I wasn't expecting much from this game, and it's certainly A First Person Dungeon Crawler From 1994 with all that that entails, but I have not stopped thinking about this game since I beat it. I am enamored. The atmosphere is perfect and the combat, while clunky, has a certain rhythm that you pick up on by the time you leave the first floor. If you put in a little time to get used to the way the game is I feel like it's a pretty rewarding experience. The game is also pretty short so it's the perfect game to stay up all night and finish.
chat am i insane
This game filtered me
This game's atmosphere is so liminal and unsettling, I love it. Exploring the dark labyrinth never failed to keep me on edge, and the character progression in conjunction made for a satisfying experience. Overall, a fun classic RPG that can be enjoyed by fans of Fromsoft and first person dungeon crawlers alike.
Wanted to try From Software's first title and was expecting a pretty clunky bad game from what I've seen but honestly... I was weirdly charmed by it. It has its issues, NUMEROUS issues, but it does give you a somewhat enjoyable and short dungeon crawling experience. Not bad by any means but it still was a bit of a slog
masterpiece
Solid and atmospheric, also only maybe 5 or so hours long. I don't think it helped that I played King's Field II first (mistakenly as it was released as King's Field I in the US), but there's a lot here that was built upon to make King's Field II more robust. This one is a tad more obtuse in comparison, but the combat loop is mostly the same. These aren't games with a combat focus which is okay, the adventure is the real draw. You are completely inside on this one and the further you go into it's mazes the more claustrophobic and tense it becomes. By the end of the game you're practically an unkillable god and it's very satisfying to just one shot all the things that gave you so much trouble before.
It's really cool to play From's first game because all the groundwork is there for what would turn them into a juggernaut following Demon's Souls. A hands-off approach with a mixture of player trust and frankly obtuse design make these singular works. Finally used the very first iteration of the Moonlight Sword and it's neat.
It's really cool to play From's first game because all the groundwork is there for what would turn them into a juggernaut following Demon's Souls. A hands-off approach with a mixture of player trust and frankly obtuse design make these singular works. Finally used the very first iteration of the Moonlight Sword and it's neat.
What a beauty! Every monster in this game is my friend. Talk of its obtuseness is greatly exaggerated. Can't wait to start 2.
It's a lot more fun than I may have expected, as evidenced by my uhhhh playing through the whole thing in a single seasonal depression binge over the course of almost nine hours.
There are a lot of flaws, but most of them are at least a little charming even with how annoying they can be. My experience was saved by emulation save states, I don't think I would have had the patience to go through it on its own terms with how much backtracking you have to do and how easy it is to die in stupid ways.
It also starts off insanely hard and gets progressively easier until the final area which is just the worst, and sort of hinges on a mechanic the game doesn't tell you about. Usually I like that at least a little bit in FromSoft's design, but it wasted a ton of my time when I realized I was just a few numbers away from hitting an invisible stat that allows you to cast magic through your sword. I ended up hex-coding my HP up so I could just spam the boss and that worked fine.
I'm really excited to see how the series grows exponentially over the course of the next few games. This one left me incredibly charmed even with all of its downfalls, and I know I'm going to fall even harder for these games the longer I spend with them.
There are a lot of flaws, but most of them are at least a little charming even with how annoying they can be. My experience was saved by emulation save states, I don't think I would have had the patience to go through it on its own terms with how much backtracking you have to do and how easy it is to die in stupid ways.
It also starts off insanely hard and gets progressively easier until the final area which is just the worst, and sort of hinges on a mechanic the game doesn't tell you about. Usually I like that at least a little bit in FromSoft's design, but it wasted a ton of my time when I realized I was just a few numbers away from hitting an invisible stat that allows you to cast magic through your sword. I ended up hex-coding my HP up so I could just spam the boss and that worked fine.
I'm really excited to see how the series grows exponentially over the course of the next few games. This one left me incredibly charmed even with all of its downfalls, and I know I'm going to fall even harder for these games the longer I spend with them.
