King's Field: Lonely, Lost, and Afraid. And Poisoned.

[Yimothy]

The mine was killing me repeatedly, so I went the other way I had open to me, looking into the village where Gigi lives. I didn’t find much there, but I went through a nearby cave full of miners’ graves and found the miner’s map on one of them. It seems to have different coverage to the pirate’s map I’ve been using since the start of the game. Glad I never spent 6000 gold or whatever the guy in the first village is selling it for to get it. Presumably that’ll give better coverage of the big mine when I do go back to it.

I also reached a house with a woman outside in a rocking chair, who told me to take the image of seath that I found inside the house. There was also the most detailed texture of the game so far in the house, a painting of warriors on the wall. When I went back outside the rocking chair was empty. Spooky. I’m not sure what to do with this image - the manual says if I have it and wear a certain pendant then the image will die in place of me. In a game where death comes as frequently as it does in this one, that seems like a waste. There’s also a guy in the small mine who I’m pretty sure was asking for the image of seath and has offered I think one of the teleport items for it. That would be mighty handy and I assume it’s not just a trap to make you waste the item, so that could be where I go with it. I think I can buy another image from one of the shops if necessary. It just seems like something important, I don’t want to get it wrong.

Speaking of not wanting to get it wrong, I showed the fortune teller the blood crown I found earlier. Apparently it increases my magic interval or something. Not sure what that means. It greatly increases my magic resistance when I equip it which is pretty good, but after a while I noticed my hp was ticking down so I’ve swapped back to a regular helmet.

After the house with the image of seath I could have continued deeper into the area, but there was a branch of the cave I’d come through to get there that I hadn’t explored so I went back to it. In the other branch there were a bunch of holes to a lower floor. I dropped through one into a watery cave full of weird blue floating face enemies and elf graves. I got a lot of arrows from the graves, and I think three or four verdite gems from enemy drops and lying around. These provide a permanent (I think) boost to magic power. Or they sell for a pretty penny, but I went for the stats. There seemed to be no way out of the cave (and there was a message on the floor above warning about this), so I had to warp out. I think the blue guys did mp damage as well as hp, ‘cause I kept finding myself with no mp (and thus unable to warp). Luckily I have a heap of crystal flasks now which I keep filled with restorative potions and I was able to top up on mp and warp out. I think it was down there that I found an amulet of mist which I equipped, so it’s possible that’s what was dropping my mp. Come to think of it, I wonder if that’s the thing I need to equip to have the image of seath die for me. If so, I should probably take it off. Back to the fortune teller, I guess.

 

[Yimothy]

I had a bit of a look around the villages today, and several people mentioned the flute that I know from the manual I’ll need to use the pillars of wind. Putting the clues together, there’s a guy who looks like a priest in a cave who has the flute and wants to trade it for crystals (or it might have been crystal flasks). Someone gave his name but I don’t remember it and I doubt it matters. Not sure if it’s someone I’ve met before someone new.

I set off through some unexplored territory, the graveyard of Harvine’s soldiers, but then something came up in real life so I paused the emulator. When I got back to it I accidentally pressed some of the buttons on my pocketgo, which I think opened up the change disc screen. When I exited the menu the game seemed to have crashed. I rebooted the device and it froze on the loading screen. Since then I haven’t been able to get it to boot, which is a worry. I’ve tried pulling the battery out and putting it back, and now I’m pretty much out of ideas. I hope I can recover it, and if I can’t I hope I can at least salvage my save file from the sd card.

Edit: I hit the reset button I’d forgotten about on the base of the device and it rebooted and appears to be working normally. Phew.

 

[Yimothy]

My save survived and I’ve carried on. Didn’t go the same way this time as before, instead I went to the dude who wanted the image of seath and gave it to him, which got me the moon gate, allowing me to set up a second guide post for use. I had been intending that I would carry the second gate item with me and when I wanted to heal and fill up my flasks I could put the moon key in a guide post, warp back to the star key and fill up, then warp back to the moon key and reclaim it, but instead I’ve put the moon key in I think base number four. Whichever base is kind of in the middle between the big mine and Harvine’s castle, the two areas I’m looking to explore at the moment.

