tigertom's Full Review: MediEvil 2 for PlayStation 1
You’re a skeleton with one eye, you’ve saved the world once before and they hid you in a museum for your troubles! You’re Daniel Fortesque and you can take off your arm and throw it at people. (Cool, imagine being able to do that in fights!)
Confessions first, I didn’t buy this game nor have I played the first one (MediEvil). Instead my particularly sweet girlf went and hired this game for us both to play. (So that meant I had 3 days to finish it or I would have to re-rent or buy it, and I’m skint!)
The plot
Apparently in the first MediEvil some dude got hold of a powerful magic spell book and uses the spells in it to do bad stuff (Shock, horror!). Daniel Fortesque comes along (Skeleton then too) and saves the day. Whoho, praises all round and that’s the end of the first game which you get to see in the intro sequence of the second game (Still with me?). Then Daniel Fortesque goes into a museum, lays down and goes to sleep for 64million years (400-ish actually), or at least until Jack-the-Ripper esq. Time in London, 16flum-de-flum.
Now this might surprise you but some one else, naughty as well, gets hold of some of the pages of that powerful book whilst our hero is sleeping and all hell breaks loose, London is trashed and life as we knew it is about to be wrecked, except that whilst casting his spells Mr. Baddie accidentally awakes Daniel Fortesque (Our hero) from his sleep.
And thus the game starts. (It’s a good intro sequence)
The game
So you awake, get out of your museum stand and start talking to a handy friendly ghost that guides you through the game, helps you out and offers you chances to save. Although he does have a dodgy Cockney accent very similar to Dick Van Dyke’s!
The game itself is very similar to the fantastic Monkey Island games in the way it plays and the humour. It’s essentially a third-person RPG game where you run about finding stuff out, pick up items and shoot baddies. So good solid fun!
There are 10 levels to complete and 6 or 7 baddies to beat, with some very clever twists to the game. Such as the fight with a baddie robot where you are thrown into a quick boxing match and many other little sub games, some important, some just for fun.
Your mission unfolds as you play, although the main mission is to try to stop the baddie from getting all the pages of the spell book.
Whilst it is very similar to the Monkey Island games in the way you must run about, find stuff and use keys and objects in the right place. (And get lost a lot!) You also get to fight stuff as you run about; there’s an arsenal of weapons to use to pick off any zombies and monsters you meet along the way.
The puzzles aren’t too hard to work out, but do require thinking. And the fighting with the baddies is rewardingly hard.
The curve of difficulty is quite steep, as after the first easy 3 levels of the game, the levels get progressively harder. Until the end level which is darn hard! But in it’s defence all Dan’s skills and ability are explained very clearly by your friendly ghost as you play.
So game play wise this is a: RPG, find items and use stuff, platform, kill the monsters game. You have to stop the baddie, bop the baddies, collect the weapons, save the girl and you even get to fight Jack the Ripper all from the safety of your armchair (If you have one).
Now onto the features of the game!
Dan-Hand
A cool twist to the game; you can remove your head and attach it to a hand and make Dan-Hand (Very similar to the hand in the Adam’s Family). He’s a smaller version of your self that allows you into small places big Dan can’t go. You can flick between your body and this hand at any point, meaning you are kind of playing two characters at the same and at some points in the game you will need them to work together to solve puzzles. Otherwise Dan-Hand just makes the game bigger as there are loads of things to go back and do once you can get to all the smaller holes. As the Dan-Hand option is not explained to you (Or available) till later in the game.
Chalice of souls
More enlarging of the game and a nice idea. On every level (Except boss levels) there is a chalice of souls to collect. This is filled slowly with each baddie you kill. So in a way the chalice makes you kill stuff rather than run through them like other platforms where you avoid the baddies. For each chalice you collect you get another weapon, which you will need!
Graphics
MediEvil 2’s graphics may not be the most advanced in the world, as it’s quite an old game. But still they are a pleasure to look at. The monsters look great and the backdrops look great. Just good graphics all round, promise!
Weapons
Onto the fun stuff!
You start with an arm you can throw at people (Most enjoyable) and then you very quickly acquire a sword. Which is fun to use, as you can charge it up and do a special or just hack away!
But as the game progresses you get a FOFF Hammer to hit people with, a boomerang Axe, a pistol, a Gattling gun, Arrows, Flaming Arrows (Which catches the baddies on fire and is a delight to do :) and many more weapons and shields as well.
Joy of joys! Any weapon you can throw comes with a tracking fairy (!). A small green thingy that flies at baddies to let you know when you can hit them! Nice!
Controls
Maybe the only failing of the game, as some of them are a bit hard to get used too! But after a few hours mastering you’ll soon be running about happily. Tricky jumps and the such like and are a pain in the butt in this game, as it’s not a platform game and you rarely get to practice your super jump. So when you suddenly need to do one, more than likely you’ll fail and spend 10 mins trying to remember how to do a super jump!
Dan has two attacks, walking, strafing, defence, running and a super running jump.
I suggest using an analogue controller for general play, but switch back to the pad for tricky platform bits!
Ammo
Sorry it’s not limitless (Aww I hear you cry). You have to buy ammo for your guns and bows from the “Spivey” character that is randomly around the game. The ammo is strangely expensive meaning careful shooting’s required.
The levels
Sorry for the shortness of this bit, but I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises. All 10 levels are full of great graphics, a few puzzles, really imaginative baddies and fantastic fun ideas! You get to travel in time, jump around sewers, visit circuses and search old London town.
Saving
This unfortunately is sparse in levels, well rare really. You normally get the chance to save before a boss or between levels when you visit the professor for plot bits, new weapons and other stuff. 3 save game slots available.
Loading
This is normally fine, until you retry a level and then it can take ages. It could’ve just been my machine but quite a few times I had to check the disc was still spinning. So be warned.
Longevity
I imagine it would take most people a couple of weeks to finish the main game and up to a month to do everything. You do at least get a different ending if you collect all the chalices and if you don’t do all the Dan-Hand things you won’t get all the weapons. As for replaying I don’t think so.
Overall
This is a top-notch game, a little irritating in places and fiddly. But most of the time it’s fun to run about finding stuff, shooting things and watching the baddies explode. The tongue in cheek humour carries on throughout the game, and whilst being vaguely funny, it’s not a patch on Monkey Island.
If you find this game cheap buy it!
It’ll be worth your money.
M E D I E V I L I I _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________...More at eBay
1 Player New characters and New challenging puzzles Analog Control Vibration Function Rated T for Teen, Platforms: PlayStation, ESRB Rating: TeenMore at Amazon Marketplace
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