Kings Field series worth playing?

[Exhuminator]

I'd need a modded PS2.

The easiest thing to do is just mod your PS2 using FreeMCBoot, it's a soft mod. Then download a prepatched English ISO of Shadow Tower Abyss, patch the ISO with ESR, burn it to a disc, and start playing. It's no big deal.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I have a lot of good memories about King's Field 2 (aka KF3 japan). The game has a lot of depth, it seemed like every time I replayed it I found something else new. Going back through the early areas I found tons of secrets and items in hidden rooms I never knew about.

I remember discovering you could beat on NPCs and get Strength upgrades. I thought this was an exploit, because NPCs never die right? But they do die! I was shocked when I killed the shopkeeper guy I was wailing on, and then certain characters in the game won't help you anymore because you're a murderer. Killing NPCs was unheard of back then, something Dark Souls inherited too.

Then there was discovering the whole hidden Sword magic system on my THIRD playthrough. The game never really tells you about it, but all the cool high level weapons have these special magic attacks. Shoot exploding sword lasers! Nowadays you couldn't have such a major hidden feature in a game, the publishers just wouldn't let you, they would put it on the feature list on the box and have it excessively signposted and tutorialized in-game.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Shoot exploding sword lasers!

I loved how original King's Field turned into a slow-paced first-person shooter about 80% through. Made the last 20% a pleasant breeze, something that a lot of games don't have.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I don't understand the people who like King's Field Ancient City, that game is garbage.

KF1 Japan was more like a tech demo, painfully slow, boring, ugly and limited.
KF2 was brillant with a nightmarish atmosphere and the most clever level design in the entire series where everything is integrated.
KF3 was more open, a little more Zelda-ish and not as integrated but very pleasant, long and deep with a lot of secrets.

KF4 is ridiculously slow, it takes forever to turn around for no good reason, the levels are extremely tiny, limited and linear, the graphics are blurry and it's hard to identify items in front of you, every level looks the exact same, everything is a puke-inducing mix of grey and beige, it takes forever to look around you and you need to waste an eternity to aim down to pick up items, and then aim back up, there are very few NPCs and none of them are interesting to talk to, it's a pain to try to get mushrooms to get your magic points up, water fountains run dry quickly... this game is a complete mess.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are infinitely more playable, fully realized and polished. To me Ancient City feels like a low budget game done in a rush so From could have another game out not too long after the launch of the PS2 after Eternal Ring, pretty much like King's Field was to the PSOne, that is a boring, frustrating, unfun tech demo. Hence why it's so short with super tiny, limited levels and everything about the gameplay is a total pain in the ass.

Yes, it has a beautiful atmosphere, but atmosphere is not everything. If I wanted only atmosphere I would go out in an abandoned church at night. It needs to be fun to play too.

 

[Beggar]

If I had to choose which game to pick going on a deserted island, it would be Kings Field 4. It's such a rough diamond, yet at the same time it is the only game that hits just the right spot for me.

 

[SharkClub]

I've been playing these games on Duckstation emulator and they're great fun, always thought about playing them for ages. I've beaten King's Field 1JP, King's Field 1US (2JP), King's Field 2US (3JP) and King's Field 3 Pilot Style and now I'm playing Shadow Tower. I also have King's Field 4 and Shadow Tower Abyss waiting for me with PCSX2.

Be nice about my playtimes, I tend to be really autistic in these sort of games, especially ones that demand wall-humping for secrets or even required progression, you can probably beat each of these ones (not counting ST which I haven't finished yet) in like half of the time I played them for.

My opinion of King's Field 1 is probably a bit more generous than most people's on account of me deciding to play it first (and play the games in order) rather than jumping around and noticing features missing that were in later ones. Yes it's a tech demo... it is FromSoft's very first game after being an office software company after all, but it's still a very good first outing for them imo. An example of something I would have noted as unplayably clunky if I had played 2 or 3 first is the slow turning speed, while it was a bit of a nuisance at times while playing, for me going from KF1 to its sequels showed a clear gameplay improvement rather than me struggling to adapt to something older and less polished if I had played them out of order. A lot of people on the internet when I was searching around for stuff on these games prior to playing them were saying you should play them in orders like [4>2>3>1], [2>3>1>4] or [3>2>1>4], which is very weird to me because I found that progressing with the feature and mechanics improvements they were implementing in the order they developed the games felt much more natural. Almost none of the cringe reddit posts suggested a standard [1>2>3>4] order of play, which was very odd to me. It's pretty much a standard level-based dungeon crawl without being locked to grid-based movement or turn-based gameplay, quite reminiscent of Ultima Underworld although not quite as complex.

