Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Spooky: MediEvil

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Video games  4 Responses »
Oct 192020
 

I never played the original MediEvil, but when the MediEvil remake came out, it looked fun enough that I decided to give it a try this October.

It turned out to be a great choice for the Halloween season!

You play Sir Daniel Fortesque, a one-time knight incorrectly remembered as the hero who stopped the sorcerer Zarok, despite actually meeting an inglorious end. But now Zarok has returned and the only one who can stop him is Dan, newly revived as a skeleton.

Running around areas like a graveyard and an abandoned asylum as a skeleton while fighting zombies, bats, pumpkin monsters, and a variety of other spooky enemies really gives the whole game a Halloween vibe.

It’s an action-adventure game that mainly focuses combat with a few puzzles thrown in, and it was pretty fun to play. At first I disliked the lack of checkpoints, especially in levels that have boss fights, but it didn’t take long before I realized the levels are actually pretty short once you know what to do.

With a couple exceptions (looking at you, Ant Caves; plus an honorable mention goes to Pools of the Ancient Dead for not only being tedious but also having a couple maybe-glitches related to the gate and the Chalice that fortunately didn’t force me to replay the level) catching up to where you were can be done in a few minutes, so replaying a level if you die isn’t as arduous as it sounds.

(Realizing that I could replay Dan’s Crypt repeatedly to replenish all my Life Bottles in between levels also helped.)

Anyway, the thing I like the best about MediEvil is the humor. It has a pretty wacky sense of humor, not only in its dialogue but also in enemy descriptions and even loading screens. Maybe it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but there was always something to make me smile.

So if you’re looking for a lighthearted spooky game, this is definitely one to consider.

I really enjoyed MediEvil, and I’m glad the remake gave me a chance to play a game I’d missed. Now I just wonder if they’ll remake MediEvil 2…

Celebrating All Things Spooky: The Manse on Soracca

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Oct 162020
 

Today I’d like to talk about a survival horror game I played earlier this year and reviewed at Lovecraft Video Games called The Manse on Soracca.

At the time I played it, it had gotten so little attention online I felt as though I was the only one who knew about it, and while it has a few more reviews and discussions on Steam now, it’s still been overlooked.

The Manse on Soracca begins as a retro survival horror game about a private investigator searching for a missing woman in the mysterious mansion at Soracca, but once you find an eldritch artifact, it becomes much more of a unique experience. Like in my main review, I don’t want to spoil what happens, but I will say it has some fun meta elements that left me surprised the game didn’t get more attention.

It does some pretty cool and clever things with its premise, and although there are some tedious sections, it’s a really interesting game.

If you like cosmic horror and Lovecraftian themes, play The Manse on Soracca. If you like games that try something unusual, play The Manse on Soracca.

I picked this one to discuss today specifically because I want to draw more attention to it. The Manse on Soracca is a neat survival horror game, and it deserves more attention than it’s gotten so far.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Veiled

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  No Responses »
Oct 142020
 

Today we’re going to talk about a short, free horror game called Veiled.

Veiled has no saves and is intended to be played in a single sitting, which should give you an idea of how short it is.

You begin in a room lit by candles, with pentacles and symbols on the walls, and you soon get a phone call from a mysterious entity guiding you to complete an occult ritual.

For such a short game, it does an impressive job of building its atmosphere. It creates this inescapable sense that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, and even when nothing in particular was happening, I felt uneasy the entire time as I played.

Gameplay-wise, you basically solve a series of puzzles in order to complete the ritual, and the puzzles are pretty good.

It’s not perfect – I was disappointed that there’s seemingly no point in replying to most messages you receive, and the ritual referring to rooms in the house by grandiose names can come across as funny – but the atmosphere and general creepiness is great.

So if you’re looking for a short horror game, Veiled will give you an enjoyable, creepy time for about a half hour or so, and you can play it for free.

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