“It has risen again!” (Medievil remake coming for PS4)

There have been some very interesting announcments in the world of videogames over the past few days but there was one in particular that got me feeling all excited as well as depressingly sceptical. That announcement? A remake of Medievil is heading for the PS4 next year (source here).

First of all, let’s begin with some positivity and explain why I’m excited about this. Medievil is one of my all-time favourite games and along with such other Playstation classics as Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Driver and Tekken, it is one of the reasons why I fell in love with gaming in the first place and am still here today (for better or for worse). Thanks to my Dad, we got the original grey Sony slab beneath the TV in our house in 1998/1999 and one of the best things that came in the box was the most recent version of the famous “Demo 1” disc. This disc contained demo versions of all the big releases that had just hit the shelves as well as some previews of upcoming titles. Medievil was one such game on the disc and my Dad and I must have played that demo a thousand times before he bought the full game.

The dreaded boulder section of Mausoleum Hill. Not so difficult as an adult but slightly more fiendish as a wee nipper still new to games!

I can only decribe the game as having a “magical” atmosphere. The design is a clever mix of horror and comedy with a perfect balance between the two being struck. Aesthethically, it reminds me of a Tim Burton movie with all the darkness and evil elements being kept in check by funny bits and the almost cartoon-like character/scenery design. The twisted shape of the gravestones has always stuck in my mind for example as have the sinister airborne demons from later in the game. Don’t forget the imps or killer pumpkins either. In short, the game has a lot of memorable visuals and made the sort of impact on me that other games (despite their quality) have failed to do in the 19 years or so since I first experienced Medievil.

The music too was incredible and carried a haunting, gothic tone that thoroughly bewitched my ears and added to the magic. To this day, it is a perfect example of an impressive, fitting videogame soundtrack composition and I often stick some earphones in and revisit my favourite tracks via Youtube.

I re-played both games last year as I so often do and found the original to have lost none of its charm. Yes, the game felt a little bit clunky and unforgiving (especially when it comes to falling from edges) at times but overall it still held its own. That graphical style in particular has really helped Medievil age well and does a super job at compensating for the general ageing that all early 3D videogames have suffered with many being cited as “unplayable” due to how poor they look today or how offensive those once cutting-edge textures are on the eyes.

If I were a female groupie then this kind of graphical style would have me dropping my undergarments in an instant.

Medievil 2 (to discuss it quickly) was a little different in that I also recalled it fondly but upon re-playing the sequel (I usually just revisit the original) I found it to be a lot more fiddly and frustrating than I remember with numerous irritating elements such as the Dankenstein boxing match, trying to save all of the civilians on the Kew Gardens level and the monstrous difficulty of the final few levels. I’m ashamed to admit that I had to resort to an old-school print-out of cheat codes from back in the day that had been folded up and stuffed inside the game case. As far as personal gripes went, I missed some of the classic weapons such as the magic bow and dragon armour. Obviously with the game being set in more modern time, these fantasy items made no sense but even so, I still mourned their absence. The game is still decent and worth playing but I much prefer the fantasy setting of the original which didn’t come with so many annoying, gimmicky additions to the core gameplay. At the time of writing this reaction to the remake announcement, it isn’t clear whether Medievil 2 will join the original and mirror the recent Crash Bandicoot remasters (which included all three main PS1 games) but I can honestly say that I’m not fussed either way.

Unfortunately I now come to the part of this article where I must do a bit of doom-mongering and air my reservations. First of all, I’m usually extremely sceptical about ANY remake (whether it’s a videogame, movie or music) because more often than not, it isn’t really needed and in the case of older games, developers feel the need to expand on things or add new bits to the original formula in order to give a game the necessary meat that it needs in order to exist as a full-fledged release in the modern age where consumers have come to expect more for their money. In my eyes, Medievil is a perfect game and doesn’t need anything adding to it so there’s that.

