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.