Reviews
[Review] The ‘MediEvil’ Remake Reanimates a ’90s Treasure, Flaws and All
Ask a PlayStation fan what their favorite character from the platform is, and they might say Lara Croft, or Crash Bandicoot, or even Nathan Drake. These are characters who have created long-standing legacies over time, and they have the acclaim to back that up. For me, it was always MediEvil’s Sir Daniel Fortesque. There was a certain charm to a short-tempered, jawless skeleton speaking in muffled grunts that I found fascinating as a kid. He had two adventures on the original PlayStation and a mostly disappointing remake on the PSP. And now, he’s revived on PS4.
Using a visual style reminiscent of classic Tim Burton films, MediEvil tells the tale of Sir Dan, a fallen soldier known to the history books as the hero of Gallowmere who slew the evil necromancer Zarok. In truth, he fell in battle before he could even finish the charge. When Zarok returns a century later to conquer the land with an army of undead, the newly reanimated Dan takes it into his own hands to stop the sorcerer and live up to the legend.
Each level takes the form of a linear scenario that has Dan do a mix of puzzle-solving, platforming, and combat as he travels from the undead necropolis on his way to find Zarok. His quest sends him into dark enchanted forests, through haunted villages, and across desolate battlefields, with every stage changing up the theme and formula enough to keep it from feeling too repetitive. Going into a new area, you never quite know what to expect.
There’s also a Chalice of Souls in every level to be collected once you kill enough enemies. Each one allows Dan a visit to the Hall of Heroes, a heavenly place where he can commune with other fallen warriors. Speaking with a hero rewards Dan with an upgrade to his arsenal, where weapons such as battleaxes, warhammers, and longbows can be obtained. They each vary in their potential, allowing for greater versatility when dealing with certain enemies. It also provides a big incentive to collect all the chalices and replay the levels if you missed one, as there might be a weapon unlock that can help you with a tough boss down the line.
These were key elements of the 1998 classic and they remain unchanged in this one. To remake it from the grave up, Sony handed the reins over to California-based developer Other Ocean to handle it. As a reinterpretation of the original, MediEvil is a spectacular upgrade. Every level has received a modern facelift but remains a near-perfect replica of its older counterpart. Much of the same dialogue is reused, including the late Paul Darrow’s brilliant performance as Zarok, while the Danny Elfman-inspired soundtrack receives a further cinematic buffer. It feels exactly how the original team intended but couldn’t achieve with the limitations of the PS1 hardware. Specifically, the world of Gallowmere is expanded, with more detail added to each stage that makes it believable and interesting.
With influences rooted in gothic architecture and classic fantasy archetypes, one of the most creative aspects in the original was the design of the bosses, and the remake fully respects that. The first major encounter is a stained-glass window that has been animated into the form of a demon. The janky appearance of this character was due to the PS1 polygon limits at the time, but the 2019 version capitalizes on that by adding new lighting and particle effects to make it creepier. Some bosses are even improved with new moves or phases to give each one some extra dramatic mass.
The issue with trying to recreate a beloved classic so closely is that it also inadvertently brings back the same flaws. The original game was heavily criticized for its awkward platforming, where you’d often have to make a pixel-perfect movement to land a jump correctly. The remake makes no such effort to improve upon this, as there were many points where I missed a landing that otherwise looked fine, resulting in me being submerged in deep water and losing a life. It’s frustrating when it happens, as there’s no room to learn from your mistakes when the problem is the platform hitboxes being unfair.
That does, however, make MediEvil’s biggest weakness its greatest strength depending on how you approach it: it still plays a lot like a PS1 title. By modern standards, the hack and slash combat is floaty, the camera is awful and the puerile dialogue isn’t any improvement. If you have no investment in the series and aren’t bound to it by nostalgia, you will struggle to have a great time with such outdated mechanics. In the 21 years since its original release, there have been better imitators that have tackled the genre in more accessible ways. However, the simplicity of using 20-year-old design principles also adds a lot of charm to it. As we’ve seen with recent hits like DUSK and A Hat in Time, recapturing the magic of ‘90s game design still has a place in the current gaming atmosphere.
For as long as I recall, MediEvil has been a crucial part of my gaming upbringing. It was the first game I ever played; I remember spending long weekends with my dad trying to beat a level. I remember using our horrible dial-up internet to look up cheat codes. I even remember going around the school playground shouting at the other children and muffling my voice like Sir Dan. This is for the fans and it’s not very accessible to anyone outside of that circle. Regardless, it was a big treat to see Sony has not entirely given up on the franchise, and if there’s enough interest, may consider developing a new game altogether.
MediEvil review code provided by the reviewer.
MediEvil is out now on PS4.
Reviews
“AHS: Delicate” Review – “Little Gold Man” Mixes Oscar Fever & Baby Fever into the Perfect Product
‘AHS: Delicate’ enters early labor with a fun, frenzied episode that finds the perfect tone and goes for broke as its water breaks.
“I’ll figure it out. Women always do.”
