". GameSpot. CBS Interactive Inc. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  26. Kuchera, Ben (4 May 2007). "Downloaded PSone games finally available for play on the PS3". Ars Technica. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  27. "MediEvil™". Google Play. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  28. Damien McFerran (19 May 2011). "MediEvil review [Xperia Play]". Know Your Mobile. Dennis Publishing. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  29. "MediEvil". Computer and Video Games. No. 204. Peterborough: EMAP. November 1998. p. 48. ISSN 0261-3697. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  30. "MediEvil". Testscreen. Edge. No. 64. Bath: Future plc. November 1998. p. 87. ISSN 1350-1593.
  31. "MediEvil review (GameRevolution)". GameRevolution. CraveOnline. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  32. Fielder, Joe (23 October 1998). "MediEvil Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  33. Roper, Chris (9 April 2007). "MediEvil review". IGN. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  34. "MediEvil". Next Generation. No. 48. Imagine Media. December 1998. p. 128. ISSN 1078-9693. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  35. "Medievil [sic]". Joystick (in French). No. 97. October 1998. p. 208.
  36. "MediEvil (Platinum) (EU, 1999)". GameRankings. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  37. "PlayStation Blogcast 311: No Bones About It".

Sources
  • Greg Off (1998). MediEvil: The Official Strategy Guide. Dimension Publishing.
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