MediEvil (1998)
- This article is about the first game of the series. For general series information, see MediEvil (series).
other= MediEvil (メディーバル 甦ったガロメアの勇者 Medībaru Yomigaetta Garomea no Yūsha) is an action-adventure video game and the first installment in the MediEvil series. It was developed by SCE Studio Cambridge and published by Sony. It was released on October 9 1998 in Europe, October 30 1998 in North America and on June 17 1999 in Japan for the PlayStation. Due to it's success, the game was released in 1999 as a platinum title in Europe. It was also released in a bundle with C-12: Final Resistance on May 9 2003.
| MediEvil (1998) | ||
|---|---|---|
| [[Image:<tabber>
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File:Medievil-front.jpg|250px]] | ||
| Tagline(s) | You'll be dying to play! A Gothic Tale Straight from the Grave. | |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation, Playstation Network | |
| Ratings | ESRB: Teen ELSPA: 11+ OFLC: G8+ | |
| Mode(s) | Single-player | |
The game was followed by MediEvil 2, released in 2000, and MediEvil: Resurrection, a reimagining released in 2005 for the PSP. The game was made available for download for the PSP and PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation store in 2007. In August 2010, the game was made available for free to European PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Gameplay
During the game, the player must go through several places, from a graveyard full of zombies, to a flying ghost ship full of undead pirates, to a levitating board in an 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.
Weapons
Dan starts the game with just his detachable arm, which can be used as both a melee weapon and a projectile, but is incredibly weak. Soon, however he obtains a small sword. The majority of weapons Dan encounters are received from the Hall of Heroes by collecting Chalices in each level, and range from swords, axes and hammers to projectile weapons such as crossbows and spears. There are other weapons that Dan encounters through the course of the game, such as a club that can be used as a torch, but breaks after too much use; a Dragon Armour that lets Dan breathe fire and protects him from flame attacks; and Chicken Drumsticks that can turn enemies into Roast Chicken for health recovery. Dan is also able to find a variety of shields to protect himself, ranging from copper to gold in strength.
Chalice of Souls
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.
Enemies
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. Sticky-fingered Imps, 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, can be charged up to produce a more powerful attack to finish beasts off more quickly.
Characters
- 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 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 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 exiling 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.
- King Peregrin - The past King of Gallowmere. He appointed Sir Dan a knight and banished Zarok from the land. He aids Dan in his quest by telling him how to defeat the Shadow Demons.
- Heroes - Canny Tim, Stanyer Iron Hewer, Bloodmonath Skull Cleaver, Woden the Mighty, Karl Sturnguard, Dirk Steadfast, RavenHooves the Archer, Imanzi Shongama and Megwynne Stormbinder, all aid Dan in his quest by giving him their weapons and other useful items.
Plot
Template:Spoilers In 1286, an evil sorcerer named Zarok plotted to take over the kingdom of Gallowmere with his undead army. It is told in legend that the King's champion, Sir Daniel Fortesque, led his army to battle and managed to kill Zarok before succumbing to his mortal wounds. 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". Zarok, meanwhile, was forced into hiding and was presumed dead. 100 years later, in 1386, Zarok reappears, casting a spell over Gallowmere to awaken his undead army and steal the souls of the living. However, in the process, he unwittingly revives the corpse of Dan. Having been unable to ascend to the Hall of Heroes due to his failures in life, Dan uses this opportunity to defeat Zarok, save Gallowmere and earn his place as a true hero.
As Dan travels across Gallowmere, fighting his way through Zarok's hordes and confronting all manners of enemies, he soon arrives at Zarok's lair, fighting off Zarok's fazguls using the souls he retrieved by collecting the Chalices. After also managing to defeat Zarok's champion, Lord Kardok, Zarok turns into a powerful monster, but Dan manages to defeat him. As Zarok uses his last breath to cause his lair to collapse, Dan manages to escape and Zarok's magical influence over the land is thwarted, restoring the souls back to the living and putting the dead back to rest. 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.