Once I’d given the guy the image he started offering me Harvine’s flute in exchange for three crystal flasks. I had like ten at the time, so I made that exchange. Then he offered another map for the same price, so I now have Necron’s map. Can’t remember if I’ve talked much about the plot so far, but Necron is the dude who took the king’s sword and went to the island, so he’s the guy I’m here to pursue. He’s also controlling all the soldier enemies, apparently. And it turns out he’s Dias, the brother of Nola, the woman in the first village who’s looking for her missing brother. So I now have three maps. Maybe I should take screenshots of them all and piece them together to make myself a big map. Not sure I can be bothered.

I also sold some dragon crystals to buy a another key, this time the magician’s key. So far I haven’t found anything it unlocks. Maybe I should have saved up a bit more for the gold key. Oh well. I went back to the opening area and killed the big kraken. I just stood at a distance and used ranged attacks - all of my MP in wind cutter, and then quite a few arrows before it went down. That got me access to a cave with a shrine key in it. Dunno where the shrine is, though.

I’ve realised that as well as telling me the name of the area I’m in, the truth glass will give me information about enemies and people. This is mostly just kind of interesting, but it has helped me figure out the relationships of people. The NPCs talk about each other by name, but unless someone’s in their own house with a label by the door I don’t always know who they mean.

I used the flute outside Harvine’s castle to make a stairway appear up to the roof. Almost got killed by the fireball faces on the wall in the process. Presumably I’m supposed to deactivate them somehow before doing this. Anyways, up on the roof there was a chest with the sun key, so once I find the matching gate I’ll have all the teleport items. There was a hole in the roof next to that chest which led to a small enclosed space with a locked chest in it. None of my keys worked on it so I had to leave it and warp out. Sigh.

I should probably be taking notes as I play rather than posting what I remember afterwards. There are a lot of locked chests and things around that I’ll need to come back to later but I haven’t been keeping a list so it’ll be trial and error to find them if there’s any that are important.

 

[jpfriction]

RE: Fireball faces (not much of a spoiler)

They don’t react like normal enemies but you can beat up the fireball faces and they go away. That was nice to find out.

 

[Yimothy]

Yeah, I held off on reading your spoiler until afterwards, but I got access to resist fire and used it to run through a face’s fire and get into a position to attack with magic and kill it, which was pretty good.

I’m currently something like halfway through the fire temple or shrine or whatever it is. I wasted a lot of mp throwing wind cutters at an enemy that was fixed in place and just wouldn’t die. When I eventually went up to it and struck it it died on the first hit. I thought I’d weakened it but the next one did the same without the preceding magic attack. Anyways, between that and running up to faces through their fire to attack them I burned through all my potions pretty quick and warped out before reaching the end of the area. Gonna be a bit of a hike to get back, but I’m finding now that I have a few maps and a pretty good sense of where things are I can actually get from one place to another pretty quickly.

I’ve explored the far shore now, so I guess I’ve covered most of the island and just have some more underworld to find my way through. There’s a samurai grave which you have to jump off a cliff to reach and warp to leave where I got some kind of katana that seems way more powerful (and maybe has a shorter stamina refill period) than any other weapon so far. Only does cutting damage though, so I might still be better off using the hammer on skellys and the like.

I also found a wizard’s key. I have actually unlocked a few chests with the one I bought, but not many, so I guess it was a bit of a waste of money. Might sell it towards getting a gold key, one of which I’ll no doubt find soon afterwards. It’s kind of hard to know what to spend money on - I never know what I’ll find later. Maybe I should be upgrading my armour instead of buying key items.

