I remember seeing this lanky ass derp boi in my childhood years. The original MediEvil's cover art terrified me, and he continued to haunt me as I owned some sort of demo disk with the game on it. Sir Daniel Fortesque horrified me, which is a little strange since him and his world were inspired by the art of Tim Burton and I fuckin LOVED Nightmare Before Christmas. Time-skip to high school (during my Xbox years) and I buy a PS Vita with Christmas money literally just so I can play Playstation Allstars Battle Royale. Sir Dan becomes my main and I slay some mofos with the skeletal doof, friends included. I also buy MediEvil Resurrected to get my first taste of what his games are. Love it.

Now here we are. Sir Daniel is back, refurbished in HD and ready to fight. MediEvil, much like the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, is recreated from the ground up. Although while Crash and Spyro had the big bucks funding their return, Daniel's back with a much smaller budget. One that only gets you 1 game remade instead of 3, but hey I'll take what I can get. MediEvil's back with its Tim Burton flair, Danny Elfman inspired music, goofy voice acting, and british humor. It takes the story and characters of the original PS1 version but uses the sleaker game mechanics of the PSP version, Allowing for easier movement and attacks.

While I loved playing it, my main problem with the game were framerate drops. Any time there's multiple enemies or you wanna use a flashy move the game will stutter. It gets annoying after a while. I've heard reviewers complain about glitches but I never ran into those at all. I hope this made enough money because I would really like them to remake MediEvil 2, and maybe even begin work on a brand new third entry based off original plans and concepts for it.

Textbook example of how to do a faithful remake. Very little's removed from the original experience, every idiosyncrasy from the original's there, the updated art mostly exists to underline a lot of the original game's visual direction. There was very little that needed to be changed from MediEvil, so timeless was the base game, that this revival is mostly a graphical update. ...but, even if that's not to your liking, you can unlock the original game and play through THAT. Now THAT'S a real treat. Admittedly it's gated behind a game-wide sidequest that - I'll admit - I didn't have the patience to play through during either of my playthroughs of the remake, but still cool that that exists.

I guess the main question is if this game needed to exist, given how little it changes the original's experience. Certainly I don't mind the series becoming relevant again, and I guess I'll generally appreciate any attempt to do so on principle - but there's always a certain level of dread that comes with a series' second reboot or remake. Nice to have it back, but are we always just gonna play the hits?

Ah well. Still good stuff, anyway.

Enjoyment - 8/10
Difficulty - 2/10

Quick and charming game. Laugh out loud moments and some of the voice acting is truly great! Humour is strong in this one!
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Listen. This game isn't perfect, but it sure as hell deserves more love than it actually gets and less of the dragging through the mud that critics gave it upon its release 4 years ago. Yes, Dan controls a bit clunky and wobbly, but that clunky/wobbly weight never got in the way of trying to move or attack and more than not actually made it feel more like Dan had a weight to him as a shambling bag of bones in heavy armor. Never really had a hard time with the levels aside from Scarecrow Fields (Fuck that sudden level spike out of nowhere and the fact those Scarecrows take so long to hurt and do so much damage) since most levels aren't too long. Most of the time the longest a level can take is maybe 8-10 minutes with shorter levels being 3-5 minutes. Dying can be annoying, nut never felt defeating due to the short length. Its pretty amazing how much of a personality Sir Dan has. For a somewhat silent protagonist with half a jaw he's able to emote and get across his feelings very well. Props to the animation team on that. Soundtrack is also a nop. This is pretty much if Danny Elfman scored a Tim Burton game. I know it's a bit of cliche to compare this game to that, but I do mean it in the best way. It's also really reassuring that despite wanting to be the home of AAA Dramatic 50 hour stories, Sony seems to never give up on this series despite its unpopularity and failure to consistently reach a crowd, that they keep trying to make it work. I get it now because this game is great and it does deserve to be seen, played, and loved by way more people than it is. Who knows? Maybe with this rumored theatrical movie they could try their hand at yet a 4th version of the original game. Or, you know, maybe just finally make a new game so that 95% of the series isn't just the same game remade.

Since the beginning of video games, controls have been a headache for both programmers and end users. Through the years, bad controls have been used both as a tool and an excuse to increase the difficulty of the game, pretending to be there on purpose. After saying that, I will never understand why a full remake doesn't fix the bad controls of the original version!

Very cute and casually fun game with a spooky aesthetic. Colorful world, funny enemies, and awful controls. You will get better at the game when you master the use of the dash for everything, but the controls, especially the jump, will annoy you when you try to get things done. An okay game with annoying controls.

I never grew up with the original MediEvil and now I wish I did because this game rules. Many criticize this game for keeping a lot of the PS1-era jank; I played this and went "oh yes, more of this please".

Honestly, this felt more like what I want a faithful remake of a PS1 game to feel like than even N. Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited. You mean to tell me that they had the original level geometry, used most of the original voice acting (and even brought Sir Dan's VA back to mumble more lines), kept a lot of the original programming, AND, to top it all off, gave you the option to play a ROM of the original game as an unlockable bonus mode? What a labor of love that feels mildly slept on.

