Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / MediEvil 2

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/medievil2_8540.jpg

MediEvil 2 is an Action-Adventure sequel to MediEvil for the PlayStation, released in 2000.

Over five hundred years has passed since the undead knight Sir Daniel Fortesque defeated Zarok the Sorcerer and rescued Gallowmere. In Victorian London, one Lord Palethorn unleashes the powers of darkness from Zarok's spellbook, raising the dead and demons once again. Sir Dan too is awakened, and teams up with occult expert Prof. Hamilton Kift to stop Lord Palethorn's plan for world domination.


This game provides examples of:

  • 10-Minute Retirement: Dan between Kiya's death and going back in time to save her.
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Dan ends up in these after the death of Kiya, and his Despair Event Horizon. Only a few areas of 'The Sewers' are all sewer, though, as many areas in it seem to be large caves.
  • Afterlife of Service: Kiya is an ancient Egyptian peasant girl who was chosen by Pharaoh Ramesses to be one of his many consorts. He died before being able to consummate their relationship, but left instructions she was to be put to death and mummified so she could serve him as a bride in the next world.
  • All There in the Manual: The manual states that the events of the game were deemed by the authorities to be caused by mass hallucination.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Limbs fly off from both combatants in the boxing bossfight.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Subverted. 'Lord' Palethorn is actually a working-class cockney, trying to portray himself as a member of the aristocracy.
  • Artificial Limbs: Prof. Kift lost his hands during the recovery of Zarok's spellbook, and has replaced them with metal gauntlets.
  • Artifact Title: Of course the pun loses weight in Victorian Era, though there are still medieval elements.
  • Automatic Crossbows: One was present in the previous game, but 2 takes it a step further by giving you a crossbow that rapid-fires flaming bolts.
  • BFG: The Blunderbluss and, of course, the Victorian-Era Gatling Gun!
  • Big Bad: Lord Palethorn takes the reins from Zarok as the Evil Sorcerer.
  • Big "NO!": Dan lets out one of these after Kiya dies in his arms.
  • Bittersweet Ending: If you don't collect every chalice, the ending has Dan and Kiya returning to her tomb and sealing themselves away together in her sarcophagus.
  • Book Ends: The intro shows Dan's battle against Zarok in his dragon form at the end of the first game. The 100% ending shows Dan and Kiya going back to the same arena, this time, they face Palethorn in a similar form.
  • Broken Pedestal: The Mollucks' god-like admiration for Dan quickly diminishes when he steals their time-stone to power the time machine.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: The madam prostitute in the Whitechapel nightclub has huge breasts, and it's implied she's trying to use them to persuade Dan to help her, due to the way she leans over, how she bounces them constantly on her crossed arms, and before Dan leaves, she gets out a life bottle from her cleavage and gives it to him.
  • Cane Fu: One of Dan's first weapons is a cane stick.
  • Cape Wings: The Count's cape acts as a pair of wings.
  • Cartoon Bomb: One of the available weapons. Dan can throw them like grenades, or drop them at his feet.
  • Circus of Fear: The Freakshow embodies this.
  • Clockwork Creature: A clockwork boxer, appropriately named the "Iron Slugger". He's not all metal though, as he clearly has a brain in a glass dome atop his head.
  • Colossus Climb: The first boss is the giant T-Rex skeleton in the museum, whose sole weak spot is its exposed brain. As Dan, you will need to climb up its spine and attack its brain while standing atop its head.
  • Compact Infiltrator: Sir Dan eventually realizes that he can detach his skull and use it to control the disembodied hands roaming the levels, allowing his new Dan Hand form into hidden areas accessible only through vents and holes in the wall. In the levels following this discovery, breaking into Wulfram Hall requires Sir Dan to send Dan Hand into the building through a tiny basement window and access the door controls on the ground floor via the dumbwaiter.
  • Damsel in Distress: The Molluck women in the sewers and Kiya.
  • Despair Event Horizon:
    • Dan has one of these after the death of Kiya at the hands of The Ripper, and stops caring about the Zarok spellbook and Palethorn altogether, running off to the sewers.
    • The Mollucks in the sewers have met theirs when their women got stolen.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: After she's slaughtered by Jack the Ripper, Kiya vanishes in Dan's arms with the same effect when you kill enemies. She gets better.
  • Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The fire-breathing, fossilized Tyrannosaurus Wrecks boss.
  • Dual Boss: Dogman and Mander, whom are fought twice in the course of the game.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies: Lord Palethorn's zombies and, of course, Dan himself.
  • Exposition Fairy: Winston the ghost serves partly as tutorial and partly as a mobile item shop.
  • Fake Aristocrat: Lord Palethorn, who is actually a working-class cockney named Reggie Palthrop.
  • Flunky Boss: Tyrannosaurus Wrecks calls for smaller dino skeletons to its aid during its boss-fight. It also exposes its weakpoint by doing so.