American Horror Story is no stranger to remixing real-life history with ludicrous, heightened Murphy-isms, whether it’s AHS: 1984’s incorporation of Richard Ramirez, AHS: Cult’s use of Valerie Solanas, or AHS: Coven’s prominent role for the Axeman of New Orleans. Accordingly, it’s very much par for the course for AHS: Delicate to riff on other pop culture touchstones and infinitely warp them to its wicked whims. That being said, it takes real guts to do a postmodern feminist version of Rosemary’s Baby and then actually put Mia Farrow – while she’s filming Rosemary’s Baby, no less – into the narrative. This is the type of gonzo bullshit that I want out of American Horror Story! Sharon Tate even shows up for a minute because why the hell not? Make no mistake, this is completely absurd, but the right kind of campy absurdity that’s consistently been in American Horror Story’s wheelhouse since its inception. It’s a wild introduction that sets up an Oscar-centric AHS: Delicate episode for success. “Little Gold Man” is a chaotic episode that’s worth its weight in gold and starts to bring this contentious season home.
It’d be one thing if “Little Gold Man” just featured a brief detour to 1967 so that this season of pregnancy horror could cross off Rosemary’s Baby from its checklist. AHS: Delicate gets more ambitious with its revisionist history and goes so far as to say that Mia Farrow and Anna Victoria Alcott are similarly plagued. “Little Gold Man” intentionally gives Frank Sinatra dialogue that’s basically verbatim from Dex Harding Sr., which indicates that this demonic curse has been ruffling Hollywood’s feathers for the better part of a century. Anna Victoria Alcott’s Oscar-nominated feature film, The Auteur, is evidently no different than Rosemary’s Baby. It’s merely Satanic forces’ latest attempt to cultivate the “perfect product.” “Little Gold Man” even implies that the only reason that Mia Farrow didn’t go on to make waves at the 1969 Academy Awards and ends up with her twisted lot in life is because she couldn’t properly commit to Siobhan’s scheme, unlike Anna.
This is easily one of American Horror Story’s more ridiculous cold opens, but there’s a lot of love for the horror genre and Hollywood that pumps through its veins. If Hollywood needs to be a part of AHS: Delicate’s story then this is actually the perfect connective tissue. On that note, Claire DeJean plays Sharon Tate in “Little Gold Man” and does fine work with the brief scene. However, it would have been a nice, subtle nod of continuity if AHS: Delicate brought back Rachel Roberts who previously portrayed Tate in AHS: Cult. “Little Gold Man” still makes its point and to echo a famous line from Jennifer Lynch’s father’s television masterpiece: “It is happening again.”
“Little Gold Man” is rich in sequences where Anna just rides the waves of success and enjoys her blossoming fame. She feels empowered and begins to finally take control of her life, rather than let it push her around and get under her skin like a gestating fetus. Anna’s success coincides with a colossal exposition dump from Tavi Gevinson’s Cora, a character who’s been absent for so long that we were all seemingly meant to forget that she was ever someone who was supposed to be significant. Cora has apparently been the one pulling many of Anna’s strings all along as she goes Single White Female, rather than Anna having a case of Repulsion. It’s an explanation that oddly works and feeds into the episode’s more general message of dreams becoming nightmares. Cora continuing to stay aligned with Dr. Hill because she has student loans is also somehow, tragically the perfect explanation for her abhorrent behavior. It’s not the most outlandish series of events in an episode that also briefly gives Anna alligator legs and makes Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian kiss.
“Little Gold Man” often feels like it hits the fast-forward button as it delivers more answers, much in the same vein as last week’s “Ava Hestia.” These episodes are two sides of the same coin and it’s surely no coincidence that they’re both directed by Jennifer Lynch. This season has benefitted from being entirely written by Halley Feiffer – a first for the series – but it’s unfortunate that Lynch couldn’t direct every episode of AHS: Delicate instead of just four out of nine entries. That’s not to say that a version of this season that was unilaterally directed by Lynch would have been without its issues. However, it’s likely that there’d be a better sense of synergy across the season with fewer redundancies. She’s responsible for the best episodes of AHS: Delicate and it’s a disappointment that she won’t be the one who closes the season out in next week’s finale.
To this point, “Little Gold Man” utilizes immaculate pacing that helps this episode breeze by. Anna’s Oscar nomination and the awards ceremony are in the same episode, whereas it feels like “Part 1” of the season would have spaced these events out over four or five episodes. This frenzied tempo works in “Little Gold Man’s” favor as AHS: Delicate speed-runs to its finish instead of getting lost in laborious plotting and unnecessary storytelling. This is how the entire season should have been. Although it’s also worth pointing out that this is by far the shortest episode of American Horror Story to date at only 34 minutes. It’s a shame that the season’s strongest entries have also been the ones with the least amount of content. There could have been a whole other act to “Little Gold Man,” or at the least, a substantially longer cold open that got more out of its Mia Farrow mayhem.
“Little Gold Man” is an American Horror Story episode that does everything right, but is still forced to contend with three-quarters of a subpar season. “Part 2” of AHS: Delicate actually helps the season’s first five episodes shine brighter in retrospect and this will definitely be a season that benefits from one long binge that doesn’t have a six-month break in the middle. Unfortunately, anyone who’s already watched it once will likely not feel compelled to experience these labor pains a second time over. With one episode to go and Anna’s potential demon offspring ready to greet the world, AHS: Delicate is poised to deliver one hell of a finale.
Although, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “How do you expect to be a good conclusion if this is what you’re chasing?”
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