The voice cast did a great job for the most part, with some occasional scenes in which they sounded either too corny or plan bad. The sound design is excellent throughout. Whilst mechanically a weak enemy, The Maw brings an extra layer of terror to The Medium.
Thankfully, these stealth sections are few and far between, and some of them ended up being pretty good. All the stealth sections are really easy with obvious routes you need to take. However, he cannot see you, and you cannot see him, but these short sections are just a total bore. Very quickly after meeting him, you will discover he can also cross over into the material world where he can continue stalking you. Throughout her journey she will be primarily stalked by The Maw, a terrifying abomination that shows up in the spirit world. Marianne can crouch and hold her breath… and that’s about it. Narrative-wise, these monsters are great, but when you relate them to the overall gameplay, they ended up being a bit of a letdown, especially due to the game’s stealth mechanics. The Medium shows some additional issues when its threats are introduced. I was hoping for more complexity, since there was a ton of potential in the whole multiple dimension gameplay gimmick. They often revolve around simply interacting with something in the environment then backtracking to another area. The game features some interesting concepts for puzzles, such as moving a clock hand to manipulate time in a different dimension, but all in all, not a single puzzle in The Medium is complex or even thought-provoking. There are some absolutely stunning shots that are made possible with this camera set-up and I really hope it causes a revival within the genre… in moderate amounts, of course. It can cause some minor annoyances with controls when moving between rooms, but it’s never enough to become a problem. It’s used wonderfully in here, feeling like a nice homage to old-school Resident Evil and Silent Hill. One of the biggest things in The Medium, outside of the dual reality set-up, is the use of fixed and dynamic camera angles, a strong callback to the genre’s past. I still found it very engaging as a whole, with some great tension build up, while not relying on jump scares at all.
The walking speed is pretty slow and the jogging speed isn’t much better and is often disabled anyway. If you aren’t looking for a walking simulator, then The Medium might not be for you. Much of your time is spent simply wandering the Niwa Resort and piecing the mystery together. It’s an interesting idea that is used to great effect and almost every part of The Medium pushes the dual reality gameplay even further, managing to keep it the focus of the game at all times whilst finding new ways to keep mixing things up that I won’t spoil here. Splitting the screen allowed Bloober to try something a bit different with cutscenes and gameplay. However, if she is gone for too long she will get lost. For those instances where the material world is the obstacle, Marianne can leave her body behind for an out-of-body experience, allowing her to interact with the spirit world by itself. Objects that block Marianne in one world will stop her in the other world as well, like a broken staircase in the material world or a swarm of moths in the spirit world. In key moments throughout the story, the screen will split into two, as you begin to control Marianne throughout both the physical and spirit worlds at the same time. This is done to stunning effect unlike anything we’ve seen before. The Medium sees Marianne traversing through the real material world and the spirit realm, a place between life and death. Marianne is also a compelling protagonist: I wanted to see her journey until the very end. It does feature some interesting NPCs, as well as some unexpected twists. Putting you head first into a compelling mystery which revolves around a haunted place and its connection to the protagonist was an interesting idea. The Medium doesn’t have the best writing in the world, often resorting to cheesy tropes of the horror genre (perhaps intentionally or not), but its story is engaging enough. It’s up to Marianne to discover the truth of what happened in that place, as it has never been discovered. Shortly after losing her foster parent, she receives a call from a mysterious man named Thomas, telling her to go to a place called the Niwa resort, a site of a brutal massacre. You take control of Marianne, the titular Medium, a person with a special connection to the other side, helping the recently deceased move on from the spirit world into the afterlife. The Medium uses fixed camera angles to great effect.
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