Secondly, it is utterly vital that they preserve a) the tone of the original b) that superb soundtrack (whether it gets remastered or not) and c) the balance between gothic horror and comedy. Before anybody accuses me of baseless assumptions, let’s not forget that Medievil was already re-imagined for the PSP as one of the machine’s launch titles and that version changed several things as well as tipping the scales firmly towards comedy. It has not been well-remembered by fans of the original and the comedy look to the ghost at the end of the remake teaser trailer does give me cause for concern.

The tomes on these stands provided hints and added to the game’s lore/atmosphere.

In general I am trying to remain on the fence until we have some more information or at least some footage to make a judgment on what kind of direction the developers behind this remake are taking. Using the PSP game for a base would be an instant turn-off for me and many others (judging by the comments section on the official Playstation Blog page for this news story) but remaking the game and losing that special balance in general would also leave me no other choice other than to say “no thanks”.

If it does turn out badly then it’s important to remember that we will always have the original to comfort ourselves with whether we dig out that old Playstation copy or fall back on the PSN re-release. When we still have this choice, I try not to moan or rant too much about what I consider to be “botched rehashes” because nobody can take away our memories or ability to play a game as it was originally released and nobody forces us to play a remake. Even rare games are available to play via emulation these days so we will always be pretty much sorted for the OG products when the marketing men take a steaming dump on our memories.

Here’s hoping that I will be looking forward to revisiting Gallowmere in 2018.

The Soul Still Burns (Soul Calibur VI!!)

Well…did anybody see this coming? After years of rumours, random polls and a few filler games that I don’t class as “proper” entries, a brand-new Soul Calibur has been announced by Namco Bandai. Soul Calibur VI will be hitting PS4, Xbox One and PC in 2018 and the initial reveal trailer was quite intriguing. I thought so anyway but then again, I’m a weirdo with strange concepts of what is “interesting” so take it with a truck of salt.

The little teaser shows Mitsurugi squaring off against Greek goddess Sophitia and judging by the outfits and Mitsurugi’s apparent reversal of age, I’m going to assume that this is a prequel of sorts or at least a game that takes place earlier on in the storyline. Let’s face it, Soul Calibur‘s plot has gotten utterly ridiculous during recent games so going for something easier to digest while not binning off the existing canon wouldn’t be a terrible idea at all.

Mitsurugi forgets how to treat a lady and gives Sophitia a right wallop. (image: Gamespot)

So am I hyped for this? Well obviously I am in some way or else I wouldn’t be writing about the announcement BUT I am still feeling extremely cautious. So far, I’m pleased that the game is even going to exist (because SC is one of my favourite series’ of all-time and I’ve been playing it since Soulblade/Edge on the Playstation) and of course, I’m doubly pleased to see that my main character and one of gaming’s most beautiful ladies, Sophitia, is back after being unceremoniously killed off between SCIV and V (because: rubbish plot).

My caution comes from the fact that I thought Soul Calibur V was absolute pants and not the fancy, lacy variety being worn by a pretty lady but that pair of nasty old boxer shorts that you sometimes randomly spot on the ground in an alleyway. The game looked incredible and it had one of the most enjoyable character creation tools that I have used in any game but everything else was wrong. There was no single-player experience to speak of to begin with and perhaps that should have been expected given how fighting games are all about the online these days but for me, SC has always been a fighting game with killer SP. I have great memories of unlocking all of the characters in SCII and the ridiculous amount of modes in SCIII for example. By contrast, SCV was a complete insult with its pathetic arcade mode that had the same two opponents for the last couple of battles every. single. time (Aeon and Nightmare).

Best way to die ever? The trailer confirms the return of this classic neck-breaking grab of Sophie’s.

