116) Medievil (2019)

First announced as a remaster of the original Medievil from 1998, the team at Other Ocean Emeryville would later classify the game as complete remake in 2018. The team felt that it was important to keep as many elements of the original game intact unless they had a good reason to change them. This included retaining several glitches the team felt were important to the experience, and the team went so far as to research music the original development team likely listened to while working on the game. Level geometry was lifted directly from the original and imported into the new game's engine to serve as reference for the placement of elements within each level. Even the source code for enemies that had been created and removed from the original game was restored and implemented.

Our story takes place in the land of Gallowmere, where legend tells of the heroic battle of Sir Daniel Fortesque, who led the king's forces to victory against the vile sorcerer Zarok and his army of the undead before finally succumbing to his mortal wounds. In actuality, Sir Daniel merely led the charge before being immediately and unceremoniously struck down by the first volley of arrows fired by the enemy. As Sir Daniel died and was posthumously hailed as the Hero of Gallowmere, Zarok escaped and went into hiding, only to resurface 100 years later. Casting a spell to raise an undead army to plunge Gallowmere into eternal night, he unwittingly revives Sir Daniel, who has been unable to ascend to the Hall of Heroes due to his rather embarrassing death. Tasked with defeating Zarok for real in order to prove himself as a true hero and save the land of Gallowmere.

Gameplay sees us traverse various linear levels filled with hack and slash combat, lite platforming, and a smattering of puzzle solving. There are collectibles to find along the way, as well as more than a few secrets which are well worth our time to find. As we progress, we can unlock a variety of new weapons and upgrades that add some much needed variety to the experience, with the later unlocks feeling suitably powerful and effectively trivializing earlier challenges. The game isn't really hard, though on more than one occassion I was left confused as to what exactly a puzzle intended for me to do. This rarely crossed into the realm of being frustrating, though there was one level in particular that had me sit the controller down so I could take a breather.

While the game uses a number of elements and tropes of the horror genre, it's all presented very tongue in cheek with a great deal of humor. This makes it an ideal game to share with younger gamers and would serve well as a yearly Halloween tradition. The game's art style and humor have a certain Tim Burton-esque feel to them that pairs will with the humor to make it quite endearing, and the relatively low difficulty, paired with the rather forgiving nature of the game, make a joy to come back to.

One of the elements that I find myself a bit split on is a new, optional questline added for the remake. Near the end of the game, the player can begin a quest in which the find a lost soul who needs to be laid to rest. To do so, they give a vague clue as to which level the player needs to go to and hint at a specific action that must be performed. At this point, each level in the game will now have a lost soul to find in addition to a lost soul that must be returned. The worst aspect of this is quite simply the element of backtracking that artificially pads the runtime, though the hints were sometimes vague enough that I needed to look up the solution. This is completely optional, though the payoff is admittedly pretty amazing, as restoring all lost souls will unlock the full, original 1998 game to play. It's a somewhat annoying questline, but it's an amazing reward that's well worth the effort.

Medievil is a fun and humorous action platforming romp that's suitable for all ages. The love and care that went into making the remake as faithful as possible to the original while updating for a modern audience is a sight to behold. While it doesn't take many risks of its own, it's a refreshing throwback to a different era of game design. The inclusion of the full, original game is something I wish more remakes would do, as it helps paint a picture of how the industry has evolved and moved forward as well as preserving the original experience, allowing a new generation to enjoy it. As someone who didn't play the original at time of release, it's an enjoyable and fascinating addition that I can only imagine is elevated even further for those with nostalgia for it.