NEWER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER: Medievil

Often, I can’t seem to think about, or write about, videogames without getting personal. It’s like Kyle mentioned in his previous post about Aerith dying in “Final Fantasy VII.” If it happened at the same moment that your parents were knocking on your bedroom door and asking if you wanted Papa John’s pizza, it doesn’t have the same impact that it does if it happened while you were alone in the dark and completely absorbed in hours of game play. So in that sense, I suppose that my feelings about the PlayStation 1 game “Medievil” are inextricably connected with how I was feeling during the time I played.

Even so, aesthetics are aesthetics and sometimes even the best game designers mess things up. And they really did when they redesigned “Medievil” as “Medievil Resurrection” for the PSP.

Generally, newer is better and portable is even better than that. Who among us has not been thrilled with the idea of walking around with a complete PS1 or Nintendo 64 in their pocket in the form of a PSP or a DS? If you said you’re not thrilled, you’re lying.

And so it was with great anticipation that I purchased the PSP game “Medievil Resurrection.” See, “Medievil” is one of my favorite games. It’s an overlooked gem and a real delight from the early days of the PlayStation 1, when videogames were not the multimedia juggernaut that they are today and you could find some pretty weird stuff on the shelves. When I bought “Medievil Resurrection,” I only did so because I had long since gotten rid of my PS1 and figured that playing “Resurrection” on the PSP was going to be only chance I had to enjoy the game ever again. I had read the reviews and they all seemed positive, indicating that “Resurrection” was a polished up version of the original.

Wow. Talk about crushing disappointment. I mean, sure, the graphics were smoother and more attractive than they were on the PS1 as you can see in this new screenshot…



…compared to the same scene from the old.



So in that sense, I was pleased. But that’s where it stopped. See, in the original “Medievil,” you play as Sir Dan Fortesque, a long-dead skeletal knight who was revered as the Hero of Gallowmere…in spite of the fact that all of his stories of heroism were pure fantasy and, in the back story of the game, he died within seconds of leading the first charge against the game’s arch-nemesis the Sorcerer Zarok.

Dan is a charming bumbler. He’s fairly lousy at what he does, he galumphs all around the screen like a donkey with broken knees, he swings his sword about as accurately as a department store mannequin, and all of the other characters in the game make fun of him mercilessly. You really start to feel for this miserable bag of bones, and as you play through the game, you start rooting for him to prove himself and be the hero he thinks he is.

Dan doesn’t get much help in the first game. He spends a lot of time getting his ass kicked and getting ripped on, and when he does get help, those who give it do so pretty grudgingly. The whole game creates this kind of “me against the world” mentality, in a very funny way that is instantly addicting.

To top it all off, Dan, lacking a lower jaw has a HILARIOUS voice. Most of the time he sounds like a drunken bum mumbling into a paper bag. If it weren’t for the subtitles, you’d have no clue what he was saying.

These two concepts, constituting the emotional underpinning of the game and some of the best design work, are completely lost in the new “Medievil Resurrection.” In that game, Dan is no longer alone. Instead he is being guided by some kind of weird wormy genie named Al-Zalam that lives in his empty eye socket. Why was this character needed? He has an incredibly grating, marginally racist voice and does nothing but whine for most of the game, only occasionally giving you any real help. Utterly unnecessary, and it all makes Dan seem more like a piece of moving equipment than a character.

And speaking of voices, Dan’s is utterly different in this game. Instead of sounding hilariously unintelligible, Dan now sounds kind of like Kenny (from South Park) on helium. Or, annoyingly unintelligible.

They also added in a few new levels and made some cosmetic changes to the look of the game, but they are really no better or worse, just different. I was so disappointed with “Medievil Resurrection that I didn’t even finish and instead sold it back. I thought I would never be able to enjoy those classic adventures of Sir Dan Fortesque again until I discovered that through the miracle of the PlayStation Network, the original “Medievil” was available for download to the PS3. I did just that, played through the entire game, and loved every single second.

If you have ever been curious about this game, do yourself a favor. Avoid “Resurrection” like the plague and head straight for the original. It’s a blast.

- Matt