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. Template:SpoilerEnd
Development
Development of MediEvil started in 1995 at independent developer Millennium Interactive. Chris Sorrell, previously known for the James Pond series, created the original concept for MediEvil and served as the games 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 Capcom's Ghost'n Goblins with the art style of Tim Burton– especially the look and feel of 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. As development progressed, Wilson pushed the game into more of a Zelda-like direction, which Sorrell approved of and said that he would liked to have explored more.
From the outset, Sorrell wanted his game to possess a unique lead character. They worked with a script doctor named Martin Pond when looking for more of a backstory for 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.
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 Windows and 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 removed 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.
Cover art and CDs
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- SCES-00311-F-ALL.jpg
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- 1332136-medievilplat eu ps front super.jpg
Platinum Front Cover
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CD
- MediEvil - Back Cover PAL.JPG
Back Cover
- 197892 93994 back.jpg
Platinum Back Cover
- SCES-00311-B-ALL.jpg
Alternate Back Cover
|-| NTSC (American)=
- MediEvil - Front Cover NTSC.jpg
Front cover.
- MediEvil - Back Cover NTSC.jpg
Back cover
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CD
|-| NTSC-J (Japanese)=
- Medievil jp 0001.jpg
Front cover
- SCPS-10081-B-ALL.jpg
Back cover
- Medievil jp 0000.jpg
CD
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Additional content
Inside original copies of the game's PlayStation box was a poster featuring an insight into MediEvil'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, 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 certain tasks.
Soundtrack
- Main article: Les musiques de MediEvil
The original soundtrack of the game was made using electronic synthesizers to simulate an entire orchestra and organ. The tracks were composed by Paul Arnold and Andrew Barnabas. 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.[1]
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 10 tracks from the game and is the only "soundtrack" ever released for it.
Tracklist
| # | Track title | Composed by | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The Awakening" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:12 |
| 2 | "Quest for Vengeance" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:10 |
| 3 | "Dan's Waltz" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:05 |
| 4 | "A difficult path" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:08 |
| 5 | "Morten's Dance" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:00 |
| 6 | "Enchanted Wood" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:09 |
| 7 | "Desecrated Church" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:14 |
| 8 | "Journey through the Crystal Caves" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:18 |
| 9 | "City in the Clouds" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:09 |
| 10 | "Triumph in Death" | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold | 2:42 |
| 11 | "Stuttgart (Exciting)" | Jason Page | 3:20 |
| 12 | "Stuttgart (Panic)" | Jason Page | 3:05 |
| 13 | "Japan" | Jason Page | 3:15 |
| 14 | "USA" | Jason Page | 3:10 |
| 15 | "Alpine" | Jason Page | 3:45 |
| 16 | "Menu" | Jason Page | 1:54 |
Reception
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 80.40%[2] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Absolute PlayStation | 91%[3] |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | 7.8/10 |
| Game Revolution | A−[4] |
| GameSpot | 8.2/10[5] |
| IGN | 7.8/10[6] |
| Official PlayStation Magazine (US) | 4/5 |
| PSM | 3/5 |
| PSX Extreme | 6.9/10[7] |
MediEvil received positive reviews, with an 80.40% aggregate rating at
.[8] The game received a 7.8/10 from
.[9] IGN heralded it as "A fun game and one of PlayStation's classics".