Worse still was the loss of so many favourite characters with many being replaced by descendants or students/disciples in order to keep the classic fighting styles present in the series. The problem was that not many people liked these new characters and just wanted their old favourites back. Some (such as Natsu) looked completely out of place for a game set in the fifteenth century, others were simply “WTF?” (Z.W.E.I) and there even characters that seemed to mock players such as Elysium who looked like Sophitia but wasn’t Sophitia. The plot was rubbish and nobody wanted to play as the whining Pyrhh or pretty-boy Patroklos. There were way too many characters that adopted random fighting styles between rounds as well – wasted select screen slots for sure. All we wanted was Cassandra, Mina and Hwang but no, we got the likes of Dampierre (*shudder*) instead.

Clearly, they had attempted to do what Tekken 3 and Street Fighter III did before: breathing new life into an existing series by introducing some fresh faces and youth into the roster. In Tekken 3‘s case it worked due to the replacement characters being closely modelled on their forebearers and while SFIII‘s updated roster alienated a lot of the SFII fanbase, it did at least have a killer gameplay system to fall back on.

Speaking of gameplay, this was the final thing about SCV that switched me off due to how they’d messed about with an established and very enjoyable template. It was done with good intentions no doubt but the addition of flashy super moves seemed unecessary and having the classic Guard Impact only available when a specific meter had some stock was a very, very poor change. I suspect that the latter was implemented in order to make the game more accessible to those who couldn’t learn to use GI frequently but it rubbed me up the wrong way. The SCVI trailer appears to show super moves of some variety and the breakable armour feature that debuted in SCIV but I hope that this doesn’t signify a continuation of what SCV was.

It might sound like I’m being negative but I’m still actually cautiously excited for Soul Calibur VI and until there’s any evidence of the bad stuff returning, there’s no reason to be overly cynical. Street Fighter V has set the benchmark for disappointing fighting games this gen anyway – with its poor single-player and F2P style DLC onslaught – so SCVI can’t be any more deflating can it? I just hope that Namco Bandai heard what people didn’t like about SCV. Recent strong form with the Tekken series gives me some confidence at the least.

Has Fire Emblem become a Waifu Simulator?

This question (amongst others that I will discuss here in this post) was on my mind after having just invested 30+ hours into Fire Emblem Fates and deciding that I simply couldn’t be arsed to play the game anymore. A quick bit of background first though because I think that it’s extremely important to remember how the Western exposure of Nintendo/Intelligent Systems’ tactical gem has evolved in recent years. Fire Emblem has been around since the Famicom days in Japan and proved to be popular enough to spawn many sequels heading into the the 16-bit Super Famicom era. Over here however, it was a different story.

The first official Fire Emblem release that we received was for the Gameboy Advance back in 2003. Simply titled ‘Fire Emblem’, it was a prequel to the previous GBA release that remained a Japan-only deal and largely owed its English language existence to the popularity of Marth and Roy, two Fire Emblem protagonists that had been included as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Once our FE cherry had at last been popped, the sequels began to flow in the form of The Sacred Stones (GBA), Path of Radiance (Gamecube) and Radiant Dawn (Wii). A remake of the original Famicom title christened ‘Shadow Dragon’ was also released on the DS in 2008 (2009 for North America).

The graphics in Path of Radiance weren’t the prettiest by Gamecube standards but the gameplay was utter gold.

Up to this point, the series was still relatively niche in the West despite the steady flow of localised sequels in the wake of that initial GBA release. This modest popularity was likely propped up by Nintendo in the form of much smaller print runs of the games than other software releases on the same consoles (Shadow Dragon is a pretty expensive pre-owned game here in Europe for example). It sold well enough for the first 3DS installment – Fire Emblem Awakening – to be given the green light for us however and this is where things began to change. For the better? In some ways…but not ALL ways.

