MediEvil (1998): Difference between revisions

During the game, the player must go through several places, from a [[The Graveyard (MediEvil)|graveyard]] full of zombies, to a [[The Ghost Ship|flying ghost ship]] full of undead pirates, to a levitating board in an [[The Enchanted Earth|enchanted forest]] surrounded by flying demonettes. There are also several collectible items found in the levels which have to be collected in order to proceed to further areas or levels. There are several [[books]] placed upon stands all over areas in the game which may offer advice to Sir Dan, while some others contain humorous jokes or generally the history of the area. Some of them are placed in hidden places, but they are mostly found along the path that Sir Dan takes. They can be read if struck with a close-range weapon.

Throughout the levels Sir Dan is presented with an opportunity to collect that particular level's chalice by filling it up with the souls of his enemies. This mystical item enables him to visit the Hall of Heroes after the conclusion of the level. Dan can only collect the chalice in each level when he has dispatched enough "defeated adversaries" to reach 100%. Chalices are hidden well and are not always at the end of a level, so Dan must back-track to the beginning to find it. In the "Hall of Heroes," he can converse with past heroes, "await spiritual guidance" and receive useful items or weapons to help him in his quest. Collecting all the chalices allows the player to see the true ending.

Alongside certain weapons, there are also many colourful and varying enemies, though particularly [[zombies]] in the opening levels, which Dan must defeat. Later on through the epic journey through Gallowmere, Dan will encounter a number of other monsters and creatures, most of which are modelled after gothic demons associated with the time period. [[Imps|Sticky-fingered Imps]], [[Scarecrows|demonic Scarecrows]], and Zarok's boiler guards are but a few of the ghastly and varied monstrosities that inhabit the levels. Very simple weapons will require much use in order to finish off a single enemy. Some enemies can only be attacked either at certain times or using specific weapons, such as the Scarecrows. Many weapons, such as swords and [[Throwing Daggers|throwing daggers]], can be charged up to produce a more powerful attack to finish beasts off more quickly.

*[[Sir Daniel Fortesque]] - The game's protagonist and playable character. He was King Peregrin's champion when he was alive. He was also one of the first men to die in the battle against Zarok and his Shadow Demons and was proclaimed Hero of Gallowmere by the king so that the people of the land would feel safe. When Zarok returns to raise an army of the dead, he also raises Sir Dan by mistake. Being given a second chance, Dan can finally prove himself a hero that he wasn't in his life by defeating Zarok.

*[[Zarok|Zarok the Sorcerer]] - The game's antagonist. He was King Peregrin's advisor and mage until he began dabbling in Necromancy, which led the King to exile him from the land. Embittered and filled with wrath, he led an army of Shadowy demons into battle against the King. His army was defeated, however, by the King's militia and soon he was proclaimed killed by Sir Dan. In truth, Zarok went into hiding, only to return 100 years later to try and take over the land once again.

{{Spoilers}}The game starts with a flashback in the 13th century in the fictional Kingdom of Gallowmere. It puts the player in control of Sir Daniel Fortesque: the reanimated skeleton of a deceased champion knight whom history holds in high esteem, due to his supposed heroics in battle against the evil sorcerer Zarok who, in 1286, had raised an army of demons and set out to take over the kingdom. The legend has it that Fortesque lead the King's army into battle against Zarok's demonic hordes and that Sir Daniel himself killed the sorcerer during the battle - despite having been mortally wounded at the outset - cementing his posthumous status as the "Hero of Gallowmere."

After finding a way out of the cemetery, getting through the rest of Gallowmere, making his way to the entrance of Zarok's lair and getting past every other obstacle the lair has, Dan finally makes his way to the lair's arena, where Zarok is waiting. There, Zarok sends out his fleet of skeletal warriors. But before doing this, Dan places one of the chalices he collected onto the white circle in the middle of the arena. This summons the souls belonging to the soldiers who fought in the war a century ago. Seeing that they are all ghosts, their weapons will affect Zarok's warriors, so they charge straight towards them and start fighting while Dan keeps his side alive by zapping them with good lightning (if the player fails to do this, Zarok's side will knock Dan out, resulting in an immediate game over.)

Once Zarok's side loses, Dan's warriors cheer while turning into health vials that Dan collects to get as much energy back as possible (he loses it while using the good lightning on his side). Zarok then summons his champion, Lord Kardok, a skeletal man wielding a mace and riding a skeletal horse. After Dan defeats him, Zarok finally has enough of Dan getting in the way and goes to his lab. There, he tries to turn himself into a monster capable of defeating Dan, while humorously having trouble casting the right spell. Zarok eventually gets it right and then enters the arena revealing himself to be a wingless dragon of some sort. The two fight, with Dan ending up victorious. Zarok then explodes into his normal form, while admitting defeat.

