Kings Field series worth playing?

[v1rus]

^

 

[Ivan]

yes. the question is if you can get past the slow moving speed. i couldnt.

 

[Beastro]

Shadow Tower is good, just have some music ready to listen to, the game has none.

 

[felipepepe]

You must have a VERY specific mindset when playing them... they're almost a zen meditation game, because they're SO FUCKING SLOW but have some great level design, are extremely atmospheric and feel very rewarding once you accomplish something. Is like a slow-mo Dark Souls.

King's Field 4 is the best IMHO... the previous ones are PS1 titles, feeling too limited by the technology and looking fucking ugly (still, some people prefer King's Field 2). Just keep in mind, all of them are extremely dated and feel like one of those games made for people who can only buy one game a year. Combat also sucks, as you'll usually just dance circles around enemies and heal in-menu (which pauses the game).

Be warned: unless you're very devoted, you won't last 15 minutes.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The slow movement speed is only an issue in combat but the games are built mainly for navigating the dungeons and the combat is secondary. If you want to spend tens of hours navigating some of the finest dungeons ever designed then King's Field should be up your alley. Shadow Tower offers a more hardcore / punishing experience if you are looking for dungeon crawling that will push your shit in and Eternal Ring has easier dungeon crawling but the movement is a lot faster and the focus is more on the combat. Pick your poison. I loved them all.

 

[Great Deceiver]

King's Field 4: The Ancient City is one of the best games ever made. The level design is truly top notch and the atmosphere is amazing.

Play it.

 

[CyberWhale]

Great Deceiver



I wouldn't trust this guy.

 

[Exhuminator]

Ask not "Is the King's Field series worth playing?", but rather; "Are you worthy of playing King's Field?"

 

[Lyric Suite]

You can actually use keyboard and mouse with the PS1 emulator. I tried it for a bit and that seems to ease the pain of the horrid controls. Never got very far though.

 

[felipepepe]

You can actually use keyboard and mouse with the PS1 emulator. I tried it for a bit and that seems to ease the pain of the horrid controls. Never got very far though.

You NEED the controller... best combat tactic is to use R1 and L1 to circle around the enemy.

 

[Sigourn]

I played with a DS3 hooked to my PC, using RetroArch.

King's Field (Japan)... it was a really addictive game. Like, the last addictive game I've ever played in a long while. The starting speed is slooow, but trust me when I say you will eventually not notice how slow it is. The ugly graphics work towards the atmosphere in a sense: since NPCs have literally no faces (think Slenderman), even talking to them feels kind of creepy.

That said, I think the game's atmosphere really plumets after the second floor. The final fight was shit too. I'd rate it a 6/10, as the first two floors were awesome, the 3rd, 4th and 5th were boring crap infested with enemies.

Now, King's Field II (King's Field in the USA) is a considerably faster game, and I dare say easier because faster movement meant timing your attacks was simpler, much more like Dark Souls. I didn't play for long, though, but the level design reminded me of the first levels of King's Field, so that was cool.

 

[felipepepe]

BTW, there's an editor called Sword of Moonlight: King's Field Editor Tool for PC. It was Japanese-only, but now it's fan translated. It comes with a complete remake of the original King's Field:

IMHO the real highlight are the fan-made mods. There's only like 6 of them and I really recommend Moratheia:

 

[Gentle Player]

You can actually use keyboard and mouse with the PS1 emulator. I tried it for a bit and that seems to ease the pain of the horrid controls. Never got very far though.

I used Xpadder to give the PS1 titles the same control system as KF4, which basically just meant giving them analogue support for movement and the ability to use the right stick to look up and down. Worked great, and I didn't find it horrid at all. I also experimented with completely revamping the controls into something more resembling a modern first-person game. Was nice to a point but actually made searching for hidden walls, something you want to do all the time in these games, slightly more cumbersome - the same with sprinting. I also vaguely remember that it made menu navigation more awkward in some of the games, Shadow Tower especially. The games weren't designed for it, so I ended up preferring the former setup.