Now, I have to point out that Fire Emblem Awakening is one of my favourite games amongst all games that I have played since I started gaming in the early-mid 90’s. I ploughed around 130 hours into it and enjoyed promoting my characters and embarking on an excessive level of grinding in order to create a formidable army. At the same time, it was apparent that the tone of the series had shifted seismically in many respects. Fire Emblem has always been a series where you will find characters with luminous hair hues for example but with Awakening, the anime tropes were beginning to dominate. You could now advance support links between male and female characters to the point where they would declare their feelings for one another and marry and I actually quite liked this element as I thought it was handled pretty well.

However, the fact that your main character is custom-created at the outset of the game and supposed to reflect YOU, the strategist, meant that you had the choice of who to get it on with in midst of war. Is this a bad thing? No but the fact that the majority of FE players are male really endeared this aspect of Awakening to the “Waifu” crowd. Now for those unfamiliar with the term “waifu”, I’ve gone off and retrieved a definition of the word from one of many online dictionaries:

waifu. Noun. (fandom slang) A fictional character from non-live-action visual media (typically an anime, manga, or video game) that one is attracted to and considers a significant other.

One thing I always admired about Fire Emblem was the way in which it was able to give us attractive/pretty female characters who were also formidable warriors, clad in plate armour and not made to look overly-sexy in a try-hard manner. In Awakening however, these sorts of traditional FE ladies are joined by several more sexualised characters that gained a following all of their own (Tharja for example) and various bits of borderline jailbait clearly not prepped for bloody battlefields.

Your MC in Awakening can marry Nowi. If you feel uncomfortable with that, just constantly remember that she is actually over 1,000 years old.

This aside, there are other things about Awakening that really made me see FE as a series that was pandering to the Otaku types. The increase in crazy, out-there anime style characters for example or the DLC hot springs episode which – of course – included lots of awkward moments as battle-hardened valkyries suddenly switched chain mail for swimsuits or kimonos. I’m not saying that I’m against this kind of thing because I’m as appreciative of a bit of casual titillation as the next male BUT it made no sense in a Fire Emblem game and it was that thought which continued to return to me. On the whole though, Awakening was a great game with the usual excellent gameplay, some fantastic music and – despite some of the weirdos – some brilliant characters. Yes, these new elements felt out of place in an FE game but thanks to how addictive the gameplay itself was, there was a pretty good balance.

Then came Fire Emblem Fates, a follow-up with a brand-new world, storyline and characters unrelated to Awakening as is often the case with FE sequels. The game was unique in that it shipped as two versions, entitled “Birthright” and “Conquest”, with each edition following a different perspective of the storyline’s war. A third segment of Fates called “Revelation” was then released digitally on the e-shop (or available physically in the Collector’s Edition) which tied together both games and acted as a conclusion of sorts. This sounded very interesting to me and I battled for a long time against stock shortages and greedy ebay re-sellers to obtain a Collector’s Edition boxset (and story/saga in itself) so that I could get the cartridge that contained all three parts of the storyline. After the brilliance of Awakening, this had to be the next step up? Wrong.

Oh boy! Somebody forgot their armour…yep, we’re knee-deep in Waifu territory with Fire Emblem Fates.

Aside from my gripes with the gameplay additions (such as new classes that I didn’t particularly like) and the fact that I didn’t care one inch for the storyline, there were many aspects of the game that had fully stepped over that line into Otaku territory. Waifu-ism was rampant now, especially when it came to the eye-poppingly breasty Camilla (pictured above) who thought that wearing some token midriff armour but leaving her overflowing chest and underpants exposed is a good idea when going up against axes and spears. Again, I cannot lie and say that I don’t like her design but I also think that it’s not very Fire Emblem and shouldn’t really belong here.

There are all these female characters for the male Waifu fanatic to choose from and this time, when you marry, the two of you have a little house within your army’s fort and certain ‘events’ trigger upon visiting such as receiving a kiss from your significant other or having them speak to you directly in a first-person viewpoint. Most of these moments are quite touching (if you’re a bit of a softie like me) but time and time again, I felt myself asking “is this just too much?”. Along with wildly mis-matched,  impractical outfits for many of the women, the romance element made me feel that the game was definitely part Waifu simulator.

