From Software King's Field (From Software)

[Exhuminator]

3D PS1 graphics physically hurt for me to look at. N64 and PC games (even the few ports of PS1 games I've played are fine. Will have to track down the MGS port to be sure) of the same era are fine (haven't tried Saturn yet because it emulates like ass), so I'm sure it has to do with the odd way they handled 3D.

If you don't mind emulation, it's possible to make PS1 games' polygons easier on the eyes:

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sony/ps1/enhance-ps1-graphics-with-the-best-epsxe-plugin-settings
http://fantasyanime.com/emuhelp/epsxe

You can find the Moonlight sword in the Armored Core games as well.

I forgot about that! It's also in Otogi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb_y3EbsAi8

 

[deuxhero]

Exhuminator
Like I said, I have no problems with other 3D games of the same era or even ports of PS1 games. It's the artifacts from way the PS1 achieves 3D graphics that do it, not the "quality" of the graphics.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Exhuminator
Like I said, I have no problems with other 3D games of the same era or even ports of PS1 games. It's the artifacts from way the PS1 achieves 3D graphics that do it, not the "quality" of the graphics.

Shaky polygons? ePSXe and a few other emulators already feature GTE Accuracy hacks which allow you to avoid them.

 

[Exhuminator]

Shaky polygons? ePSXe and a few other emulators already feature GTE Accuracy hacks which allow you to avoid them.

Yep. Emulation allows a remedy to the PS1's granular positioning of the polygon vertices. You can fix the "jitter".

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Shaky polygons? ePSXe and a few other emulators already feature GTE Accuracy hacks which allow you to avoid them.

Yep. Emulation allows a remedy to the PS1's granular positioning of the polygon vertices. You can fix the "jitter".

Except in ePSXe it fucks up the text and some UI stuff in the majority of games I tried (nothing critical tho), while I don't really remember whether this issue was present in PCSX-R or not.

 

[Leitz]

Btw is it easier to play these (and other) games with emulator because you see the hidden doors better and so on?

 

[Great Deceiver]

I think it's mind boggling that people still use epsxe when Mednafen is available with Retroarch shaders.

 

[A user named cat]

I think it's mind boggling people use shaders at all. Plebs need to appreciate the wonderful jaggies and hardware limitations.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I don't think you actually know what I'm talking about. Hint, CRT-Royale isn't "scanline filter number 354"


Also, it's funny that you think people played their Playstations 20+ years ago on fixed-pixel display technology with 5x scaling, instead of on imperfect analog circuitry that masked imperfections, the limitations of which lent itself to the actual crafting of the games with graphic techniques such as dithering.

See:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/do-you-like-pixel-art.106342/page-5#post-4859912

Though the screenshot is compressed, you can get the general idea zoomed in. You need very high resolutions to really see what's being done now concerning proper CRT emulation through multipass shaders (4k+).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

How about you post some pics of King's Field/Shadow Tower with your Bloom (tm) instead of suggesting something that may work for 2D games but would most likely make 3D games look and run like ass.

 

[A user named cat]

Scanline filters look just as awful as bilinear filtering, if not worse. Why the fuck do you want your games to look like they're being displayed on an old eye cancer screen while playing on a clear modern display? I'm talking about appreciating games in their rawest form, not cloaked behind any display disadvantage. Completely unfiltered, aspect ratio locked and the original artwork visually untouched regardless if you want to upscale or not. If you need the old shitty display experience so badly, go on ebay and buy a used CRT monitor. You can easily find a Sony Trinitron or NEC display for dirt cheap.

 

[Grimlorn]

Btw is it easier to play these (and other) games with emulator because you see the hidden doors better and so on?

There's no indication of hidden doors or secrets on the walls. You have to basically just go along each wall pressing the open door to find secret doors or treasure, although there are sometimes traps as well. At least in K2 and K3, can't speak on K4 or K1.

 

[dunno lah]

Btw is it easier to play these (and other) games with emulator because you see the hidden doors better and so on?

There's no indication of hidden doors or secrets on the walls. You have to basically just go along each wall pressing the open door to find secret doors or treasure, although there are sometimes traps as well. At least in K2 and K3, can't speak on K4 or K1.

Actually, there are some secret doors in KF1 that you can tell not by the texture misalignment but by the visible black outline(rectangular) forming the door, maybe due to the polygon jitter phenomenon.

 

[Sigourn]

Btw is it easier to play these (and other) games with emulator because you see the hidden doors better and so on?

There's no indication of hidden doors or secrets on the walls. You have to basically just go along each wall pressing the open door to find secret doors or treasure, although there are sometimes traps as well. At least in K2 and K3, can't speak on K4 or K1.