King's Field 2 was amazing, I really liked the interconnected almost metroidvania-style 3D world space and I liked getting to grips with the layout and becoming ultra-familiar with how to traverse it when backtracking, it reminded me of System Shock 1 a lot while playing it, and then I got to the final level where you fight Guyra literally in cyberspace for some fucking reason and I was so sure that FromSoft must have played System Shock while developing King's Field 2, but the Japanese release of System Shock 1 wasn't until 1996 to my knowledge (King's Field 2 released in 1995 in Japan), I suppose it's possible that some people at From played a western copy of the game (1994) and that would line up perfectly with the development time of King's Field 2, but that's just my autistic theory.

King's Field 3 as HHR said above is a lot more Zelda-ish. The world isn't anywhere near as metroidvania-esque as King's Field 2, it's more like a series of varied levels connected by a tunnel each way, they don't really loop into eachother like some spaghetti maze like KF2. There is also potential to cuck yourself with certain quests because it doesn't hold your hand and go out of its way to make sure you do everything in the right order, the game has two different endings so there's a bunch of optional stuff you can do to get the 'good' ending. King's Field 3 Pilot Style is a very short Japan-exclusive press event demo disc where you play as the character Captain Silviera prior to King's Field 3, not much to say about it but I figured I'd play it just to say I have.

A very good trilogy all in all. I've read that King's Field 4 is totally detached from the "Verdite Trilogy" and is basically a reboot. Does anyone who has played it know if it at least includes references to the first three games beyond the obvious recurring Moonlight Sword?

I'm playing Shadow Tower now and the enemy designs, claustrophobic atmosphere and lack of music makes my skin crawl.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

if it at least includes references to the first three games

It does not.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I also have King's Field 4 and Shadow Tower Abyss waiting for me with PCSX2.

Don't forget Eternal Ring and Evergrace series.

 

[somerandomdude]

I found King's Field 2, 3, and 4 play better at 125-150% speed.

I recently replayed King's Field 3. You normally need to talk to the guy in Ralugo after a certain point and he puts a bridge up for you to access it, but it's possible to progression skip and get access to this dungeon a little earlier. Right near the gold fountain in Ralugo, you can leap off the edge, a light leap, then hold back, then tap the left shoulder button to slowly work your way over past the tree, and then slowly back up the ledge and you're there.

I went into Shudom's cave at level 1, grabbed a verdite in a chest (near the area with the promeus golem), this puts 1 level in each element. In order to get gains in an element on level up, you need to have at least 1 point, you don't need to acquire the gift. This means that starting at level 1, I gain points in all element types, so my spell levels are a bit higher than they'd normally be. It's easier to get the verdite in Shudom's cave than it is to light all the torches in the palace of wind to unlock the chests, you get pwnt by one wind cutter shot from those demons. If you're quick and decisive, you can easily avoid the rock slinging faces in Shudom's cave. Ironically, the very first mob I killed in the game in this run was a promeus golem. I pwned one at level 1 *flexes*. It took an estimated 80-100+ chops with a flame (long sword).

In the passage of thieves, there's 2 secret rooms that have a mage skeleton + respawning greatsword skeletons. It's a good, quick, early grind to get the 13000(ish) for level 2, or 26000(ish) exp needed for the level 3 excellector. You also get a decent amount of gold from this as well. Some extra gold to buy some Orladin's keys so you can get the Orladin's mail sooner (vs post Orladin's temple maze, if you don't want to buy keys).

 

[Derringer]

King's Field 2 was amazing, I really liked the interconnected almost metroidvania-style 3D world space and I liked getting to grips with the layout and becoming ultra-familiar with how to traverse it when backtracking, it reminded me of System Shock 1 a lot while playing it, and then I got to the final level where you fight Guyra literally in cyberspace for some dicking reason and I was so sure that FromSoft must have played System Shock while developing King's Field 2, but the Japanese release of System Shock 1 wasn't until 1996 to my knowledge (King's Field 2 released in 1995 in Japan), I suppose it's possible that some people at From played a western copy of the game (1994) and that would line up perfectly with the development time of King's Field 2, but that's just my autistic theory.

