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