On the other hand, the native "strafe-lock" control option for Shadow Tower Abyss worked very well. That game actually had an excellent combat system, which was somewhat wasted as the game was easier than its predecessors. Hacking off enemies' limbs and other body parts in order to deprive them of certain attacks was very fluid and worked a lot better than in the few occasions that this was present in Souls games. I long for a new FromSoft game with ST:A style combat combined with certain Souls mechanics (minus the spastic dodge-rolling and increasing focus on faster paced action), along with the brilliant KF level design and exploration. Sadly it will never happen.

 

[bataille]

I've been playing the fourth game occasionally for the last few weeks, clocked like 6 or so hours in a few sessions. While mechanically it's very different from DS, it evokes the same kind of silent contemplation, albeit with more calm moments.
From soft's got their unique language in which they articulate their games, and it's pretty interesting to witness how they make different statements (so to speak) with the same set of tools. If you ask me, it's always a pleasure to see people with a distinct style making pretty different things that still can be easily traced back to their creator.

 

[buru5]

I'd say no. Got the first 1 from a pawn shop years ago and it's total garbage, movement speed is unbearably slow, combat is completely unsatisfying, you can barely see in front of you, and the graphics are entirely plain and boring even for ps1. Played about 2 hours before turning it off and never playing it again. Pretension and hipsterism fuel its popularity.

 

[Gentle Player]

I'd say no. Got the first 1 from a pawn shop years ago and it's total garbage, movement speed is unbearably slow, combat is completely unsatisfying, you can barely see in front of you, and the graphics are entirely plain and boring even for ps1. Played about 2 hours before turning it off and never playing it again. Pretension and hipsterism fuel its popularity.

You've valid reasons for not liking it, but to say that its popularity is fuelled by pretension and hipsterism is absurd. I can think of few things less "hip" than playing King's Field. Souls games are far more hip. The people who like these games are by and large those who enjoy games like Ultima Underworld, which heavily inspired KF, and like the slow paced exploration and complex level design.

 

[Exhuminator]

The first time I played King's Field (via KF4) I hated it. I thought it was terrible. Years later I came back and tried it again. After sticking with it a couple hours, something clicked and I fell in love with it. From there I went on to beat the rest of the games and had an extremely good time. The KF games were some of the best gaming experiences of my life. However, I can absolutely understand why someone would think KF is garbage. The experience really is an acquired taste. These aren't games designed for immediate gratification and instant return on your investment.

 

[newtmonkey]

Yes.

I bought KF Ancient City on a whim back in the day, brought it home and started it up and my immediate reaction was, what is this shit.
But a week later, I decided to give it another shot. And it wasn't cuz I was a kid and had no other choice, I mean I was a working adult so I could have just brought it over to Gamestop and traded it in for something else.
Well, it sucked me in somehow, and before I knew it I had spent something like 20 hours on it within a week or so.

It's hard until you learn how to play it. You need to learn PRECISELY the range at which you can safely attack. You also need to learn how to strafe around enemies to get behind them so you can attack safely.

Once you learn all that, it's got a really amazing atmosphere, and it is not dumbed down for ANYONE. I mean, these are the people that eventually went on to develop the Dark Souls games (probably not the same exact people). The game gives you no maps, no help whatsoever, but the level/world design is so memorable that you almost don't need any maps. Having said that, it is much more "mazey" than any Souls game, so drawing maps wouldn't hurt.

The game is full of set pieces, without actually doing set pieces. It's like a cool guy who is just cool without trying. All the other games are doing elaborate cinemas and railroading you into situations to create set pieces. KFAC just throws you into a cavern full of gravestones, and when you get to the top a million skeletons rise to destroy you, and you run the fuck out of there. And it's all up to you. I also remember carefully hoarding my resources until I finally revived some spring or something that let me refill some healing item (and a shortcut back to that spring I think), and the relief I felt was not just for the character I was playing. It was like, okay, I can finally relax a bit. They know I can play the game, so they are finally giving me a fighting chance.