  • The Freakshow: Used for one of the levels, complete with Bearded Ladies.
  • Gainax Ending: The secret ending for collecting all the chalices. Dan and Kiya use the time machine to return to Dan's time, accidentally arriving in Zarok's castle, but it's revealed in a Wham Shot that the One-Winged Angel monster attacking them inexplicably has Lord Palethorn's head instead of Zarok's. Roll credits.
  • Gatling Good: Final unlockable weapon is a Gatling gun.
  • God Guise: The underdwelling Mullocks somehow got their hands on Sir Fortesque's statue, and worship him as god. When Dan arrives on the scene, he is tasked on saving their women.
  • Golden Super Mode: After going back in time and meeting himself, Dan gets a golden suit of armor which can be charged up by the Spiv for an extra layer of durability.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: Even if he gets his weapons stolen or runs out of ammo, Dan always has one weapon. His left arm, usable as a club or a boomerang.
  • Helping Hands: Like in the previous game, green hands can be found skittering around. This time around Sir Dan can pluck off his head and put it on one of them, to go through small holes or access secret areas.
  • Honest John's Dealership: The Spiv (a Cockney term for gentlemen of ill repute) sells things out of his coat.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: If you lose the boxing match, Lord Palethorn will gloat over his victory and claim that he gets the girl.
  • Impossible Hourglass Figure: Kiya. As the instruction manual notes, having all your internal organs removed does wonders for your figure.
  • Invincible Minor Minion: The constables patrolling the Whitechapel will subdue anyone out after curfew, for fear of them being the local serial killer. You can attack them, but the most you can do is stun them for a while, so the best strategy is just to run away. If you're not exactly tactful about how you navigate the city, you can end up with a swarm of them following you. They also pay absolutely no regard to all the zombies that happen to be sprouting from the ground. Oddly enough, when your disguise is complete, they won't bat an eyelash at you.
  • Losing Your Head: This is a recurring thing, done manually by Dan himself. His head is treated as an inventory item, and is used for a variety of things, the most memorable being how he can stick it onto a zombified hand, and control it. He can also switch between head and body at any time.
  • Meaningful Name: Palethorn's henchmen, Dogman and Mander, are transformed into a humanoid dog and a lizard respectively.
  • Menacing Museum: The first two levels are set at the British Museum, now empty of visitors and hit hard by the wave of necromancy that Lord Palethorne unleashed on London. On top of being invaded by zombie patrons, it's also infested by reanimated exhibits like animated suits of armour, monstrously-reconstructed dinosaur skeletons, and even aliens (part of the moon landing exhibit). On the upside, it's also where Sir Daniel Fortescue returns from the dead.
  • Mini-Mecha: Imps and their contraptions return, this time as giant elephant bots in the Freak Show level.
  • Mook Medic: Appears in Kensington. Somewhat unique in that they can only heal a small number of zombies, and can only be harmed while healing.
  • Mr. Exposition: The ghost Winston explains things to Sir Dan in his new, unfamiliar surroundings.
  • Multiple Endings: Two of them, depending whether you find every chalice or not.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Palethorn.
  • Never the Selves Shall Meet: Averted, Dan goes back to the past to save Kiya from The Ripper, and after killing him, Dan meets himself as he comes in to save Kiya. They shake hands, resulting in them becoming one, giving Dan a snazzy suit of golden armor.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dan ends up bringing the final and crucial page of Zarok's spellbook right to Palethorn, giving him near-unlimited power. He starts by summoning up a colossal shadow demon. What follows is not pretty.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-universe example: Lord Palethorn puts on an upper-class accent to make himself sound more like a nobleman, but his natural Cockney accent tends to slip through when he becomes angry.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: They're bat-like humanoids, who can only be destroyed with sunlight.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Two instances of it. First Dan has to dress up as a deceased aristocrat to get into the local nightclub, and later has to dress up as the Molluck King to fool the Molluck tribe. He still looks like a skeleton in either case.
  • Permanently Missable Content: Unlike the previous game, the Healing Springs never replenish, and you have to make-do with healing potions instead if you want to fill your life bottles.
  • Pit Girls: Kiya's role between the boxing match's rounds.
  • Playing Tennis with the Boss: The fight against The Count has you arranging mirrors so that his fireballs reflect back at him.
  • Portmantitle: Medieval + Evil (+ Numbered Sequels).
  • The Professor: Professor Hamilton Kift; magician, inventor, and master of the occult. He serves as a slight Mr. Exposition, but mostly serves to give you your orders and cash in Chalices for new weapons. He's also got a pair of Victorian-era mechanical hands, and built the Time Machine Dan uses to go back in time to save Kiya.