Richard Garriott talked about the japanese bootlegging Ultima releases for the Japanese market from what I remember so it's more than likely really.

 

[somerandomdude]

A few misc things about King's Field 2:

- Breaking the big kraken's head gives like 150exp, and if you go around the corner a bit and come back, it respawns its head back, and you can do it again. It doesn't take that many hits to break the head if you grab the knight sword, like 3-4 hits. It's actually a great way to get 5-8 levels quickly.
- There seems like a standard progression order, but in no way are you hard tied to it. It's possible to go way out of order, and even do the big mines before you touch the termite nest, etc. A lot of the game's areas are optional.
- The elf merchant who has the Ruinous Boots on the table behind him, if you equip a weak weapon (dagger), and hit him at at angle, you can see that he moves to the side a little bit every time you tap him, and you can tap him enough times (without killing him, or any penalty from what I've seen) to move him far enough out of the way to snag the Ruinous Boots for free.
- The pirates cove area at the beginning, it's possible to survive the leap at a lower level and snag some decent items in there if you land right on top of one of the krakens (there is usually one that's positioned perfectly for this). You typically come back after getting the pirates key (a bit later), but most of the items in there are way more useful at a lower level like the morning star, and you find some items you can sell to buy gold/magician keys.

For King's Field 4:

- You can level up bare fists to level 3 just like any other weapon, and they're pretty solid if you level them up, and make a great fall back option until you unlock the blacksmith who can repair your weapons. Go punch some caterpillars until they're level 2, and they become a very viable weapon early on. I got them to level 3 around the same time I got the icon of healing (past the skeleton army room).
- Fire arrow faces: A lot of people disable these ASAP, but you might want to rethink that, it's the best place in the game to level up weapons and spells, and they give 50exp a pop (100 with the fortune bracelet). They're just punching bags that give free exp and weapon levels.
- Hydrosphere does extreme damage, far more than any of the other high level spells, including the light level 5 spell, flash. It does soo much damage, that you honestly have to be careful using it, because sometimes one of the death lasers turns around and might hit you, and even my level 99 character kitted in full cyborg armor took 500HP+ damage from a grazing blow by one of these bowl eviscerating kill lasers.

 

[JDR13]

I found King's Field 2, 3, and 4 play better at 125-150% speed.

Doesn't that screw up the BGM though?

I'm surprised no one in this thread has mentioned the music. That's one of the best things about the King's Field series. I haven't played any of those games in over a decade, yet some of the tracks were so memorable I can still hear them perfectly in my head.

 

[SharkClub]

I found King's Field 2, 3, and 4 play better at 125-150% speed.

Doesn't that screw up the BGM though?

I'm surprised no one in this thread has mentioned the music. That's one of the best things about the King's Field series. I haven't played any of those games in over a decade, yet some of the tracks were so memorable I can still hear them perfectly in my head.

The music is indeed a collection of sick beats. That might actually be the one thing King's Field 1 does better than 2 or 3, even though I am quite fond of the tracks in 2 as well. Being lost in an absolute mess of a pink maze full of golems while this track is playing over and over on repeat is certainly a vibe that enhances the madness.

As for the framerate/emulation speed/etc. discussion. I played King's Field 1 at whatever its native is (i think it's something like 20 or 25fps) and it was relatively stable the entire time, I played King's Field 2 on the US version (so technically King's Field 1 in the US) and it has an extremely variable framerate which was quite a mess at times but it mostly hovered randomly between 20fps and 30fps, depending on the amount of enemies on screen.

King's Field 3 (KF2US) on the other hand... I think FromSoft realized just how variable the framerate was in KF2 and decided to lock the framerate down to 15. FIFTEEN. The game by default basically plays in slow motion compared to 1 or 2, which to me was actually bordering on unplayable. To make this worse because it has an internal framerate cap of 15FPS, that means it can only go up in increments of 15 (so 20/25 is off the menu). You would think that you could solve this by just upping the emulation CPU power to compensate and reach 30FPS anyway, but what this ends up doing though is making the entire emulation run faster, which includes the music going into super speed and ruining it. What you have to do is use a cheat code (in my case with Duckstation there is a cheat menu with a bunch of archived cheats/edits for like every game I guess) that changes the framerate cap of the game, there is a cheat for 30FPS and a cheat for 60FPS. Since 60FPS is basically like quadruple speed and pretty much just as unplayable as 15FPS I went with the 30FPS cheat and then tuned the CPU emulation power to maintain the 30FPS.

