Author: Unknown
Year:Unknown
Remember that game on the Playstation, MediEvil?
Since my childhood, I've loved that game. Recently, I decided to replay it using ePSXe (with my own disc, PAL, non-platinum). If anyone is a big fan of the game, they will know there's an FMV in the game for the "Inside the Asylum" level that was never used. The video can be viewed using a GameShark, however, and is easily accessible today through YouTube. The FMV shows Daniel Fortesque pulling a worm from his eye hole as a lamp post ignites into flame. The strange thing about this video is that there is no apparent reason for disabling the FMV while still leaving it on the disc, so it must have been removed pretty late in development. The first time I found the hidden FMV with my GoldFinger (GameShark ripoff), I recognized the clip...though from where, I wasn't sure. I was pretty sure, however, that the FMV was never shown during the game. I mean, I'd completed it for the third time just before my cheat device arrived, so I think I'd know.
Years passed before I realized where I'd seen the clip before that. When the good Playstation emulators burst onto the scene, I decided to play through some of my old discs. For the sake of nostalgia, I browsed through my old demo discs. One of them, to my surprise, had a demo movie for MediEvil. It was a movie which, at this point, I had no recollection of. But...I played the movie and waves of nostalgia washed over me. The video I refer to is easily accessible through Youtube, and it begins with FMV shots that were cut together, though switches between that and actual in-game footage for about three minutes. Around a minute and a half in, I saw that all too familiar footage I'd subconsciously kept with me for years. Daniel pulls the worm from his eye socket and the lamp post ignites. I'd finally solved the mystery of where I'd seen that removed FMV before.
But...things got weird not thirty seconds after that. There was a clip of game footage showing Daniel running away from a dragon (the one from the FMV that plays before the pirate ship level). This level, like that hidden FMV, does not exist in the game. I was puzzled by this. Two of the things shown in the official demo for the game were removed for, as far as I could tell, no reason at all. Now...back to when I said I was going to play the full game. Two days ago, I made it to the Asylum level (coincidentally, my favorite level). Typically, there was no FMV. The first room is tedious, yet easy, and the second and third follow suit. Usually. This time, though, I never made it to that third room.
The second room consists of a square dungeon similar to the first, with gargoyles and cannons on the walls. There are gates on three of the walls, which open periodically to release hordes of zombies. The zombies come at you and the cannons fire cannonballs into the arena. Despite this, the room is relatively simple. However, when I finished off all the zombies, the door didn't open. I looked around and eventually noticed a glitched out zombie, stuck in one of the gates. Once I killed this zombie, the door opened as expected. When I ran for the door, though, I became stuck in an invisible wall. I was stuck, just like that zombie. Frustrated, I button mashed a little bit. I hadn't saved for at least an hour, and I needed to finish the level so I could. After charging my sword and swinging it a few times, the clink of the sword hitting the wall glitched the game out and made the screen blank out. That sound played on repeat like a broken record.
Fifteen seconds later, the sound stopped and the blackness was replaced with a visual of Daniel in a forest, which I...didn't recognize at all. But it was familiar somehow. I walked around for a moment, looking around, before I figured out why this all felt familiar. Daniel turned around, and the dragon is seen running behind him. After a short FMV, the game gave me control and I ran from the dragon. I was shocked - this was the dragon level from the trailer! I definitely panicked a little, as I didn't want to get killed, in case I couldn't get back to the level again.
I ran through some repetitive forest graphics for about a minute before the dragon disappeared entirely. At the end of the level, the walls were plain, untextured white. I continued forward and what I saw put me on edge. On the walls, in red writing (jagged letters, as if written in blood), were the words "Daniel will die." This was repeated quite a lot. Underneath every instance of those words was an image only seen in MediEvil's end credits: an apple with a "magic" hat. I believe the story behind the picture is that the developers had an apple they made a hat for, but the apple rotted away after the hat was removed. This is explained alongside the image during the credits.
So I continued on after that, and nothing seemed to change. Then, the game froze and I was forced to reset. In all my following attempts, I have not been able to recreate the glitch that sent me to the dragon level. I'm beginning to feel as though I shouldn't experience that glitch again. The whole event sent me into a really paranoid state, especially due to the fact that no one I've told believes a word I say about it. Hell, my parents have booked me in to see a shrink due to this. I'm not looking forward to it - I know the events I experienced were real, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I don't have an inch of crazy in me and have been a rational person all my life. I don't drink or do drugs, and I'm not on any medications. Still, people refuse to believe me.
Thinking about that stupid hidden FMV that got me into this mess makes me queasy - it brings back memories of that level. People normally ask me "how could a video game possibly know that?" But they don't understand. Alas, I am left with the most unfortunate coincidence to occur in my life. It's a curse on my sanity which I predict will remain with me indefinitely.