Getting to floor 4 for the first is a similar feeling to getting to hell for the first time in Doom
This is what I imagine it feels like to live inside Runescape; a charming little nightmare.
oooh skeleton
Although I imagine this game is agonizingly slow on original hardware, playing this through on Steam Deck with a customised keybinding that essentially gives the game standardised dual analog controls, although not totally in the spirit of things did smooth out the experience and allowed me to better see the stuff King's Field still does well - the genesis of From Software's challenging dungeons that drop with atmosphere and a strange Japanese take on Western role playing game aesthetics. Perhaps a little too rough around the edges for most these days but as a fan of From's output it was worth sticking out to see their now mega-million selling formula stripped right back to the barest of bare bones.
A lot like many other folks, we all in someway or form get to experience FromSoftware's Dark Souls as that kind of "hard as nails" game experience and it left quite the impression among generations of avid video game players.
Dark Souls left me with the curiosity of who were FromSoft and what games they've made before Dark Souls became a household name?
This lead me to binge FromSoft's Playstation 1 games: Armored Core with it's sequels, and their first game they've ever made : King's Field and it's sequels too.
Yes, I've gone out of my wayto download to borrow and play the japan-only game, for which the reason why it wasn't released internationally still alludes me.
First thing first, the graphics.
As alluded in my other reviews of PS1 games, I have a major soft spot for early PS1 low poly graphics because of how they evolve in the PS1's lifecycle, and how aged pretty well in comparison to many indie games going for that same aesthetic. King's Field is no different from it's early title companions, heck, I could say it's very impressive since it was FromSoft first title since they were office software developers before. Graphically, the way how they convey what environment should look like without using more complex static polygons is the use of wall and floor textures. For example, they can't really render that many static trees without tanking the frames, they simply just mapped tree textures on the wall and used brownish dirt floor textures to make it seem like it's an underground forest or woods. The environment varies from floor to floor with these wall and floor textures to convey different environments, from the first level's stone walls and dirt floor to the final level's Hellish fleshy walls and bone flooring. It leaves a lot to be desired but I believe it works and it plays on the player's imagination. The Monsters and Human NPCs are easily conveyable with their distinct shapes they don't need too much details to know who or what they are, but human faces are rendered so simplistic, they are practically faceless, that might give very impressionable people nightmare fuel, so be warned.
Story is just as minimalist as Dark Souls'.
The game presents you with a title crawl ala Star Wars with a POV shot of you the player slowly walking thru a cathedral to a teleporter to enter the underground world in King's Field.
You play the role of Jean Alfred Forester, Royal Knight of the Kingdom of Verdite, exploring the underground labyrinth of Verdite's cathedral in search of your father, Commander Hauser, and the King Reinhardt III, who was on an expedition with the commander and his troops down under there to search for magic artefacts and quel rumors of an evil dark power slowly re-awaking.
It's a pretty straight forward, DnD style dungeon campaign story-wise.
Gameplay-wise, King's Field plays like a 3D adventure RPG dungeon crawler, where you gain experience, earn gold, and ranked up by slaying a diverse numbers of mobs, with a very Metroivania-esque map design where there are secrets lurking in nearly every corner of the dungeon, and may need to do some map drawing yourself since you may get lost in some parts of the underground. Just a heads-up, the in-game map is not very helpful, but at least you got a compass. Oh and be sure to save often, cause once you die without a save (or have a powerful item), you'll be softreseted back to the start of the game, a classic Adventure game trope they clearly took from, again, Wizardry. Yeah, very Wizardry centrique. Damn the japanese really do love Wizardry, and I can't blame them cause it's gameplay is top of the line dungeon crawling RPG at it's finest. The game is so hands-free that you can accidentally drop and sell important key items, with the item indication being very barebones on their uses, at least, with the english-patched game I've played with. Note that even the manual gives little bearing on what items are, it's a classic trial error shtick or "get a player guide book" mentality, but that's the name of game with these type of Adventure games.