Actually, there are some secret doors in KF1 that you can tell not by the texture misalignment but by the visible black outline(rectangular) forming the door, maybe due to the polygon jitter phenomenon.

This was my experience in RetroArch playing King's Field. The lines were visible, even if I needed to get close to the walls.

 

[Leitz]

Damn, I just got fooled by the title confusion of these games. I just realized I had played the wrong "second" game for many hours, before I smelled something was fishy. THE GAME WAS MEDIOCRE. I'm talking about KING'S FIELD II (US) which is the THIRD game in Japan. After the first great game the third game was a real let down, and I started cursing the series already. Then I realized my mistake and started the REAL second game which is much better.
So my vote goes against the third game. The music is more generic, the open areas are missing atmosphere, and everything feels more like a standard RPG from Japan.

 

[Mynon]

Models in Shadow Tower are almost infinitely better looking than ones from PS1 Kings Fields... I guess they could do so thanks to claustrophobic environments and having brief loadings between areas every now and then. And the game's atmosphere and environments are just more striking and better realized than ones in Kings Fields. Also stuff like equipment deterioration and usable shields, that feels like a step towards Souls games...I never managed o finish it, but if people want to sample one of their games from PS1 era then Shadow Tower should be the one.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Models in Shadow Tower are almost infinitely better looking than ones from PS1 Kings Fields... I guess they could do so thanks to claustrophobic environments and having brief loadings between areas every now and then. And the game's atmosphere and environments are just more striking and better realized than ones in Kings Fields. Also stuff like equipment deterioration and usable shields, that feels like a step towards Souls games...I never managed o finish it, but if people want to sample one of their games from PS1 era then Shadow Tower should be the one.

I would agree if Shadow Tower had the level design on par with KF2 (KF1 US).

 

[The Fish]

Fuck me, I just finished my first session of a King's Field game. I started KF4 with a fair amount of scepticism, thinking I wouldn't last more than ten minutes or so but I ended up playing for five hours.

They couldn't get away with making a game like this nowadays, especially if it were released on both the PC and consoles with the inevitable problem of designing around two different input systems. Needless to say what's optimal for one input system is shit for the other. And I wonder about the potential for level design focused games over combat focused games. How interesting can you make scrubbing each wall for secrets or having to keep track of areas you need to visit? I think it's fair to say a lot of the best action games have come out in the last decade (although god hand just escapes that time frame), but how much has level design improved? Is that because no one cares enough any more, it's less dependent on technology or just because there's less room for better design?

Also, I wonder if the slow first person and grid blobber design choices in japanese first person games are a result of the supposed east asian susceptability to motion sickness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8825456.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The slow movement speed in King's Field is a design choice, because that way they don't have to use loading screens and can make one gigantic, seamless dungeon. The FPP crawlers by From that have loading screens have noticeably faster movement speeds.

 

[Exhuminator]

A positive aspect of the slow movement speed in KF, is that it sits in a unique middle ground between traditional real time combat and traditional turn based combat. That means you still have to use dexterity and reflex, but also have enough time to strategize and use tactical spells/items. I think it's a good compromise.

 

[Gentle Player]

I've always said that if KF4 were to have been released on PC at the time it would have been huge. A classic in the vein of Looking Glass titles. Instead it languishes in semi-obscurity.

 

[janior]

doesnt look better than dark souls tbh why play this?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

doesnt look better than dark souls tbh why play this?

Because we're talking about completely different games.

 

[Exhuminator]

doesnt look better than dark souls tbh why play this?

It is often falsely stated in reviews and ill-informed forum posts that the Souls series is a "spiritual successor" to King's Field. (FromSoftware themselves have directly stated that is not the case.) Due to that inaccurate comparison, some have been drawn to scrutinize the King's Field series as filtered by experiences solely with the Souls series. That frame of reference is misguided in and of itself. For example, IMO Demon's Souls is closer to a hybrid of Shadow Tower and Monster Hunter, sans any hard King's Field influence.

Anyway, to put it simply... Souls is primarily about complex combat with simple exploration, whereas King's Field is primarily about complex exploration with simple combat. Because of that principle distinction, what one enjoys about Souls doesn't necessarily equate to enjoying King's Field, and vice versa.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The slow movement speed in King's Field is a design choice, because that way they don't have to use loading screens and can make one gigantic, seamless dungeon. The FPP crawlers by From that have loading screens have noticeably faster movement speeds.

If you're talking about the Eternal Ring, it's just set to 'always run' in the US/EU versions.