MediEvil

A rather dark and grim video game at first glance, MediEvil meshes humour, a dark theme and some pretty nice level design to give us probably one of the most memorable Playstation games I have personally played.

The Story

An evil wizard rises to threat the kingdom of the good guys by summoning hordes of monsters and undead from the grave to do his bidding. A large battle between the heroes and the armies of the good guys happens, but alas, our protagonist dies in the initial charge via a plethora of arrows-in-the-face. When he re-awakens from the grave he finds out that the Wizard has indeed won the battle and you are now the laughing stock of every hero ever as your character, Sir Fortesque, died literally before the battle even begun. The twist however is thatyou are the only hope to destroy the wizard. As such you are called to travel around various areas, conquer the minions of the evil Sorcerer, regain weapons wielded by legendary heroes and destroy evil.

What seperates it from the pack

For starters, the humor. Your character died in the initial charge and there is literally no npc that is willing to let you forget about it. With jabs at your incompetence to downright laughing in your face, the only thing your character can do is just grumble with annoyance, as being undead he has lost his ability to speak.

The game’s theme is a very dark fantasy setting, with the usual goth landscapes of cemetaries, pumpkin patches, cursed forests etc, however it never does so in a way that is too -in your face-. It manages to pull a very dark and bleak atmosphere with surprisingly vivid colors and extravagant designs. Even now I am still not sure if the game was meant to be a parody or a serious game, as it walks the line between making fun of itself and taking itself seriously with expertise.

The Game itself

In an era where controls/mechanics fought you as much as the puzzle’s did, the game was one of the best of its genre. Up there with the likes of Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, the game controlled perfectly with very few moments of frustration to its responsivenes.

In addition the game, though a rather standard puzzle platformer/hack and slash, the game offers a variety of enemies, weapons and challenges to throw at the player, making it one of the funnest games I have personally played. With matching music, voice acting and sound effects, this game is a perfect way to pass the time, especially now in the spookiest of months.

Final Words (TL/DR)

One of the better games of the Playstation one era in my opinion, MediEvil is a game with nice controls, interesting enemies, fun and funny story and a more dark/mature theme for anyone looking to play something like Spyro and Crash, but with a more dark/adult template.