MediEvil Review – Leave The Skeletons In The Closet

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer: Other Ocean Interactive

Release: October 25, 2019

Rating: Teen

Reviewed on: PlayStation 4

Some games are better left dead and buried, and MediEvil is one of them. The successful remakes of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon raised my excitement for this re-release, but within seconds of starting it, I realized protagonist Sir Daniel Fortesque no longer has a jump in his step, and instead controls like the clumsy zombie he is. Developer Other Ocean Emeryville gave this 1998 PlayStation classic a dramatic graphical overhaul, which makes the eerie graveyards and darkened tombs pop in 4K. The studio also re-recorded the score with an orchestra, but all this doesn’t do much to help the gameplay, which was considered sloppy even back when the original released.

MediEvil’s setting and story are still fantastic. I love that Sir Dan is heralded as a hero (with his own tomb and giant commemorative statue), yet ended up being the first soldier to die, taking an arrow to the eye in the battle of Gallowmere. It turns out that the villain in this world, the sorcerer Zarok, is just as terrible at his craft, and in raising an army of the dead to take over the world, accidentally resurrects Dan, who now has a second shot at becoming the hero the people believe he was.

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The visual aesthetic for MediEvil was clever and beautiful when it originally released, and Other Ocean takes it to the next level, giving the environments and character models the little details that couldn’t be achieved on the old PlayStation hardware. Every texture and effect looks like it belongs, and the jawless Dan is as goofy and oddly charismatic as ever.

On the gameplay front, players are tasked to lead Dan against a variety of creepy or possessed foes. You encounter a decent selection of adversaries, and have plenty of ways to defeat them – just not with much precision. Dan can switch between a variety of close-range melee and projective-based weapons, but none of them control well. Aiming with the crossbow is particularly challenging, as you are waiting for a little light to appear over an enemy’s head. Just swinging the sword is equally frustrating, since landing hits takes more work than it should given how fidgety the adversaries are. You run circles around foes jabbing at them hastily, hoping that the sword is aimed the right way. Dan’s powerful charge moves are also a bit hard to read and land. Other Ocean tweaked the camera tracking a little, but it wasn’t enough to truly follow the action. It still gets blocked by walls, and unexpectedly zooms directly onto Dan.

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Early in the game, sustaining damage is no big deal, as Dan has plenty of health, and healing stations are usually close by. You probably also have some handy instant-use health vials in reserve. As the difficulty escalates making enemy attacks and environmental obstacles more lethal, every little misstep hurts. If you die, most levels don’t have checkpoints, meaning you’re going back to the beginning to try again. Even if you reach the boss at the very end of the level, you have to start over. Welcome to gaming in 1998, people.

MediEvil still deserves to be heralded as a classic for its time and place in gaming, and I love how it looks in revitalized form on PlayStation 4. However, its gameplay is a relic of yesteryear, and an example that shows us just how far games have come over the years. Rest in peace, Sir Dan.

Score: 6.5

Summary: It may look like a fairly modern release, but it plays like a troubled game from the '90s.

Concept: Sir Daniel Fortesque’s return is a little too true of a remake, enhancing the visuals, without doing anything to help the troubled gameplay

Graphics: The graveyards pop with new atmospherics and beautiful texture work that meshes well with designs from the original release

Sound: The same great soundtrack was re-recorded by the Prague Symphony Orchestra. Jason Wilson also returns as Sir Dan

Playability: Controlling Dan is rarely fun, as wild sword-swinging and projectile-shooting are the foundation of the gameplay

Entertainment: The story and writing are still clever, but Dan’s adventure hasn’t aged well, and ends up being a chore

Replay: Low

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The Outer Worlds Review – Good Company

Publisher: Private Division

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Release: October 25, 2019

Reviewed on: PlayStation 4

Also on: Xbox One, PC

Your crew on the Unreliable are some of the best and brightest in Halcyon – but considering the sorry state of civilization in deep space, that isn’t saying much. Your compatriots include a religious zealot, a heavy drinker, a compulsive cleaning robot, and other imperfect individuals. However, despite their flaws, this plucky team can help you find remarkable and unconventional solutions to the colony’s biggest problems. Whether you want to heal a rift between warring factions or destabilize a governing body, the underdogs of the Unreliable can get it done.

Like the misfits it features, The Outer Worlds finds inspiring success despite its rough edges. It has technical and visual quirks, and can veer dangerously close to feeling archaic, but these aren’t the qualities that define the game. Instead, The Outer Worlds distinguishes itself with a crumbling space colony controlled by cartoonishly evil corporate interests, then sets you and your party loose to explore, aid, and incite. Maybe that involves gunplay and innocent casualties – or maybe you can talk your way out of conflict altogether. The Outer Worlds finds brilliant and fun ways to blend signature aspects of well-known series like Fallout and Mass Effect; it is a space adventure featuring a likable cast and an irreverent-yet-dangerous frontier, with entertaining gameplay bridging the gaps. 