And the music is amazing, it's a huge part of the atmosphere.

It's not an easy game to love, but if you learn how it plays and put up with its quirks, it will repay you in spades.

 

[Hobo Elf]

So in honor of this thread I decided to replay Kings Field 4 a few days ago and today I finished it. Took me 25 hours, but realistically I could've done it in 20. I spent hours procrastinating by leveling up my spells to Level 3, just for the heck of it. Anyway the last time I played this game was in 2009 after Demon's Souls. The game has incredibly gripping atmosphere and level design. The dungeon is pretty intuitive and there aren't too many bullshitty secrets that you need to figure out in order to progress, which can easily be a big problem in a game like this, and what I remember being the problem with the older King's Field games. Most of the obscure secrets net you some loot that isn't really mandatory. Apart from Myu / Salvor's helmet, the rest of the best items (Myu / Salvor set) are incredibly easy to find, so it's not like you'll miss out on anything if you don't obsessively hug the wall and mash X everywhere. The only problems I have with the game is that the difficulty really dips after the poison mine and that getting weapon / spell levels to 3 without grinding the infinitely respawning heads that shoot arrows isn't really feasible, but also kinda pointless because meleeing will destroy everything in one or two hits max. The only spell that you will realistically cap out to level 3 is the heal spell because it's the only one that's useful, really. Really amazing game though. Might go and replay Eternal Ring next, we'll see.

P.S: felipepe should try binding a heal item / spell to the Select button via the equipment menu next time so he doesn't need to use the menu to heal up.

 

[Exhuminator]

Might go and replay Eternal Ring next, we'll see.

If you haven't played through Shadow Tower Abyss yet, definitely give it a try.

 

[felipepepe]

P.S: felipepe should try binding a heal item / spell to the Select button via the equipment menu next time so he doesn't need to use the menu to heal up.

It's not about hotkeys, is about the sense of urgency... in Dark Souls consuming items takes time & makes you stop, and since the game never pauses you can die even while scrolling your items to use an Estus Flask or antidote.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Might go and replay Eternal Ring next, we'll see.

If you haven't played through Shadow Tower Abyss yet, definitely give it a try.

Started playing it once but quit in butthurt because I dislike playing games emulated instead of playing them the way they are intended. Unfortunately for me STA is intended to be played in Japanese.

P.S: felipepe should try binding a heal item / spell to the Select button via the equipment menu next time so he doesn't need to use the menu to heal up.

It's not about hotkeys, is about the sense of urgency... in Dark Souls consuming items takes time & makes you stop, and since the game never pauses you can die even while scrolling your items to use an Estus Flask or antidote.

But this isn't Dark Souls. I think From wanted to make a game with turn based gameplay, but since they were also banking on heavy immersion they went with a compromise where the game is RT but you have the long-ish timers between your attacks or magic spells. Menus pausing the game is just an extension of that feeling of being somewhat turn based.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Shadow Tower is good, just have some music ready to listen to, the game has none.

True, but not correct. Apart from the demo/intro songs and a few jingles it also has three loops which are played in the VS mode (~30 seconds each).

 

[Exhuminator]

Started playing it once but quit in butthurt because I dislike playing games emulated instead of playing them the way they are intended. Unfortunately for me STA is intended to be played in Japanese.

Well, I beat Shadow Tower Abyss in English on a legit PS2 console. However the game was fan translated and my PS2 is modded to play burned / import games. I think it's worth the effort personally.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Started playing it once but quit in butthurt because I dislike playing games emulated instead of playing them the way they are intended. Unfortunately for me STA is intended to be played in Japanese.

Well, I beat Shadow Tower Abyss in English on a legit PS2 console. However the game was fan translated and my PS2 is modded to play burned / import games. I think it's worth the effort personally.

I'd need a modded PS2. We'll see when I get around to setting something like this up. I'm currently looking to getting a Mega Drive again, or maybe a Sega Saturn. But if it can be done then I'll most likely do it. What would really make my day is if From made a collection of their older games and released them in the west.