An interest aspect of the gameplay is the combat where you have two types of attack meter: Power and Magic. Power is your physical attacks, but how you use it is interesting. The power meter always reset to zero after each time you swing your weapon, full power meter garanties 100% attack power of your equipped weapon, and with low power meter, you get the lowest possible attack rolls, so you have to be pretty strategic with how you engaged with monsters, as it punishes players who spam the attack button even with powerful weapons like the legendary Moonlight Greatsword (yes THAT Moonlight Greatsword). Magic is magic, the magic meter is only there to mitigate the DPS with how OP they are, especially some weapons have an "alt fire mode" where they require both attack meter to be used.
Well gameplay is fun and interesting but controls are a different story.
This comes as no surprise but the controls are weak. This is a first year Playstation game after all, so the Dualshock doesn't exist yet and it is not even compatible with it. With many pre-DualShock 3D adventure games/FPS games, it goes for the divisive Tank-style controls, where you move forward with up d-pad, move backward with down d-pad, turn left and right with the left and right d-pad respectively. Being the Playstation and a 3D game, FromSoft added strafing with the L1-R1 buttons and looking up and down with L2-R2. Attack with Triangle, Magic with Square, Circle for interacting/confirming things, and X for opening the menu and cancelling interactions. Pretty basic, not much to say it does it's job well since it's not too chaotic to navigate the dungeon, if only it had dualshock support in retrospect.
Music is a very heavy synth ambient soundtrack safe for the shop menu, prologue and epilogue. Some might find it cheesy and/or ear-grating, but I'll give FromSoft props, they are pretty atmospheric and matches well with the vibe that a sealed evil is lurking in the walls of this underworld and is slowly breaking free from it's shackles.
To conclude, King's Field (1994) fells more a like footnote but a recommend try, for Dark Souls fans who are curious on what other games FromSoft made. A year later FromSoft would release King's Field II/King's Field (1995) internationally, and made it a better gaming experience with the addition of sprinting, better environments, better performance, but is still cryptic as it's predecessor.
Dark Souls left me with the curiosity of who were FromSoft and what games they've made before Dark Souls became a household name?
This lead me to binge FromSoft's Playstation 1 games: Armored Core with it's sequels, and their first game they've ever made : King's Field and it's sequels too.
Yes, I've gone out of my way
First thing first, the graphics.
As alluded in my other reviews of PS1 games, I have a major soft spot for early PS1 low poly graphics because of how they evolve in the PS1's lifecycle, and how aged pretty well in comparison to many indie games going for that same aesthetic. King's Field is no different from it's early title companions, heck, I could say it's very impressive since it was FromSoft first title since they were office software developers before. Graphically, the way how they convey what environment should look like without using more complex static polygons is the use of wall and floor textures. For example, they can't really render that many static trees without tanking the frames, they simply just mapped tree textures on the wall and used brownish dirt floor textures to make it seem like it's an underground forest or woods. The environment varies from floor to floor with these wall and floor textures to convey different environments, from the first level's stone walls and dirt floor to the final level's Hellish fleshy walls and bone flooring. It leaves a lot to be desired but I believe it works and it plays on the player's imagination. The Monsters and Human NPCs are easily conveyable with their distinct shapes they don't need too much details to know who or what they are, but human faces are rendered so simplistic, they are practically faceless, that might give very impressionable people nightmare fuel, so be warned.
Story is just as minimalist as Dark Souls'.
The game presents you with a title crawl ala Star Wars with a POV shot of you the player slowly walking thru a cathedral to a teleporter to enter the underground world in King's Field.
You play the role of Jean Alfred Forester, Royal Knight of the Kingdom of Verdite, exploring the underground labyrinth of Verdite's cathedral in search of your father, Commander Hauser, and the King Reinhardt III, who was on an expedition with the commander and his troops down under there to search for magic artefacts and quel rumors of an evil dark power slowly re-awaking.
It's a pretty straight forward, DnD style dungeon campaign story-wise.