gave it an 8.2/10, proclaiming that the game is a "welcome surprise".[10] Game Revolution gave the game an A− and stated that "what we have here is one of the cleverest platform games ever made".[11]
Awards
- Best PlayStation Game - Gaming Expo
- Best Platinum Seller 1999 -
- Gold Award - Official PlayStation Magazine
- Silver Award - Monthly Games
- Token Prize - Network Games
Production Credits
| Game Concept/Direction | Chris Sorrell |
|---|---|
| Game Design | Jason Wilson |
| Main Programming | James Busby, Paul Donovan, Chris Sorrell, Matt Johnson, Sam Baker |
| Additional Programming | Derek Pollard, Tim Closs, Dean Ashton |
| Mapping/Development Assistant | Katie Lea |
| Art Design | Jason Wilson |
| Rendered Sequences/Presentation Visuals | Jason Riley |
| Additional Mapping | Lindsay Pollard |
| AV Management | Pete Murphy |
| Original Soundtrack | Andrew Barnabas, Paul Arnold |
| Sound Effects | Paul Arnold |
| Video Post-Production | Tom Oswald |
| Speech Post-Production | Andrew Barnabas |
| Sound Effects/Language Implementation | Gary Richards, William Bell |
| Technologies Management | Mike Ball |
| Technologies Programming | Andrew Ostler, Dean Ashton, Matt Johnson |
| QA Testing Co-ordinator | Sarah-Louise Lloyd |
| QA Testers | Dave Holloway, Alex Sulman, Dan Smith, Stuart Harvey |
| Preliminary Script | Jason Wilson |
| Dialogue Script | Martin Pond |
| Producer | Chris Sorrell |
| Manager (Cambridge Studio) |
Ian Saunter |
| Executive Producer for SCEE | John Roberts |
| Product Manager | Chris Ansell |
| Manual | Written by Jim Sangster
Designed by Steve O'Neill |
| Print Production | Martin Pearce |
| Manual QA Approval | Lee Travers, Stephen Griffiths |
| QA Manager | Tony Bourne |
| Head of the Internal Testing | Steve Archer |
| Testing Co-Ordinator | Jim McCabe |
| Lead Tester | Dave Burke |
| Assistant Lead Tester | Andy Macoy |
| Testers | Ian Cunliffe, Richard Bunn, Anthony Gill, John Cassidy, Dominic Berzins, Ian McEvoy, Phil Bramhill, Dee Norfolk, Lorna Croasdale, Pat Cowan, Carl McKane, Carl Guinney |
| Lead Localisation Tester | Ed Valiente |
| Localisation Testers | Claudia Schuldt, Christa Leonards, Lucie Dupoirieux, Susana Olga Paredes Alcaraz, Ana Maria Juarez-Ordóñez, Andrea Masneri, Miguel Sanchez |
| VOICE ARTISTS | |
| Luis Soto, Paul Darrow, Harry Dickmen, Christopher Kent, Helen Lederer |
Gallery
Screenshots
- Ss1.jpg
- Ss2.jpg
- Ss3.jpg
- Ss4.jpg
- Ss5.jpg
- Ss6.jpg
- Ss7.jpg
- Ss8.jpg
- Ss9.jpg
- Ss10.jpg
- Ss11.jpg
- Ss12.jpg
Videos
- Video:Promotional Trailer (US)
Promotional Trailer (US)
- Video:60 second TV advert (US)
60 second TV advert (US)
- Video:30 second TV advert (EU)
30 second TV advert (EU)
Trivia
- MediEvil was one of the first games to support a DualShock controller on the PlayStation.
- The game has sold over 800k units world-wide.
- On the game's official US website and on promotional game material, it is said that the game takes place in 847, but this is proven to be untrue in the game's sequel, where the year 1386 is revealed to be the true year of the game's events.
- The game is dedicated to the memory of Mr Apple.
- In the Japanese version of the game, Daniel wears a helmet.
References
- ↑ Ittensohn, Oliver, Interview with composer Paul Arnold.
- ↑ http://www.gamerankings.com/ps/197892-medievil/index.html
- ↑ http://www.absolute-playstation.com/api_review/rmedi.htm
- ↑ http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/medievil
- ↑ http://www.gamespot.com/medievil/reviews/medievil-review-2548312/
- ↑ http://www.ign.com/articles/1998/10/23/medievil
- ↑ http://www.psxextreme.com/ps1-reviews/29.html
- ↑ http://www.gamerankings.com/ps/197892-medievil/index.html
- ↑ http://www.ign.com/articles/1998/10/23/medievil
- ↑ http://www.gamespot.com/medievil/reviews/medievil-review-2548312/
- ↑ http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/medievil
External links
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