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The single best part is the freedom you have in approaching the various problems plaguing Halcyon. The corporations have done a terrible job taking care of their workers/citizens, so you need to reroute power, recover salvage, and reconcile militant factions across various planets and space stations. As you try to address these issues, The Outer Worlds deftly presents options beyond simple “stealth or melee” scenarios; depending on how you build your character and which tasks you complete, you can pursue a wealth of available options with rewarding outcomes.

In one case, I needed to access a high-security area in a government building. I found a woman who could sneak me in if I convinced her I was interested in a romantic rendezvous, or I could investigate a lunch-related feud between her and a coworker to win her over. Another option was simply stealing a disguise, which also required a silver tongue to divert suspicion if detected. Of course, I could have also opened fire and fought my way through, but I was so adept at lying and persuading that I usually only considered naked hostility as a last resort. This kind of flexibility makes The Outer Worlds especially satisfying, because no matter how you specialize, the team at Obsidian provides something clever to do apart from deciding how to kill folks.

Though I often sought nonaggressive solutions, I had fun with combat when it happened. Again, the flavor of encounters changes based on how you’ve allocated your skill points. My first character was melee-focused, with lots of points invested in buffing my companions; eventually, they could handle most fights without me. For my second playthrough, I made a more active hero, specialized in handguns and rifles with perks spent on improving a tactical time-slowing power (similar to Fallout’s V.A.T.S. system). Regardless of your focus, the controls are responsive and feel great. I especially liked firing my off my companions’ cinematic attacks.

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The crew of the Unreliable are solid traveling buddies, assuming you choose to recruit them. In different ways, they all struggle to find a place to belong in Halcyon, and I enjoyed getting to know them gradually through a mixture of conversations, ambient banter, and personal quests. However, these interactions are too sparse. What’s there is excellent; their dialogue and stories are well-done, and I like how most of them don’t fit neatly into established archetypes. But they can also feel oddly peripheral considering the time you spend with them by your side.

Structurally, the game follows the blueprint established by classics like Knights of the Old Republic. You go to a planet or settlement, do some quests, and eventually make a bigger decision that determines the fate of the area. Over the course of my two playthroughs – one thorough, one fast – I saw these scenarios play out in different ways, and I was a bit disappointed at how black-and-white the options are. Most boil down to siding with a heartless corporation or a group of freedom-loving dissidents, though completing sidequests usually reveals an optimal third option, like bringing feuding groups together. This predictability diminishes the magnitude of the seemingly significant choices, and combined with the static explanation screens you get during the ending, this is an area where The Outer Worlds feels outdated.

Even if the larger beats don’t always land, The Outer Worlds shines with a constant stream of small, bright moments. An amusing interaction with a clueless guard. A sugary corporate jingle. A brutal sneak attack. A solution to a problem you are sure won’t work, but it does. The team at Obsidian excels at encouraging creative experimentation within its responsive and absurd setting, ensuring that every visit to Halcyon is full of delightful surprises.

Score: 9.25

Summary: The Outer Worlds finds inspiring success despite some rough edges, much like the team of space-faring adventurers it follows.

Concept: Create a unique RPG that finds a meeting point between Fallout and Mass Effect, with space-faring action and choice-driven progression

Graphics: While the visuals aren’t cutting-edge, the colorful graphics do a good job conveying the strange new worlds of Halcyon

Sound: Your crew has an excellent cast of voice performers, and the music successfully evokes wonder and urgency as appropriate

Playability: Cumbersome inventory management is my only complaint on this front. The controls work well otherwise, regardless of your preferred playstyle

Entertainment: Finding your way through (or around) various problems is fun, and a streak of silly humor keeps the tone light enough to counterbalance the darker themes

Replay: Moderately High

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Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair Review – A Fresh Perspective

Publisher: Team17

Developer: Playtonic Games

Release: October 8, 2019

Rating: Everyone

Reviewed on: PlayStation 4

Also on: Xbox One, Switch, PC

Playtonic Games debut title, Yooka-Laylee, paid loving homage to formula of 3D platformers of the ‘90s. That makes sense, considering several team members originally worked on Banjo-Kazooie – but sequel takes a much more surprising approach. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair flips the script, abandoning 3D to deliver a focused, well-paced side-scrolling platformer that feels like a successor to Donkey Kong Country (another game members of Playtonic worked on). However, rather than relying too heavily on trappings of the past, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair modernizes the 2D platforming formula in all the right ways to deliver a fun and novel experience.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair starts with a bang. After completing a brisk tutorial, the game dumps you into the eponymous Impossible Lair, a sprawling, extremely difficult level riddled with dastardly obstacles and challenging boss fights with no checkpoints. You may start the game on the final level, but unless you’re unimaginably talented at 2D platformers, you’re going to fail out before you even know what’s happening. While this experience does little to instill confidence in what’s to come, it effectively throws down the gauntlet to give you something to aspire to.