 

Zarok then gets up and states that if he is to fail, then all shall perish and that Sir Dan is doomed to stay in his lair forever. He then zaps the ceiling with his trident, which makes the roof cave in. While this happens, a big chunk of debris falls on top of Zarok with a humorous squeak. Dan then escapes and makes his way out to the arena entrance while the lair is falling apart. A small flying creature flies towards him, and then the two get blown back by the explosion of a sundial that was next to them. Dan manages to hang onto one of the floating cogs from The Time Device until he gets to a small cave. After brushing the dust off of his amour, Dan runs away from the fire caused by the lair's destruction, but he is unable to outrun it and the explosion sends him off the cliff. As he's falling to his doom, a giant vulture catches him and takes him back to his crypt while the stolen souls return to the people of Gallowmere. The vulture then drops him off at his crypt, which Dan re-enters and returns to his eternal rest.

*'''''[[13AV|<font color=black>Not all chalices collected</font>]]''': "After Dan returns to his eternal rest, the camera will zoom into the eye socket where Dan was not shot till the screen is completely black. The player is awarded a simple "The End" message. Then the [[Credits (MediEvil)|credits]] roll.

*'''''[[14AV|<font color=black>All chalices collected</font>]]''''': The same thing happens, only this time Dan ends up going to the Hall of Heroes. When he arrives, the rest of the heroes have come to life (to the point where they're not even statues anymore) and are celebrating. They then notice that Dan has arrived and grown quiet, whispering about his accomplishment. Dan then does a few acrobatics on the table and lands into the central chair, where he catches a cup that he flipped into the air with his foot. One of the heroes fills it up with wine and Dan unsuccessfully drinks it (he is still in his skeletal form, therefore he has no throat). The other heroes then applaud Dan for finally having the courage to defeat Zarok once and for all. The camera then zooms out of the Hall and into the sky, where it shows a constellation of Dan in his heroic stance. "The End" message pops up and the credits roll.

Development of ''MediEvil'' started in 1995 at independent developer {{w|Millennium Interactive}}. Chris Sorrell, previously known for the ''{{w|James Pond}}'' series, created the original concept for ''MediEvil'' and served as the game's creative director. Prior to the development of ''MediEvil'', Sorrell had endured a rather torrid time working on some edutainment products that Millennium Interactive had signed up to create. "Once these products were finally complete, I think management took pity on me and rewarded me with the chance of making my dream game" he recalls. According to Sorrell, the first design proposal for the game had the working title ‘''Dead Man Dan''’ and described a game that was a fusion of {{w|Capcom| Capcom's}} ''{{w|Ghosts 'n Goblins}}'' with the art style of {{w|Tim Burton}} – especially the look and feel of ''{{w|The Nightmare Before Christmas}}'', both of which were things that he was a huge fan of back in the mid-'90s. Lead artist and designer Jason Wilson shared his interest in dark, Gothic influenced artwork and they worked together to define the look and feel of the game. Wilson was particularly inspired by [[wikipedia:German Expressionism|German Expressionism]] from the 1920s and credits films such as ''[[wikipedia:The Golem (1915 film)|Der Golem]]'', ''[[wikipedia:The Cabinet of Dr Caligari|The Cabinet of Dr Caligari]]'', ''[[wikipedia:Nosferatu|Nosferatu]]'', ''[[wikipedia:Metropolis (1927 film)|Metropolis]]'' and ''[[wikipedia:Sunrise (1926 film)|Sunrise]]'' as his main sources of inspiration.<ref>{{Icon|Facebook}} {{cite web|author=Jason Wilson|published=November 3, 2014|title=Reference and inspiration for the game ''MediEvil''|site=Facebook|url=https://www.facebook.com/JayGunnArts/posts/587295241397225}}</ref> As development progressed, Wilson pushed the game into more of a ''Zelda''-like direction as opposed to the original arcade-style concept. Sorrell approved of the new direction and said that he would liked to have expanded more on it.

In addition to bringing together a brand new team – none of whom had really made a 3D game of this scale before – they were in 'sell' mode almost from day one, with the future of the studio riding on their ability to attract a major publishing deal as quickly as possible. They were initially working on multiple platforms including {{w|Windows}} and {{w|Sega Saturn}} as well as PlayStation before finally having the chance to pitch an early demo to Sony, who were so impressed with their work that they bought the whole studio and became Sony's second United Kingdom development studio. Late in the game's development, Sony requested that ''MediEvil'' should support the (then) new 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.