The important thing to note is that doing it with the cheat menu like this in King's Field 3 means that it doesn't actually fuck up the music at all. I played through King's Field 3 from start to finish at a slightly variable 30FPS, which is pretty much double speed gameplay, but when the original version is effectively in slow motion then it pretty much feels normal like when King's Field 2 wasn't having a struggle to maintain its upper FPS limit. The music plays at its normal rate as if you were playing the game at the intended 15FPS, even while using the cheat for 30FPS. I would say that if I was to play King's Field 3 on actual hardware at 15FPS I would probably consider it unplayable and give up on it, so I'm very glad there was a solution that increased the game speed without ruining the music.

The worst thing about these games by far is just the nomenclature. King's Field 1 not existing in the west, King's Field 2 being King's Field 1 in the west and King's Field 3 being King's Field 2 in the west makes googling for literally anything about any of these three games a fucking disaster. Just on the framerate issue alone while I was trying to figure it out with King's Field 3 before finding the cheat menu workaround, you have to be searching up King's Field 2, which means you're getting results for the ACTUAL King's Field 2 as well which as noted above has its own framerate issues. I really wish FromSoft would just re-release a collection of these games with the CORRECT titles so that the nomenclature can be reformed to make some fucking sense in [current year] but that is

.

 

[JDR13]

I don't recall KF2(US) feeling any different from KF1(US) in terms of framerate, but I've only fully played through them on the original hardware. I'll have to give that Duckstation a try sometime.

I played the original KF1 with the fan translation years later on PC, but, compared to KF 2 & 3, it was just too lacking for me, and I couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Also. I can't agree about the music in KF1, although I guess it's subjective. I preferred the slower, more haunting melodies of the later games. Tracks like this (KF2) and this (KF3).

I really wish FromSoft would just re-release a collection of these games with the CORRECT titles so that the nomenclature can be reformed to make some fucking sense in [current year] but that is

.

Better yet, I'd love to see them re-release the series on modern hardware with updated graphics and a faster framerate. That's obviously a pipe dream though.

 

[SharkClub]

Also. I can't agree about the music in KF1, although I guess it's subjective. I preferred the slower, more haunting melodies of the later games. Tracks like this (KF2) and this (KF3).

Don't get me wrong, I do like the other two games' soundtracks, but the thing about the West Coast theme from KF2 and the Quist theme from KF3 is that they are actually the stand-outs in the soundtrack imo, the rest of the music isn't as memorable (though there is a nice atmospheric tune here and there like the Ruins of the High Elves, the composer really was getting the most out of the Playstation's ability to handle CD audio), funny how they are both the first tunes you hear in each game too. King's Field 1 doesn't have a lot of music but what it does have is varied, I love that it starts off with deep foreboding dread, arguably the "darkest" track from any of the first 3 games and it's the very first one in the series, it makes me wanna crawl around in some dungeons.

On the subject of music, I am pretty sad that Shadow Tower doesn't have any. The environment with each level is so varied and distinct from one another that you could put all sorts of different types of music in this game, I feel like that was a missed opportunity even if the complete lack of a soundtrack does also make the game scarier and atmospheric in its own way. Also why the fuck does this game not have a map? Even King's Field 1 had readable maps.

 

[JDR13]

Also. I can't agree about the music in KF1, although I guess it's subjective. I preferred the slower, more haunting melodies of the later games. Tracks like this (KF2) and this (KF3).

Don't get me wrong, I do like the other two games' soundtracks, but the thing about the West Coast theme from KF2 and the Quist theme from KF3 is that they are actually the stand-outs in the soundtrack imo, the rest of the music isn't as memorable (though there is a nice atmospheric tune here and there like the Ruins of the High Elves, the composer really was getting the most out of the Playstation's ability to handle CD audio), funny how they are both the first tunes you hear in each game too. King's Field 1 doesn't have a lot of music but what it does have is varied, I love that it starts off with deep foreboding dread, arguably the "darkest" track from any of the first 3 games and it's the very first one in the series, it makes me wanna crawl around in some dungeons.