There were other issues of course. I couldn’t care less about the majority of the characters for example and the usual assortment of stereotypical personalities were gradually drip-fed into my swelling assortment of units. The game also committed the sin (in my opinion anyway) of having a Japanese/Ninja-themed setting in a fictional, fantasy world. What is that all about? Why do developers have to do it? Familiarity for Japanese players perhaps? Possibly but for me, this sort of thing has always struck me as lazy and unispired and yes, I will include the likes of Final Fantasy VII‘s Wutai in that criticism. No game is safe.

Usually, Tharja would probably suck your soul away with the Nosferatu spell but because Waifu culture is a thing, THIS can happen too.

Overall, I simply didn’t enjoy Fates. Once again, I will just reaffirm that I really don’t mind the pervy fanservice-y stuff (such as the above image) but there are games specifically geared towards that kind of stuff and I really don’t think that Fire Emblem is the place for it. Unfortunately, Intelligent Systems likely had no say in the matter because – from what I have read – declining sales of the series (even in Japan) forced Nintendo to issue an ultimatum when it came to Awakening: sell 250,000 units or it will be the final Fire Emblem installment. This would largely explain why they have shifted the tone a little and tried to appeal to that niche but sizeable Otaku crowd. The move clearly paid off but at what price? The series seems secure for now but it has taken a new path that the old-school fans who grew up playing translations of the Famicom/Super Famicom releases may (understandably) turn their noses up at.

One final note/disclaimer from me is just to say that at the time of writing this post, I haven’t played the latest 3DS Fire Emblem game which is a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden. Drop me a comment down below and let me know if it is a little more restrained than Fates…

Digital: Pokemon Silver Version (3DS e-shop)

Recently I have had serious trouble finding the time to sit down and really get stuck into a home console game. I have various titles on the go for different machines but work and life in general keep getting in way. Enter the saviour that is handheld gaming. So far on this blog, I have talked about the PSP quite a bit but I owe my interest in handheld gaming to the Gameboy Colour which was my very first machine (discounting the Playstation in the house which wasn’t my own console). As with a lot of people my age, I received the GBC as a Christmas gift purely because I wanted to play Pokemon like all of my friends at school were doing. Red Version was where it all began but it would be the follow-ups, Pokemon Gold/Silver, that would really impress…

This moody title screen was impressive for an 8-Bit handheld…

I can distinctly remember being given some sort of really thick, unofficial Pokemon magazine by my Gran which had loads of information on the upcoming sequels. The magazine mapped out the initial few towns/routes, showed all of the new monsters (with Japanese names) and detailed new features to the series such as berries, the Poke-Gear and the introduction of Dark and Steel types. I absolutely pored over this magazine which was bringing us the latest information straight from Japan and the sequels simply could not come soon enough. I saved money bit by bit (money being difficult to come across as a child!) until I had the required £29.99 put aside in advance and I’ll be completely honest: I miss those days. Being so impressed and excited for a videogame as well as slowly but surely scraping the money together to buy it…so much better than the present day me who thinks “meh” to most game announcements and could afford any new release immediately if I was feeling irresponsible enough to casually drop £40-£50 on a PS4 game (which I very rarely do).

The very best part though was that the game lived up to all the expectations I had and then completely surpassed them. I opted for the Silver version since a) Lugia looked cooler than Ho-oh and b) there was this strange, unspoken sureness that the Gold version would be better because the word ‘Gold’ sounds more impressive than ‘Silver’. This meant that more people at school owned Gold Version and so having the opposite meant that I would be a more attractive trading partner. On a side note, this amusing little quirk also happened with Ruby/Sapphire on the GBA but since then, I think Nintendo haven’t produced a duo of Pokemon games with one version sounding better than the other.

Colour! This was a huge deal back on release.