  • Pulling Themselves Together: After Tyrannosaurus Wrex's first form is defeated, it rearranges itself into a flying monstrosity.
  • Pumpkin Person: The game has various pumpkin-based hazards in the Kew Gardens level, such as giant pumpkins that roll around the landscape trying to crush Dan, ordinary-sized ones that bounce around and explode on contact, and pumpkin men that reproduce by implanting their seeds into the level's inhabitants.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Mander, one of Palethorn's henchmen, is transformed into a lizard by Palethorn's magic, as a reflection of his smarmy nature.
  • Rescue Romance: Starts between Dan and Kiya after he releases her from her tomb, and goes to full bloom when he rescues her from The Ripper.
  • Retcon: After being defeated in the first game, Zarok reverted back to his usual self, before getting crushed by a huge stone. The intro shows Daniel killing him while in his One-Winged Angel form with the implication that he was buried under the rubble of his fortress, so far as to have his stuffed head and legs appear in the first level, The Museum.
  • Rise from Your Grave: Zombies do their "coffin rises from the ground" trick again. How their coffins got buried into gardens and backstreets of London is a mystery.
  • Satellite Love Interest: Kiya.
  • Schizo Tech: It's Victorian-era London, and we've got Professor Kift's fully functional cybernetic hands, giant robotic elephants, and let's not forget Lord Palethorn's big hovercraft.
  • Short-Range Shotgun: The Blunderbuss's range leaves a helluva lot to be desired, ruining its otherwise excellent damage.
  • Shout-Out: Stopping The Ripper with a time machine is very reminiscent of Time After Time.
  • Steampunk: The game mainly consists of this, from time machines to steam-powered robots.
  • Sudden Downer Ending: In the best ending (the one that you get if you collected all the chalices), Dan and Kiya take the time machine back to Dan's own time, only to arrive in front of transformed Palethorn, who lunges at the camera, implying that he ate them. This crosses with Diabolus ex Machina and Gainax Ending. It might have been a Sequel Hook, but we'll never know.
  • Tactical Suicide Boss: A problem faced by several bosses in the game, including Tyrannosaurus Wrecks (stands completely still whenever it summons minions, making its weakpoint incredibly obvious in the process), The Count (his spells can be reflected back at him using mirrors), The Ripper (makes himself vulnerable whenever he stops attacking Dan in order to attack Kiya instead), and Palethorn's Cruiser (vulnerable to being attacked from behind whenever it flies by shooting missiles; in an interesting twist, attacking the cruiser doesn't damage it, but getting punched by the Demon due to accidental friendly fire does).
  • Take Over the World: All that Lord Palethorn ever wanted was to have respect. And world domination, of course.
  • Tentacled Terror: Greenwich introduces us to to the body-hijacking octopi.
  • Terrible Trio: Mander, Dogman and their leader Lord Palethorn.
  • Time Travel: Employed to save Kiya from being killed by The Ripper.
  • The Unintelligible: Most of what the Spiv says makes no sense, either, though he does audibly yell "Wait!" if you pass him without buying anything and mutters an almost unintelligible 'look at that' when the player interacts with him, what 'that' is is up to the player to decide.
    • Not the case with Dan this time. His dialogue can be understood without subtitles, but his speech is still heavily slurred.
  • Toilet Humor:
    • The limb-monster for the groin in "Dankenstein" is a bum with eyes and a toothed anus and flippers, which attacks by...farting all over you.
    • A unique enemy in the "Wulfrum Hall" level when idle and not attacking Dan alternates between coughing fits and farting.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The policemen don't care about zombies rising from the ground.
  • Villains Want Mercy: The Ripper begs for mercy when defeated. Dan's answer?
    Dan: Nuh-uh. *BLAM*
  • The Virus: The pumpkin monsters in Kew Gardens attempt to turn humans into pumpkin monsters as well.
  • Warrior vs. Sorcerer: Once again, the knight Sir Dan faces off against an Evil Sorcerer.
  • Weakened by the Light: Wulfrum Hall features puzzles where you have to push vampires into sunlight, which sets them ablaze. The Count's second phase has Dan position mirrors to focus sunlight on him to inflict damage.
  • We Can Rule Together: Palethorn makes this proposition to Dan beside eventually putting flesh onto his bones. He refuses.
  • Whack-a-Monster:
    • The serpent creatures in The Sewers who keep the Molluck women captive have to be fought this way.
    • The Freakshow has a mini-game for whacking imps like that. Winning nets you the Chicken Drumsticks.


 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Lord Palethorn

The Big Bad of Medievil 2, Palethorn acquired Zarok's spellbook and unleashed havoc on London. However, something went wrong with the spell, and as a result he was transformed into a red-skinned demon, and the pages of the spellbook were scattered across London, thus making the monsters he summoned almost uncontrollable. Palethorn now seeks the remaining pages of the spellbook so he can complete the spell and take over the world.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (5 votes)

Example of:

Main / BigBad

Media sources:

Report