Convoluted NPC questlines, a huge open world, an understated but verbose backstory told through environmental cues and text dumps, and secrets that reveal themselves to you like layers on a video game onion, or at least ones you make note of for the next time you decide to take a bite through the tears. Sorry, but you were late to the party the second you passed up the spark that kicked off perhaps the most earth-shatteringly loud three consecutive days in gaming history:


June 21, 1996: King’s Field III,
June 22, 1996: Quake,
June 23, 1996: Super Mario 64.

Simultaneously a key collection simulator more nightmarishly hellish than any Doom WAD could ever aspire to be, a Soulslike more hideously obtuse than any happy-go-lucky Onion-in-armor could ever prove to you, and an aural assassin as insidiously persistent as the drippiest faucet; King’s Field II (US), hereafter referred to simply as King’s Field III is definitively the worst “exploration/action game with a deep backstory” that I still somewhat enjoyed playing. In contrast, I did not enjoy my time with Demons’ Souls, nor did I enjoy the second time; but I would hazard a guess and say I would somewhat further enjoy a second playthrough of Kings Field III. As a child sizing up which variety of cough syrup to gulp down to appease a mother resolved to declare me “too sick to play videogames”, I found myself reaching out to garish Bubble Gum instead of the grizzled statesman that was Robitussin when given the choice. Bubble Gum as a medicinal flavor just had an air of mystery to it, and while I don’t think anything purporting itself to taste like Bubble Gum while simultaneously being good for you ever accomplished either with aplomb, it’s the attempt at not sucking that would stick with me and embolden me to return the next time I told mother the can of beef mushroom soup I emptied out into the toilet bowl came out of my body. All this to say that for all the trauma King’s Field III would inflict on my soul, it challenged and surprised me more than the solved quantity of Demons’ Souls ever possibly could; the most comprehensive resource for Kings Field III at the time of this review is a half-working neocities archive of a now kaput fansite, whereas Demons’ Souls has been documented and analyzed to death, most famously by Sony who commissioned one of their own studios to assemble a multi-million dollar diorama of it for it’s winning entry at the science fair titled: Most Exploitable Fanbase. King’s Field III is the first time developer FromSoft united nearly all of these now familiar trappings of success in one compact disc; a bouillabaisse of then unconventional game design that every YouTuber who wore their choice of game difficulty as a personality would yearn for on as close to a yearly basis as they could get it. (NOTE: I did not originally intend to insinuate that Demons’ Souls fans are “tripping” but it would explain A LOT.)

Unfortunately for all it’s ambition it never really executes it’s MO of being a groundbreaking console open-world RPG, and FromSoft probably didn’t originally aspire to such grandiose status either. If King’s Field II was the rebirth of mechanics established in the previous game as Dark Souls would be to Demons’, King's Field III like Dark Souls II sought to prioritize expansion of the game’s world and mythos over massive rehauls to an already proven formula. Say what you will about Dark Souls 2, (I will: IT’S GREAT), it’s varied landscapes complemented by a thoughtful approach to emulating the passage of time/distance with environmental setpieces once relegated to conceptual art cement it as a grand adventure across an entire country befitting of the status of sequel. Tragically however, King’s Field III is ugly. Like, hairy butt ugly. Grand its world may be on paper, 1996’s open world is largely made up of slabs of vomit lined with trees leading to caves lined with vomit wallpaper like some sort of nightmarish creepypasta Animal Crossing village. The framerate does not scale upwards with the amount of butt-ugliness on display either, choosing to run lower almost as if in an act of defiance. “Mind-boggling graphics” indeed. As the fucked up kid who’d peer out upon a foggy day and think Superman 64 before Silent Hill, this game would have rocked my world by wiping the slate clean of either from the foggy games discourse - ushering in an age of King Fieldlian faux pas amid stifled giggles from the gamers in the crowd. This all sits opposed to the labyrinthian approach to level design FromSoft embraces in King’s Field III, resulting in exploration that ends up feeling monotonous and soul crushing at times as the player is sparsely provided with landmarks to anchor their compass at. To their credit, FromSoft did provide an item that automatically maps out the layout of their maze-like playgrounds, as well as provide an in-game log of NPCs spoken to and their dialogues: both quality of life improvements the Souls series would do well not to shy away from. These elevate 1996’s “Hammerfell at Home” to tolerable status, and I’d dare say they would have enhanced the experience of FromSoft’s later games as well, with Elden Ring the first to begin to shed busywork and obfuscation for obfuscation’s sake as what it really is: a waste of time.