That experience sticks with you; the final stage looms over you the whole time you play, just waiting for you to challenge it again – which you can try at any point. But how can you conquer the hellscape of obstacles the Impossible Lair presents? By completing stages in the main game, you give yourself a fighting chance.

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Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair delivers well-paced 2D platforming action across more than 20 unique stages, and every one you complete gives you an extra hit point when you attempt the Impossible Lair. I love how this unique approach lets you decide when you’re ready for the final onslaught; you don’t need to complete every stage to finish the Impossible Lair, but some of the are so clever and fun that you may want to keep playing anyway.

From a level that has you dodging deadly buzzsaws to one that tasks you with swinging from different ropes while rolling and jumping off enemies, the diversity in the stages is impressive. While every obstacle course is exciting, my favorite was a nonlinear level that had me going to five distinct areas to complete quick challenges to retrieve five gems.

Yooka and Laylee may control as one character, but their partnership isn’t just for looks. Similar to Mario and Yoshi, the two work together in important ways. When you start a stage, you have both characters, and access to your full arsenal of abilities. But if you get hit, Laylee panics and flies away, leaving you without movies like your twirl jump and butt stomp. You can get them back by chasing Laylee down (or calling her back at a bell), and this adds a thrilling risk to many stages. Every time Laylee flew away, I had to calculate whether the benefit of her abilities was worth the danger of pursuing her.

Laylee’s abilities aren’t required to complete the stages, but they can be necessary for reaching collectibles like quills and coins. Quills are used as a currency in multiple situations, including purchasing game-modifying tonics, opening chests in the overworld, and buying hints from signposts. Meanwhile, coins are used to further open the map to allow you to access the next set of stages. I don’t mind collectibles in a game, but it’s annoying to have to replay levels if you didn’t get enough coins to access the next area in the world. However, the required coin thresholds are low, and I only had to go back to mine for coins once in the my playthrough.

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Tonics are fun in-game cheat codes that modify the game in ways that can make the levels easier, harder, or different. For instance, one tonic makes enemies take an extra hit to destroy, while another makes it so Yooka doesn’t slip on ice. Based on how these tonics affect the difficulty, you earn a multiplier on the quills you collect in that stage. My preferred loadout was to gain 50 percent more quills by using the tonic that gives enemies an extra hit-point, while using another that makes every defeated enemy explode like a piñata with extra quills to collect.

Between stages, you explore a 3D overworld with an isometric camera. This is a gratifying experience, as simple exploration and minor environmental puzzles yield worthwhile rewards like extra quills, tonics, and even alternate versions of the stages. The overworld also lets you tackle single-screen challenges where you must get creative to defeat a set number of enemies. I always looked forward to these creative puzzles to solve, like one with a movement-mimicking enemy that you need to manipulate to make it dive into a buzzsaw.

The stage variants you unlock offer additional coins (and hit points for the Impossible Lair), but things are drastically different from the first time you tackled the level. One alternate version floods everything, turning it into a water stage. Another spills a sticky substance everywhere, making it more difficult to traverse – but also granting the ability to climb up the sticky walls and reach areas you couldn’t before. While you’re still technically playing the same levels, these versions feel as fresh as all-new stages, and I loved the surprises they threw at me.

With rock-solid controls and imaginative level design, I couldn’t wait to see what awaited the chameleon/bat duo each time I entered a new area. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a superb 2D platformer with plenty to love for fans of the genre both new and old.

Score: 8.5

Summary: This great 2D platformer delivers a crowd-pleasing adventure regardless of when you started enjoying the genre.

Concept: A strong platformer that pays loving homage to the 2D games of yesteryear

Graphics: With such vibrant and beautiful backgrounds, stage hazards sometimes blend in and get lost in the action

Sound: A delightful score composed by the iconic duo of David Wise and Grant Kirkhope perfectly suits the action

Playability: Tight controls and well-designed stages are a blast to platform through. Even the water levels are fun!

Entertainment: The Impossible Lair may receive top billing, but the entire journey leading to that titular final challenge is rewarding

Replay: Moderately high

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