MediEvil

This article is about the PlayStation game. For the Medieval period, see Middle Ages.

MediEvil
Cover art
Developer(s)	SCE Cambridge Studio
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s)	Chris Sorrell
Producer(s)	Chris Sorrell
Artist(s)	Jason Wilson
Writer(s)	Jason Wilson Martin Pond
Composer(s)	Andrew Barnabas Paul Arnold
Series	MediEvil
Platform(s)	PlayStation
Release	NA: December 21, 2006 (PSN) PAL: July 26, 2007 (PSN) JP: November 28, 2007 (PSN)
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

MediEvil, is a Gothic horror-comedy action-adventure game developed by SCE Cambridge Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for the PlayStation. It was released in Europe and North America in October 1998 and in Japan in June 1999. It came on a Twin Pack CD bundled with C-12: Final Resistance in 2003. The game was later re-released on PlayStation Network in 2007. The game was followed by a sequel, MediEvil 2, in 2000, and a PlayStation Portable reimagining in 2005 titled MediEvil: Resurrection.

Gameplay

MediEvil is an adventure game in which players control Sir Daniel Fortesque, a skeletal knight brought back to life by the dark magic of an evil scorcerer named Zarok. The game takes place across a variety of levels, many of which require certain objectives to be performed in order to progress. Dan can use a variety of weapons, consisting of close range weapons such as swords and clubs and long range weapons such as crossbows. Many of these weapons can be charged for a powerful attack and some weapons, 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 own arm off and use it for both melee and ranged attacks and perform a shield dash, although it is the weakest weapon available. Dan can also use a shield to defend against attacks, though they can only take so much damage before breaking. Throughout the game, Dan can visit gargoyle heads of two varieties, green ones which offers Dan information and blue merchant gargoyles where Dan can buy services or more ammo using treasure he finds.

Dan's health is determined by a single life bar, which reduces when Dan is hit (it will deplete completely if Dan drowns or falls from a great height). If Dan completely runs out of life, the game will end. Dan can extend his maximum life by collecting Life Bottles, which will automatically refill his life bar if it drops to zero. Also littered throughout the game are Life Vials and Life Fountains that can replenish Dan's life and fill up any empty Life Bottles Dan has. In each level, there is a hidden Chalice of Souls, which can be collected if the player fills it with enough souls from defeated enemies (some Chalices are awarded via other means). If the player clears a level with the Chalice in hand, Dan is warped to the Hall of Heroes, where he can speak to a legendary hero who will give Dan a reward such as a new weapon. If the player finishes the game with all the Chalices, the game's true ending is viewed.

Plot

The game starts with a flashback in the 13th century in the fictional English Kingdom of Gallowmere. The game puts the player in control of Sir Daniel Fortesque: the reanimated skeletal remains 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 actually been mortally wounded at the outset - cementing his posthumous status as the "Hero of Gallowmere".

This official version of events is later revealed as being vastly exaggerated and that Sir Dan's entire reputation is based on a lie. It turns out that Fortesque was not a hero at all and was in fact the first to die during the Battle of Gallowmere as he was hit in the eye by an arrow while leading the first charge against Zarok's undead armies. Although Sir Dan's troops still managed to go on and win the battle without him, Zarok was able to escape and went into hiding, leading everyone to assume that he was dead. The "fog of war and the shrouds of time" ultimately conspired to portray Fortesque as being the great hero of the battle.

One century later, in 1386, Zarok unexpectedly re-emerges from the shadows, robs the citizens in a nearby village of their souls and awakens his undead army. But the waves of necromantic energy he has unleashed upon the countryside have unwittingly revitalized the skeletal corpse of Sir Fortesque, still missing the eye where he was hit and unable to speak clearly having lost his jawbone. Sir Dan pulls a cobweb out of his eye socket, shakes off the trauma and then grins at the player. Unable to go to the Hall of Heroes in death due to his failures in life, Sir Fortesque sets out from his crypt to exact his revenge upon Zarok and prove himself a true hero now that he has been given a second chance.

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 throughout the game 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 sorts. 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 hunk 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, 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 till he gets to a small cave. After brushing the dust off of his amour, Dan runs away from the fire caused from 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.

The ending is then determined by whether or not the player collected all the Chalices of Souls:

Not all chalices collected: 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 with a simple "The End" message. Then the credits roll.

All chalices collected: 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 grow quite, whispering about his accomplishment. Dan then does a few acrobatics on the table and lands into the center 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 preparing to defend himself. The end message pops up and the credits roll.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

Reception

MediEvil received positive reviews upon its release and was commercially successful, later being re-released as a Platinum title. IGN heralded it as "...a fun game and one of PlayStation's classics". Other awards include:

• Best PlayStation Game - Gaming Expo
• Best Platinum Seller 1999 - Official PlayStation Magazine
• Gold Award - Official PlayStation Magazine
• Silver Award - Monthly Games
• Token Prize - Network Games

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack of the game was composed by Paul Arnold and Andrew Barnabas, the musical duo more commonly known as "Bob & Barn". 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. The music was created using electronic synthesizers to simulate an entire orchestra and organ. The 2005 PlayStation Portable reimagining MediEvil: Resurrection used parts of the MediEvil score, along with original elements composed by Bob & Barn and performed by a live orchestra and choir. An album was made from this music and signed copies can be purchased from the artists' website.

Appearances in other games

Dan appears as a playable golfer in Hot Shots Golf 2 and is playable in the fighting game, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Also, the PSP launch game WipEout Pure, which was released alongside MediEvil: Resurrection, features a MediEvil-styled ship that was built by the team at Sony Cambridge. The PS2 game Ghosthunter, which was also developed by SCE Cambridge Studio, features a reference to Sir Daniel in the form of a character named Colonel Fortesque and also contains several medieval scenarios and undead knights which were implanted to provide a visual connection to the MediEvil series.

External links

• MediEvil at MobyGames
• MediEvil at GameRankings