We Have Diablo at Home. Without Get Medieval, There Wouldn’t Be Many Iconic Games
Get Medieval, although it didn't exactly belong to the same genre as Diablo 2, was considered by the „backyard” to be a cheap fake of a Blizzard game. However, when we discarded prejudices, it turned out to be an interesting and graceful arcade game.
Around the year 2000, it was a strange time. Where I grew up we looked at the West with admiration all the time, but I recall that time with fondness. We were poor, neither we nor our parents or grandparents could afford everything. That's why we often flew on cheap knock-offs - toys, clothes, food, fuel (oh, rapeseed oil) - and games. Because if someone already had a computer, it wasn't always powerful enough. Or it was difficult for parents to spend one-tenth or one-twentieth (optimistically...) of their salary on a new game.
Fortunately, some magazines came to the rescue, including relatively inexpensive discs with solid titles. Such as Get Medieval from the famous Monolith Productions studio. Without the success of Blood and this game, we wouldn't have played games such as Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, Aliens vs Predator 2, FEAR, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
You like what you have
For kids from the neighborhood, hanging out in internet cafes that was a cheap but effective substitute for playing Diablo 2. Blizzard's hack'n'slash, often referred to as action-RPG at the time, was a treasure hard to come by. It cost a lot and didn't work on every PC. For the kids running around the neighborhood back then, it was months of saving up - and parents didn't always want to spend a large chunk of their salary on something that caused outrage. Those were the times.
A modest game from a magazine with a few common points must have been enough for many of us. (I only played Diablo 2 in the internet cafe of my step-by-step, but very cool uncle - I probably owned a Blizzard game only a year or two later, with the expansion). And it was enough.
Because at first glance, this simple dungeon crawler really looked like a distant, somewhat impaired relative of Diablo. This is a fantasy game about slaughtering hordes of monsters in the dungeons from which we are trying to escape. There, however, we were hunting for a snouty, malicious dragon, not the embodiment of Satan. We were choosing one of the four classes assigned to gender. Barbarian (Zared), warrior woman (Kellina), archer (Eryc), or sorceress (Levina). They differed in appearance, speed, and attack strength, but generally playing each character was very similar.
The similarities to Diablo ended there - it simply wasn't important to 10- or 12-year-olds in an internet cafe. We were not journalists, experts, we barely understood the mechanics of action-RPG. We wanted to kill monsters in a fantasy setting. Get Medieval was quite fitting for that.
The gameplay was simple and quite enjoyable. Plot - even simpler. A dragon invaded the land, and we had to undertake the de-dragonization of the region. Each of our heroes operated on a similar principle - they threw projectiles that looked like their default weapon. The archer was shooting arrows, and the sorceress balls of energy, but the barbarian and the warrior also proved to be ranged characters - they were throwing axes and swords. They had countless amounts of them. No one was thinking about it at that time. Or he was silenced by the backyard-cafe council of elders.
Ghost of the arcade
In essence, it resembled the old The Gauntlet from Atari. View from above, fast action, traversing labyrinths divided into stages and arcade style. The automatic lineage was evident even when a character died (we had a limited number of lives, and the health level was gradually decreasing) and with a very simple system of improvements (we boost attack and defense). This was accompanied by special protective spells or ones that killed everything within sight.
We gathered them from the map, lost them when we perished, or were ambushed by a thief. Generally, it was simple and intuitive, it didn't slow down the gameplay, and it allowed us to somewhat get attached to our barbarian or sorceress. It offered a touch of excitement - will we discover treasure in the chest or will a thief jump out and escape with our stuff?
Generally, the gameplay brought a lot of fast, uncomplicated fun. It involved searching for treasures, clicking switches to unlock passages, and mass extermination of enemies. The gameplay set a fast pace. The traps became more complex over time, and the monsters grew increasingly malicious (we also had to destroy their nests to prevent regeneration), with more convoluted and threatening attacks. They were also pressing with increasing numbers. We simply didn't have enough of everything to avoid eventually getting bored. Get Medieval was more suitable for quick meetings, lasting an hour or two. We didn't discover anything new in this game, but it still had some features that prevented it from becoming completely monotonous.
First of all, the game is sprinkled with a dose of dry humor, references and paraphrases of fantasy books and films. The original voice actor of Zared brilliantly parodied Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian. The characters were all shooting off foolish lines, while a commentator-narrator accompanied them, sounding like he was powered by something stronger than a glass of champagne. Electronic music imitating medieval sounds also beautifully increased the tempo.
Memory hard to access
Piss-easy Get Medieval gained a lot in multiplayer. We could play online, but also in a hot seat - with four people, if we had enough controllers. Then the fun was starting in full swing. You just had to survive an argument with your sister, brother, and friend about who plays which character. Get Medieval also provided a random map generator and an editor, theoretically extending the gameplay indefinitely. However, let's face it - hardly anyone would dedicate extensive time to a straightforward arcade game that was already retro on the day of its release. It didn't score high either (around 6 and 7/10), but on the other hand, the audience and reviewers had a specific fondness for the game.
However, if you are looking for a simple, pleasant break for half an hour and want to feel a dopamine hit from a few presses of the attack key - Get Medieval is perfect for you. Unfortunately, for now, you have to look for the game on your own, even at auctions (users are nudging GOG about this game, so maybe one day we will be able to add it to the library). I hope it will affect you. If you're interested in a sentimental journey or simple fun from hacking and slashing, it's worth spending some time with Get Medieval.