Gameplay-wise, King's Field plays like a 3D adventure RPG dungeon crawler, where you gain experience, earn gold, and ranked up by slaying a diverse numbers of mobs, with a very Metroivania-esque map design where there are secrets lurking in nearly every corner of the dungeon, and may need to do some map drawing yourself since you may get lost in some parts of the underground. Just a heads-up, the in-game map is not very helpful, but at least you got a compass. Oh and be sure to save often, cause once you die without a save (or have a powerful item), you'll be softreseted back to the start of the game, a classic Adventure game trope they clearly took from, again, Wizardry. Yeah, very Wizardry centrique. Damn the japanese really do love Wizardry, and I can't blame them cause it's gameplay is top of the line dungeon crawling RPG at it's finest. The game is so hands-free that you can accidentally drop and sell important key items, with the item indication being very barebones on their uses, at least, with the english-patched game I've played with. Note that even the manual gives little bearing on what items are, it's a classic trial error shtick or "get a player guide book" mentality, but that's the name of game with these type of Adventure games.
An interest aspect of the gameplay is the combat where you have two types of attack meter: Power and Magic. Power is your physical attacks, but how you use it is interesting. The power meter always reset to zero after each time you swing your weapon, full power meter garanties 100% attack power of your equipped weapon, and with low power meter, you get the lowest possible attack rolls, so you have to be pretty strategic with how you engaged with monsters, as it punishes players who spam the attack button even with powerful weapons like the legendary Moonlight Greatsword (yes THAT Moonlight Greatsword). Magic is magic, the magic meter is only there to mitigate the DPS with how OP they are, especially some weapons have an "alt fire mode" where they require both attack meter to be used.
Well gameplay is fun and interesting but controls are a different story.
This comes as no surprise but the controls are weak. This is a first year Playstation game after all, so the Dualshock doesn't exist yet and it is not even compatible with it. With many pre-DualShock 3D adventure games/FPS games, it goes for the divisive Tank-style controls, where you move forward with up d-pad, move backward with down d-pad, turn left and right with the left and right d-pad respectively. Being the Playstation and a 3D game, FromSoft added strafing with the L1-R1 buttons and looking up and down with L2-R2. Attack with Triangle, Magic with Square, Circle for interacting/confirming things, and X for opening the menu and cancelling interactions. Pretty basic, not much to say it does it's job well since it's not too chaotic to navigate the dungeon, if only it had dualshock support in retrospect.
Music is a very heavy synth ambient soundtrack safe for the shop menu, prologue and epilogue. Some might find it cheesy and/or ear-grating, but I'll give FromSoft props, they are pretty atmospheric and matches well with the vibe that a sealed evil is lurking in the walls of this underworld and is slowly breaking free from it's shackles.
To conclude, King's Field (1994) fells more a like footnote but a recommend try, for Dark Souls fans who are curious on what other games FromSoft made. A year later FromSoft would release King's Field II/King's Field (1995) internationally, and made it a better gaming experience with the addition of sprinting, better environments, better performance, but is still cryptic as it's predecessor.
chat am i insane
chat am i insane
Pretty good (spiritual) predecessor to the Soulsborne games, but not without its issues. Despite the wonky controls and primitive 3D graphics, King's Field plays well; exploration is rewarding, combat is functional (if simple), and the player has to feel their way through a complicated series of floors without explicit directions on where to go. Unlike Dark Souls and kin, the progression here is much more linear; there's less gear, so when you find a new piece of armor or weapon, it's usually a strict upgrade. Unfortunately, the game trips over itself with this linear progression when the final boss rolls around -- there's effectively only one way to win the battle, relying on a specific weapon, stats, and a technique that the game never teaches you, meaning that completing the game without a guide would be frustrating if not outright impossible. The lack of modern quality of life features is also grating; using multiple healing items takes a ridiculous amount of button presses, and selling multiple copies of an item requires you to re-enter the sell menu for each individual item. These flaws aside, it's a captivating retro dungeon-crawler, and it's neat seeing some of the foundations for the game design in From Software's later outings.