Sorrell said that ''MediEvil'' presented a mountain of challenges due to the fact that, like many other developers at the time, they were still very new to 3D gaming. Things like camera and character control presented many interesting new challenges and required the team to try out a number of approaches before settling on solutions that seemed to work. He said that they spent many long nights without sleeping, trying to finish the game. There were also many levels and ideas from the original concept that they were forced to remove because of time and budget constraints. In most cases, the best of what they had already created for those levels ended up being spliced into the levels that they shipped with. There was also 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 level ost was created for this section, but it never materialized into the game. Even so, Sorrell said that the game still came very close to the original concept and he was most proud of how the team pulled together to finish the game without compromising on the quirky attention to detail or scope of the game.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/09/07/behind-the-classics-medievil/|site=PlayStation.Blog|title=Behind the Classics: MediEvil|author=Fred Dutton|published=September 7, 2012}}</ref>

*N-World - Used for creating in-game 3D models.<ref name = "atomic">{{cite web|title=jason wilson medievil design history|site=atomic-city concept art and design of Jason Wilson (archived at Wayback Machine Internet Archive)|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20080303185334fw_/http://www.atomic-city.co.uk:80/pages/games/games_medievil.htm}}</ref>

The following tools, CD samples and software were used to create the game's original soundtrack<ref name = "casestudy">{{cite web|title=Medievil 2 case study|site=Bob and Barn (archived at Wayback Machine Internet Archive)|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20061202001928/http://www.bobandbarn.com/downloads/pdfs/medievil2.pdf}}</ref>:

*Psy-Q Development Kit

Inside copies of the platinum version of the game's PlayStation box was a poster featuring an insight into ''MediEvil''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s sequel, ''[[MediEvil 2]]''. This detailed new characters and levels, set in 19th century London.

On the reverse of this image are map instructions for the first four levels of the game. These include details of the locations of vials, the chalice, life bottles, [[Runes|rune stones]], gargoyles, rune hands, copper and silver shields, primary weapons and other secrets which may only be accessible after finding certain items or completing specific tasks.

The original soundtrack of the game was made using [[MediEvil#Music|electronic synthesizers]] to simulate an entire orchestra and organ. Paul Arnold and Andrew Barnabas composed the tracks. Chris Sorrell, the game's director, asked them to compose a Danny Elfman-style score, similar to those of ''Beetlejuice'', ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' and ''Batman Returns''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gsoundtracks.com/interviews/arnold.htm|title=Interview with composer Paul Arnold|author=Oliver Ittensohn|site=GSoundtracks|retrieved=18 May, 2012}}</ref>

Although there's no official soundtrack release, the 71st issue of the french magazine Joypad featured a CD named "Les musiques de Medievil," which contains ten tracks from the game and is the only "soundtrack" ever released for it.

|Andrew Barnabas, [[Paul Arnold]]

*''MediEvil'' is dedicated to the memory of [[Mr Apple]].{{Gameref|MED|[[Credits (MediEvil)|Credits]]}}

* Within the game's memory, the following message can be found: "Buzby sucks eggs, and Eastwood smells!" <ref>{{Icon|Proboards}} {{cite web|url=http://sirdanielfortesque.proboards.com/post/7025|title=Hidden Programmer Message|site=MediEvil Boards}}</ref> This refers to [[James Busby]], the game's lead programmer, who left the project about two months prior to its release as a result of creative differences.{{Siteref|MediEvil-Boards|11632|Interview with Jason Wilson|February 10, 2012}}<ref>RETRO Volume 8, page 130. Published in 2015 by Imagine Publishing Ltd.</ref>

*The game's logo is made using the Ticonderoga font by Altsys Fontographer 3.5. The Japanese version uses a modified iteration of the Harrington font by Sam Wang instead.

*The Japanese version of the game contains numerous differences, such as Daniel wearing a [[helmet]].

* From August to September of 2010, "MediEvil" was made available for free to European PlayStation Plus subscribers.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/08/03/playstation-plus-content-for-august-and-september/|title=PlayStation Plus Content For August And September|site=PlayStation.Blog.Europe}}</ref>

*{{Icon|Fan}} ''[[Fan:MediEvil: Hero of Gallowmere|MediEvil: Hero of Gallowmere]] ''mod for ''[[w:c:elderscrolls:The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim|The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]''.