On the subject of music, I am pretty sad that Shadow Tower doesn't have any. The environment with each level is so varied and distinct from one another that you could put all sorts of different types of music in this game, I feel like that was a missed opportunity even if the complete lack of a soundtrack does also make the game scarier and atmospheric in its own way. Also why the fuck does this game not have a map? Even King's Field 1 had readable maps.

True, those are two of the better tracks, but I didn't find any of the tracks in KF1 as memorable as those. The tracks in that game seem more basic. As if the composer hadn't really hit his stride yet.

I never finished Shadow Tower. I got annoyed by it and the lack of a map is one of the reasons. That game was just a few missing features away from being on the same level as KF imo.

 

[somerandomdude]

Doesn't that screw up the BGM though?

+25% speed doesn't take much away from the BGM IMO, but I'm hardly an audiophile. I haven't looked deeper into the settings, but it might be possible to run the game at increased speeds while keeping the BGM at normal speed.

Also, there's a way to do a pseudo-NG+ in King's Field 3. Sell all your items/weapons/equipment/keys etc to Ed Edmond, and then suicide your character. You'll start back at the beginning at level 1, but once you get back to Ed Edmond, you'll notice that you can buy back everything you sold him previously. If someone wanted to do a minimum level "true ending" run, I could see a method like this having usages.

 

[Ysaye]

We need someone to create an OpenKingsField or KingsField Unity...

 

[Derringer]

We need someone to create an OpenKingsField or KingsField Unity...

That'd be nice since the King's Field pc port with dev tools is about 2 decades old at this point.

 

[SharkClub]

We need someone to create an OpenKingsField or KingsField Unity...

That'd be nice since the King's Field pc port with dev tools is about 2 decades old at this point.

That thing is also pig disgusting and a Prosperian level effort that totally destroys the art style of the first game. You need look no further than a single enemy comparison.

Open at your own risk

For the officially sanctioned King's Field remake, it sure is absolutely horrible looking. I'm guessing they had like one guy working on it and he had no artist to help him.

 

[SharkClub]

Finished Shadow Tower today. Playtime ended up around halfway between my time spent in King's Field 1 and King's Field 2.

While I enjoyed the premise, which is essentially a very straight rendition of the dungeon crawl concept, overall I think the game was lacking compared to the King's Field games that came before it. The descent into the shadow tower which branches off into all sorts of different biomes and environments has a lot of promise but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm guessing Shadow Tower Abyss probably ends up doing a better job at realizing it on the Playstation 2, despite me having not played STA yet or seen any of it basically. This game comes close to the end of the PS1's life but it doesn't really go out of its way to take full advantage of the hardware that all the developers were ultra familiar with by 1999, aside from upping the polycounts on various objects and enemies far above anything seen in the King's Field games, as well as the texture resolution - at the expense of draw distance.

A big issue with this game is much the same as in some areas of the old King's Field games, mandatory secret walls that don't look any different from normal ones, and only ONCE did I notice an actual environmental clue (footsteps in dirt) leading up to a secret wall. It's made worse here by the fact that you have no map, despite even King's Field 1 having a map - and backtracking involves a lot of warp portals, which doesn't really organically help you get a feel for a lot of the layout. It's a pretty messy effort overall in regards to level design, very claustrophobic and disorienting at times (which I'm guessing is the point) as well as being extremely dark with a low draw distance even with Torches/Lamps/Light Bottles active. The final few areas especially are basically Tomb of the Giants from Dark Souls levels of darkness coupled with low draw distance, except even though you have torches, lamps and light bottles, they specifically do not work in that area because it has a magic darkness aura active, so you're just stumbling around in the dark trying not to get lost. The level design seems to run out of steam half way down the tower, instead of getting more complex, I think the peak of the level design and atmosphere is all the way back up on the Human World and Earth Worlds. I'm assuming they ran out of time to polish the game, as with most games of the era it starts to get less tuned the further in the game you get.