Fast forward to 2017 and I have just downloaded the digital re-release of the game from Nintendo’s 3DS e-shop service. Initially I’d been intending to pick up the re-release of Red/Blue that has been available for some time now but I’d completely forgotten that Gold/Silver had also been slated for a re-release so when I saw these little beauties were available…well, I HAD to skip a generation unfortunately because Johto was calling and I didn’t have enough shop credit for both. These games retail for £8.99 by the way which is expensive for a digital download of a retro game but I personally think that the price is extremely fair for the size and depth of the games. Don’t forget that original cartridges have shot up in value over the years and that it is depressingly easy to end up with a bootleg copy or a genuine cart with a dead battery that needs replacing. These 3DS downloads bypass all of that and are so convenient. The 3DS’ rubbish battery life also does a great job of emulating the Gameboy Colour gobbling up those AA batteries!

Understandably, I was a little dubious about returning to one of my all-time favourite games in case I’d been looking back through rose-tinted specs all of these years. Thankfully this wasn’t the case and I am happy to say that I am utterly in love with this game all over again. Going so far backwards in a series that has evolved (get it?) so much over the years takes a bit of getting used to, mind. I’ve ploughed hundreds of hours into the GBA games and first generation of DS games (Diamond/Pearl) for example and so returning to a time where there were no passive Pokemon powers, no animated sprites, no weather effects and no many other things takes some getting used to. I keep expecting to be paralysed when hitting an electric type with a physical attack for instance. I imagine it would be even tougher for anybody who has played the DS remakes or the newer 3DS installments, doubly so if they are a younger gamer who only started playing Pokemon with the latest games.

Night-time was another “wow” moment in 2001

Maybe I AM blinded by nostalgia but I personally prefer the older games like this. The more primitive sound effects and old-school sprites invoke a warm fuzziness inside – sights and sounds of a simpler time. I find a lot more charm in these things anyway (regardless of the reason) and also happen to enjoy the more stripped-back simplicity of the game with knocking over the game’s gyms, trashing the Elite Four and swiping as many different Pokemon as possible being your only objectives. Obviously there were a few new distractions added to the second generation of Pokemon games and a lot of these relied on the game’s in-built date/time facility which dictated when certain events such as the bug-catching contest would occur. Other nice touches included trainers calling you on the phone (with pretty terrible conversation it has to be said!), being able to use the radio and different Pokemon appearing depending on whether it was day or night. At the time, these additions were incredible despite how trivial they may seem today. I’ve not played any of the 3DS generations of the games so I imagine that there is so much to do in those versions but I’m in no rush to find out. My Pokemon obsession ended with Diamond so while I am interested in catching up, I would still rather go back to a more focused and ‘innocent’ period in the series’ life such as Silver Version.

My current play-through is going very well and I’ve found myself using Pokemon in my team that I would never have previously even considered such as Slowpoke, Exeggcute and Zubat (mostly all evolved and nicely levelled by now of course). Revisiting all of the old towns and hearing that fantastic 8-Bit music again has been a lovely experience so far but I’m only around halfway through what the game has to offer with one final Johto gym standing in my way. Catching Lugia is my first priority however but the initial attempt didn’t go very well! I completely forgot about how Lugia makes the battle so annoying with its ‘Recover’ move as well as how higher level monsters in these older games simply refuse to be captured, even when at the lowest HP point and hit with a status effect. All good fun though!

So would I recommend this download? Whole heartedly. As I said earlier, the price may look steep for a retro download but considering all that you avoid by not trying to buy a working, genuine original copy then it’s fantastic value and having the game on your 3DS memory card with all of your other stuff is just so convenient and perfect for taking on the move – in perfect keeping with the spirit of the original releases and their pocket nature. I really hope that they also offer Crystal at some point since the remixed storyline, introduction of Pokemon animations and other little tweaks made it an update worth playing through all over again way back when and I’d happily do the same again today. Make it happen Nintendo!.