It's slow, it's ugly, it's repetitive as hell. Still, somehow incredibly compelling, even with its terrible boss fights.
Worst game ever
I hate this game I love this game
"bro you better not be tweaking when i get home"
me at home: tank controls bumping into walls trying to get behind a skeleton
me at home: tank controls bumping into walls trying to get behind a skeleton
The call of King's Field has been hard to shake. Ever since watching a stream of Kings Field 4: The Ancient City in early 2022, I thought the idea of playing through the original King's Field would be a funny joke due to the game's lauded difficulty. I started streaming the game with a friend and ran into the absurd difficulty that I expected. I could barely grasp the slow tank-like controls and the timing of the attacks. I got lost in the maze-like structures of Floor 1 and died many times to enemy skeletons. It was a fun experience that resulted in me struggling to the end of Floor 1 and putting the game down for good. Or so I thought.
King's Field never quite left my mind. I felt myself drawn to the dank, grungy atmosphere of the Royal Graveyard and the hostility of the space. I admired that while the graveyard was modeled with dated, PS1 textures, the space felt real and lived-in due to its outright hostility towards the player rather than being accommodating. To delve deeper into the dungeon, you need to meet the game on its terms and not bend them to yours. I couldn't resist the call anymore and delved back into the dungeon in 2023 with minor success before putting the game back down.
I journeyed once more into the dungeon in 2024 to surprising results. After my expected deaths to enemy skeletons and time spent getting lost on Floor 1, I felt myself tune into the game's rhythm. The pace of combat fell into place and diligent exploration led to discovering an in-game map. Having a better handle on the floor layouts gave me the confidence to delve ever deeper. Before I knew it, I was navigating floors with confidence. I successfully found hidden passages, gained powerful equipment, and solved the game's challenges on my own without a guide. I was thrilled with my progress and slowly gained confidence that I could see this experience through to the end.
I eventually reached the final boss and...could not overcome the challenge. I don't think I could have completed King's Field without the help of a community written guide. The mechanic of Sword Magic, which is never explained in-game or in the manual to my knowledge, seems required to defeat the final boss. I managed to discover the game's most powerful weapon, the Moonlight Greatsword, on my own, but couldn't even scratch the final boss without it's sword magic. With the knowledge of sword magic in hand, the boss went down with relative ease. This seemed unfair and disappointing. I had made it all this way with my own ability only to be foiled at the end.
But a pillar of modern day FromSoftware titles IS their community. While fans will always ban together on forums to uncover each of their games' secrets, FromSoftware does officially endorse community collaboration in some of their titles through in-game communication features. They expect this collaborative effort from their fans and design their games around it. It's possible that this mindset originated with King's Field, their very first game. The developers may have hoped for similar community collaboration to be used to conquer the devious dungeon that they had designed for their player base.
In context, it seems only fitting that I couldn't conquer King's Field without assistance. King's Field truly can't be figured out via the fortitude of a single player. It's only through community that we can conquer the challenge.
While I've tried other FromSoftware titles over the years, King's Field 1, an obtuse and underplayed game that I could only play via fan-translation, is the first of their games I have rolled credits on. It gives me the courage to go back to their other titles and see what I can accomplish with the support of the dedicated FromSoft community.
Favorite Tracks:
Floor 1-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px7-sv_eLO4&list=PLeCNBB0gH4T723I6ZpVCxmjaR_URAw--0&index=7
Floor 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ7rsHYqG5w&list=PLMHCGC8qP541NiPgBMSB9_or48DXzBaPM&index=6
King's Field never quite left my mind. I felt myself drawn to the dank, grungy atmosphere of the Royal Graveyard and the hostility of the space. I admired that while the graveyard was modeled with dated, PS1 textures, the space felt real and lived-in due to its outright hostility towards the player rather than being accommodating. To delve deeper into the dungeon, you need to meet the game on its terms and not bend them to yours. I couldn't resist the call anymore and delved back into the dungeon in 2023 with minor success before putting the game back down.