The game is also plagued with loading screens, compared to King's Field 1, 2 and 3 which barely had any at all (quite a technical achievement for the time on a Playstation). You can't open the bestiary, equipment info menu, the storage or access any of the shops without a loading screen first (and exiting out of any of those also requires a loading screen). Transitioning between areas also obviously takes loading screens. The best thing about the game is probably the enemy design, there is some truly fucking weird shit going on there and I was frequently being surprised by how strange some of the monsters look.

I'll take a break from these games before jumping into King's Field IV and Shadow Tower Abyss. I have an opportunity to borrow my brother's PS5 coming up and he has a copy of Bloodborne so I'll finally get to see that game for myself (I have never once considered purchasing a PS4 or PS5 just to play it, there is not many games on those systems I'd care to try really, I'm not even interested in the Demon's Souls remake after replaying the original on PC at high resolution and 60FPS recently).

 

[Frank Capicoli]

I liked Shadow Tower Abyss more than Shadow Tower but STA is a very short game sadly.

 

[SharkClub]

Finished King's Field 4, pretty fun game. It's weird actually, playing it felt more like what I expected from Shadow Tower, it's much more fleshed out than the first Shadow Tower game (again, I have yet to play Abyss, that will be next when I get around to it). King's Field 4 has the same sort of core concepts as Shadow Tower (it has a big tower in the middle, for one, along with Forest Folk/Earth Folk/themed areas like Shadow Tower). It feels like it has a lot less to do with King's Field 1/2/3 than it does Shadow Tower in general, but really all of these games could probably be placed in the same universe alongside eachother if you really tried hard enough to flesh out the world they take place in (the exception being Abyss which has guns in it I believe, which is a little out of time compared to any King's Field game or even the first Shadow Tower which doesn't have guns).

It is disappointing that KF4 doesn't even so much as have a single reference to the rest of its own series aside from the Moonlight Sword being there. I would have preferred a little fanservice in the way of item/armor/weapon descriptions than no connection whatsoever. It almost makes me suspect it wasn't even meant to be a King's Field game to begin with, since it has as much to do with that franchise as Shadow Tower does, it could have been yet another similarly styled game that is technically in its own franchise.

 

[baba is you]

Finished King's Field 4, pretty fun game. It's weird actually, playing it felt more like what I expected from Shadow Tower, it's much more fleshed out than the first Shadow Tower game (again, I have yet to play Abyss, that will be next when I get around to it). King's Field 4 has the same sort of core concepts as Shadow Tower (it has a big tower in the middle, for one, along with Forest Folk/Earth Folk/themed areas like Shadow Tower). It feels like it has a lot less to do with King's Field 1/2/3 than it does Shadow Tower in general, but really all of these games could probably be placed in the same universe alongside eachother if you really tried hard enough to flesh out the world they take place in (the exception being Abyss which has guns in it I believe, which is a little out of time compared to any King's Field game or even the first Shadow Tower which doesn't have guns).

It is disappointing that KF4 doesn't even so much as have a single reference to the rest of its own series aside from the Moonlight Sword being there. I would have preferred a little fanservice in the way of item/armor/weapon descriptions than no connection whatsoever. It almost makes me suspect it wasn't even meant to be a King's Field game to begin with, since it has as much to do with that franchise as Shadow Tower does, it could have been yet another similarly styled game that is technically in its own franchise.

King's Field 4 came out after Shadow Tower, so I can still see some design elements from Shadow Tower. For example, the setting and storytelling of the game has changed a lot with environmental elements (e.g., text on the wall), and I wonder if that design was decided from Shadow Tower-Kings Field 4. But I think they temporarily abandoned that direction due to various issues.

Before Miyazaki came to From Software, Naotoshi Jin was pushing Armored Core as the main game, which makes me wonder if the sales of Kingsfield and Shadow Tower were very low. as console games tend to be more sensitive to sales than the PC game.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Before Miyazaki came to From Software, Naotoshi Jin was pushing Armored Core as the main game, which makes me wonder if the sales of Kingsfield and Shadow Tower were very low. as console games tend to be more sensitive to sales than the PC game.

According to VGChartz, King's Field IV and Shadow Tower sold about 100,000 copies each. Armored Core games usually sold more (between 250,000 and 500,000 on average), so it's no wonder that From Software pumped these games out like crazy.

I'm also certain that Armored Core games were cheaper to make, as they would often reuse tech and assets between games. It was a nice way to make stable $$$ to stay afloat and fund other projects.