MediEvil guide: Life is the most precious resource, so bank it

Stake out the life gain pool in each level

MediEvil isn’t a super tough game, but it can be a tricky one.

Due to some old school mechanics that some people might have some difficulty acclimating to, I wanted to share a way to game the life system. It’s just as true now as it was in 1998!

In MediEvil, life is king. You start a level with the same life bar you ended the last one on, so maximizing your meter is of the utmost importance. Here’s how it all works.

Beyond your normal life bar, “lives” are governed by little potion icons above your meter. You find these out in the wild and they not only extend your bar, but give you “come back to life” potions that auto-trigger just like a fairy potion from The Legend of Zelda. It’s important to game this system as much as possible. Pick up potions only when you need life or have an empty potion icon to fill: otherwise that pickup is wasted.

Obviously “don’t get hit” is dumb advice, but stockpiling life is the easiest way to get through some particularly tough boss fights or zones, especially when they start queuing up potion uses. To combat this, make sure you always remember where the health pools are in each level (they’re pulsing green ground wells). If you’re about to finish a stage but don’t have full health/potion stock (or similarly, start a boss fight), go back to that well and suck life out of it: you might not realize this at first, but pools can not only fill your life gauge, but your potion stock.

Alternatively, you can always go back to “The Graveyard” (the first real level) to quickly run through one of the shortest levels in the game and access two pools plus a quick shopkeeper gargoyle. If you remember one bit of advice for when you start playing MediEvil, it’s “use the pools!”