I journeyed once more into the dungeon in 2024 to surprising results. After my expected deaths to enemy skeletons and time spent getting lost on Floor 1, I felt myself tune into the game's rhythm. The pace of combat fell into place and diligent exploration led to discovering an in-game map. Having a better handle on the floor layouts gave me the confidence to delve ever deeper. Before I knew it, I was navigating floors with confidence. I successfully found hidden passages, gained powerful equipment, and solved the game's challenges on my own without a guide. I was thrilled with my progress and slowly gained confidence that I could see this experience through to the end.
I eventually reached the final boss and...could not overcome the challenge. I don't think I could have completed King's Field without the help of a community written guide. The mechanic of Sword Magic, which is never explained in-game or in the manual to my knowledge, seems required to defeat the final boss. I managed to discover the game's most powerful weapon, the Moonlight Greatsword, on my own, but couldn't even scratch the final boss without it's sword magic. With the knowledge of sword magic in hand, the boss went down with relative ease. This seemed unfair and disappointing. I had made it all this way with my own ability only to be foiled at the end.
But a pillar of modern day FromSoftware titles IS their community. While fans will always ban together on forums to uncover each of their games' secrets, FromSoftware does officially endorse community collaboration in some of their titles through in-game communication features. They expect this collaborative effort from their fans and design their games around it. It's possible that this mindset originated with King's Field, their very first game. The developers may have hoped for similar community collaboration to be used to conquer the devious dungeon that they had designed for their player base.
In context, it seems only fitting that I couldn't conquer King's Field without assistance. King's Field truly can't be figured out via the fortitude of a single player. It's only through community that we can conquer the challenge.
While I've tried other FromSoftware titles over the years, King's Field 1, an obtuse and underplayed game that I could only play via fan-translation, is the first of their games I have rolled credits on. It gives me the courage to go back to their other titles and see what I can accomplish with the support of the dedicated FromSoft community.
Favorite Tracks:
Floor 1-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px7-sv_eLO4&list=PLeCNBB0gH4T723I6ZpVCxmjaR_URAw--0&index=7
Floor 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ7rsHYqG5w&list=PLMHCGC8qP541NiPgBMSB9_or48DXzBaPM&index=6
I am not impressed. Do not play it without a guide, it's not worth it.
I don't hate it or anything, it's just utterly meh. Only in the last floor I started enjoying it a bit but overall I didn't feel any of the immersion or uniqueness that people say this game has.
I don't hate it or anything, it's just utterly meh. Only in the last floor I started enjoying it a bit but overall I didn't feel any of the immersion or uniqueness that people say this game has.
Eu não sei se gosto ou não desse jogo, é confuso dizer se ele é o pior jogo ja feito ou o mais interessante.
Com toda a certeza ele tem um lugar eterno na minha mente.
Com toda a certeza ele tem um lugar eterno na minha mente.
I really like King's Field 2, but I just wasn't feeling this one for most of the game. By the time I got to floor 4 I was feeling it a little more but not as much as 2. Wasn't exactly a big fan of having to grind just to damage the final boss at all. That slap bass on floor 4 go kinda hard tho.
dark souls 1
Quite archaic and simplistic in its chore mechanics, and sometimes a bit too labyrinthine in its map design for my taste. Still, it's dripping with atmosphere, which kept me going in exploring this strange place. I just hope the sequels have a more fun final boss to go against.
If I had to play this game on original hardware, I probably would have dropped it. But we live in the future, and I had a ton of fun with it! It's so archaic and basic that it loops around to being approachable with very clear goals. This is a game you're going to need to either find a map for or make one for yourself, but even with trial and error I couldn't see this game taking more than 10 hours to beat, and there's a very real sense of accomplishment overcoming this game's hurdles. Ironically, I would say this is one of their PS1 games that's aged the best and anyone interested in Fromsoft's backlog should check this out.
Really nice bite sized game :) I tend to kinda overwhelm myself playing a lot of obtuse old rpgs these days so this was a nice palate cleanser.