MediEvil Review

"Aged Like a Skeleton"

Campaign

October 23, 2019 at 1:43pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the return of a classic single player game from the old days of Playstation. That original experience has largely been translated with this modern release featuring minimal changes to the core mechanics. This makes it feel aged to a degree, but it also retains some of that old charm that I imagine it brought back in the day. This is my first time trying out the series, and it was an interesting venture. It’s a bit more hardcore than I had anticipated, and I’ll dive into that further later on.

The narrative follows this knight that fell very short of actually being impressionable during a great battle. This is his second chance at being a hero, but it has been awhile and now he’s a skeleton rising from the grave. The dark wizard has returned, and so has our creepy yet friendly looking pal. You move through a sort of open map working on various levels. There are main ones, and some side path options to work up. These often end up providing a boss to fight, and some challenges along the way.

The levels are greatly varied, with a series of either puzzle or battling areas to work through. It can be quite a challenge, especially if you die as you’ll have to restart the level from the beginning. Other elements also carry over level to level such as having no health after concluding a previous mission. This can be frustrating, and it would have been nice to also see a modern option menu wise. I don’t feel it would have been too hard to add some modern mechanics while also offering the untouched version.

Gameplay

This is visually impressive, I compared it to some old screenshots and video finding this to retain that old look while being completely fresh in design. It features a fun sort of cartoon type look while still being slightly gritty. It has a great sense of atmosphere, and those pumpkin levels were particularly lovely to take in. That being said, I did notice some intense performance issues on the base PS4 during certain levels.

It was disappointing to see it running like that as it doesn’t appear to be that demanding of a game. The levels hold up alright, they are short and feature a sort of mastering concept to it. They can be hard, or frustrating initially and once you understand what you’re doing you can just roll through them. It’s about being smart with your life, hitting the right spots and trying to keep that life going.

I found it less beneficial to attack enemies which was disappointing, that system could have been better. I also noticed some enemies would become stuck at times, and I’d have to get close to activate them again, it was weird. It just comes across as feeling rather aged despite having a really neat world with some great atmosphere behind it. Lots of this is gathering keys, fighting some pattern based bosses and then embracing some ancient Dark Souls type action. The weapon system as neat too, you can use your arm or deal with breaking items.

The Conclusion

MediEvil is an enticing game, but one that hasn’t aged too gracefully and there are some issues present within this remaster. They really should have spent some time providing the option for modern elements of play.

This feels like something that will be awesome for those that enjoyed the original release, but won’t be too attractive for those that are jumping in for the first time. I liked what I played, despite some frustrations but can see that this one is somewhat average. It’s not at all a bad time, and a neat showcase from the past.

It just hasn’t quite aged too well and that comes across as you play. There didn’t seem to be much of a weighting to combat, I ignored it to reserve health and that takes away from the experience. I did enjoy the worlds, those pumpkin levels were so cool and I liked the main character. It would be interesting to see a fresh take on this, or well a reboot I think would suit it well as this concept is great.

Read our Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince Review
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MediEvil Review on Playstation 4
Review Code Provided by SIEC

Rating Overall: 6.5