MediEvil

The game takes place across a variety of levels, many of which require certain objectives to be performed to progress. Sir Daniel Fortesque can use a variety of weapons, consisting of close range weapons such as swords and clubs to long range weapons such as crossbows. Many can be charged for a powerful attack and some, such as the club, can be used to access areas that are otherwise inaccessible. When not possessing any items, Dan is able to rip his arm off and use it for both melee and ranged attacks.

Dan can equip a shield alongside weapons for defence, but each type of shield has a limited amount of strength and are therefore best used sparingly. Throughout the game, Dan can visit gargoyle heads of two varieties: green ones offer Dan information while blue ones allow Dan to buy services or ammunition by using the treasures he finds.

In the year 1286, an evil sorcerer named Zarok plotted to take over the kingdom of Gallowmere with his undead army. It is told in legend that the champion, Sir Daniel Fortesque, led the King of Gallowmere's army to victory and managed to kill Zarok before he succumbed to his mortal wounds. In reality, however, Dan was struck down by the first arrow fired in the battle, with the king choosing to cover it up and declare Dan the "Hero of Gallowmere". Zarok, meanwhile, went into hiding.

100 years later, Zarok reappears, casting a spell over Gallowmere to plunge it into eternal night, awaken his undead army and steal the souls of the living. However, in the process, he unwittingly revives Dan, who has over time become a skeletal corpse, missing his jaw which fell off and the left eye he lost in the battle of Gallowmere. Having been unable to ascend to the fabled Hall of Heroes for his ignoble death, Dan uses this opportunity to defeat Zarok, save Gallowmere and earn his place as a true hero.

Development of MediEvil began in late 1995 at independent developer Millennium Interactive in Cambridge. Chris Sorrell, previously known for the James Pond series of games, created the original concept for MediEvil and served as the game's creative director. Sorrell joined Millennium, with whom he had been working with for a while, after completing James Pond 3. When asked what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to work with someone on the visual side. Jason Wilson, who would be the designer and a writer for the game, met up with Sorrell and began working on MediEvil.

According to Sorrell, the first design proposal for the game had the working title ‘Dead Man Dan’ and described a game that was initially a fusion of Capcom's Ghost'n Goblins combined with the art style of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. As development progressed, lead artist Wilson pushed the game into more of a Zelda role playing game-influenced direction as opposed to the original arcade-style concept. Looking to attract a major publishing deal, Millennium Interactive initially began working on multiple platforms including Windows and the Sega Saturn before giving Sony Computer Entertainment a working demo of the game. Impressed by the progress, Sony signed MediEvil to be an exclusive PlayStation game.

The game received positive reviews from critics upon release. It received an aggregate score of 80 percent from GameRankings and was mostly praised for its Halloween-influenced atmosphere by many critics. IGN's Chris Roper praised the game's sense of humour and unique presentation, but was skeptical about the game's "sloppy" controls and disjointed level designs, noting that the game's graphics did not age well over time as compared to the PSP remake which offered superior graphics and gameplay. Game Revolution praised the humour and combat, calling the game "one of the cleverest platform games ever made" and noting that its use of music, voice acting and full-motion video made up for its weaker graphics compared to Banjo-Kazooie.

Edge's reviewer believed the game is "well crafted in some respects, underdeveloped in others": the "ingenious" feel was praised, but many levels were felt to be simple cases of maze navigation. The reviewer of Computer and Video Games criticised the game's repetitiveness, but said it "looks nice, and plays OK". The reviewer of Next Generation liked the dark humour, but complained about the camera, saying it does not smoothly keep up with the character. The conclusion was that MediEvil merely repeated what had already been done.