After I completed the Resurrection, without wasting any time, played the PS4 Remake and it surprised me to see how much the PSP and PS4 Remakes were different.

First of all, if you're doing a remake you are having a chance to change mistakes, or add new things, or completely tell a different story. I noticed that companies are playing safe everytime they do a remake (Capcom is an exception). What I mean by 'playing safe', they're not touching anything other than graphics to turn it into today's standarts. If you're remaking games like Demon's Souls or The Last of Us and not touching anything other than graphics, I can get that because both games are playable even in today. But if you're remaking a PS1 game and not touching anything other than graphics, that means you're only writing a love letter to original MediEvil fans. Not the new players.

MediEvil (2019) looks visiually stunning, amazing. I really enjoyed to see how Gallowmere looked. But I wish I could say the same things for the gameplay too. There's an adjustment where you can quickly switch weapons by pressing the triangle button but thats it. The gameplay is just like the PS1 version, I know this because after I completed the PS4 Remake, the PS1 port was accessible through the menu. So I played a few levels to see how it was and I played it by hearth because the PS4 Remake basically copied it without any other changes. The location of every gold, every enemy, every healing potion was exactly the same as the PS4 version. The game LOOKS modern but does not FEEL modern, because it's a PS1 game with better graphics.

I'm being harsh because it's a 2019 game, so it must be a MODERN GAME. I didn't have such expectations from the 2005 Remake because it's an old game.

Aside from the gameplay, I saw a couple of issues on the story too. This is the part where MediEvil Resurrection (PSP) and MediEvil (PS1/PS4) separates from each other. Don't get me wrong, the story is basically the same in both games but execution is different.

In Resurrection, characters are more expressive. Not only the heroes but also Zarok, the main villain's himself is an active character in this game. We see him doing things very often, he has his own goal, own character.

However, in PS4 Remake: We only see Zarok in the very beginning of the game and than never see of him until the very finale. When I look at Zarok in PS4 Remake, I only see a regular bad guy who wants to conquer the world and does bad things because he's bad guy, you know?

I don't want this review to be too long but my advise is, you should play both games. To me, MediEvil (2019) failed to be a proper remake while PSP Remake succeded more in my eyes.

Just a damn good remake of a PS1 classic. I love that they preserved the spooky cartoon gothic vibe of the original and didn't try to make it overly realistic or "cinematic." Also still a solid 3D action game/platformer with some funky levels that never blend together or feel samey. Just about the only gripe I have is that some (not all) of the music feels like a step down from the original, but for the most part it's on par. Also including the option to unlock the original game is pretty cool, even if it does take a pretty big commitment.

Now go do the sequel, and please don't be PS5 exclusive.

As a certified zoomer, my dad's ps1 was my first console. On it, we had Spyro, Symphony of the Night, Neversoft's Spiderman, and MediEvil. I played all of them, but not MediEvil for some reason. I wish I had, because this is the kind of game that I would play the first few levels of over and over again as a kid because my child brain didn't have the IQ to get through harder levels. After playing this as an adult, I felt like I did as a kid all those years ago playing ps1. This game is really fun and makes me nostalgic despite having never played it before, though many of its mechanics haven't really aged well in some regards.
The atmosphere and soundtrack are impeccable, especially for the Halloween season. It's the perfect game to play with a cup of coffee, an open window to let in the crisp autumn air, and a pumpkin spice candle burning on the counter. This coziness is helped by its Tim Burton-esque art style and sense of humor. I'll bookend this with the story - it's nothing to write home about. It has a really funny premise and there are even some moments that I'd dare to call epic. It's satisfying seeing the former coward Daniel Fortesque getting over his mild disability of being dead and slowly accruing more power to defeat Zarok.
The levels themselves can be fairly hit or miss. Many of them are fun to explore and traverse, and have intuitive puzzles and level design, but there are some like the Ghost Ship and Asylum which can be infuriating.
I thought this game would be a lot harder than it actually ended up being, because the earlier sections were very difficult due to the combat system's tendency to feel really weird and awful. It's really hard to kill enemies without getting hit since they more or less ignore your strikes until they're dead, and don't usually stagger. The best way to get through the combat in the earlier parts of this game is to run around like a cokehead and slash at everything that moves. If you're anything like me and got the chalices the first time going through each level, you'd know about the magic sword that never loses its charge towards the end of the game that makes all of the combat trivially easy, and the fact that you have many lives if you max out your health bar (which is another fairly easy task if you got all the chalices). The camera is an absolute nightmare though, and the controls make platforming a pain. This is a remake in the school of remakes that are a litte too faithful to the original, similar to the Demon's Souls remake, and keep annoying and outdated mechanics from the original release while providing just a graphical overhaul and a few quality of life improvements like more life fountains around the levels and certain advantages against bosses.
Overall, this was a good time that wasn't as painful as I thought it would be judging by first impressions, and is an easy game to recommend if you're willing to deal with some outdated mechanics.