 

[Yimothy]

I have put to use the lesson about being able to kill fireball faces and gone back to the room where I would previously die instantly and started shooting arrows at the faces before they start shooting fire at me. I found a ring that turns my arrows into light arrows, so that seems to help. I also made use of fire resist, since I can’t get into attacking range without setting some of them off. I managed to clear the corridor and reach the royal treasury after dealing with a heap of fireballs, where I found mostly empty chests. Sigh. There were also two or three locked chests which none of my keys would open, including the gold key I recently picked up from the key shop at the cost of way too much gold. I thought it would open all the chests I wasn’t able to get in to yet, but it seems there is at least one key more to be found.

Beyond the treasury I found another jail, where I found the son of the woman who gave me the seath figure. He said to go back to his place and he’d help me, so I guess that’s the next stop.

 

[Yimothy]

I took a different path through the big mine than I had been doing and reached the actual mine part of the area. True to name, it’s pretty big! I haven’t explored the whole of it yet, but I did find Harvine’s key (about twenty feet from a guy complaining about having lost it - maybe I should go back and try giving it to him) and Teo, the missing father of the girl in one of the villages. He was seemingly dead, but using a figure of seath revived him. I clicked through his first line of dialogue, unfortunately. Hope it wasn’t important.

I went back to the village to see Teo and Gigi now that I’d rescued him and they gave me a pendant. I assume it’s the one I need to equip so that a figure of seath will die for me, but I haven’t found the fortune teller since so I’m not sure.

Harvine’s key has opened a couple of chests I couldn’t get in to before (nothing interesting found in them yet though) and also opened the door to Harvine’s castle, where I found a fair bit of money, another shrine key, and a painting of I assume the man himself. When I examined it I was told “You are an intruder in my castle. Therefore you must die.”, but nothing happened. I assume if I hadn’t opened the four hidden doors in the room and killed the four hidden enemies within, they would have all come at me at once at that point. Examining the picture again gets me a message saying that it’s sealed, whatever that means.

 

[Yimothy]

I think I’m closing in on the end of the game. I’ve explored the whole of the big mine, where I found the elf key. I was able to exchange that for the dark crystal in what I assume is the shrine, an area I was able to reach by using the shrine key and turning two wheels so that certain icons on them were the same way up as they appear in the painting on the wall of one of the houses. I’m not sure if I would have figured that out on my own or not - although I’ve been trying to play without using outside resources I have looked a couple of things up, either if I really couldn’t figure them out or to remind myself what an item was called for a post in this thread. I didn’t deliberately look up this puzzle, but when I was looking at something else I saw some text linking the image on the wall to the shrine door.

Anyways, the shrine had this dark crystal in it, which according to the fortune teller I’ll be able to use to make the sword needed to kill the evil dragon/demon/god/whatever. Haven’t figured out how to do that yet. Also in the shrine were a talking tree and a pedestal that tells me I can have Seath’s sword but doesn’t seem to give it to me.

A bit past the shrine entrance I found a lava pit with a series of platforms over it leading to the skeleton of the one eyed giant. Trying to examine it caused it to get up and give me the Psycpros Collar. Pretty sure that’s supposed to be the cyclops collar.

Near there is Necron’s Coliseum, my current area of interest. At the entrance are four rooms, each containing a tougher version of a strong enemy from earlier in the game (or at least that’s the case for the three I’ve entered so far). It appears I need to kill all four in one run so that a door will open. I took out three, then warped out to save and refill my potions, and when I came back they were alive again. So I ignored them and the open door and looked around the rest of the area. Suddenly, it became a sci-fi game: there are incubation chambers with demons growing in them and wires on the walls. I was able to power them down by taking the light crystal which was powering the machine. I thought they’d all wake up and attack when I did that, but the vats just went dark.

I’ve got a few outstanding things: clearing out the rooms in the coliseum so I can move on is the most obvious, but there is also making the sword. Plus there are a few sealed things I haven’t gotten into yet - the picture in Harvine’s castle, and several large doors similar to the ones that lead to fountains but which say “not accepted” when I try to open them. I’ve probably missed a few chests and I’m sure several secret doors/alcoves. I’ve noticed there are a few things that you only need one of that I’ve found multiples of, so I guess it’s intended that you won’t find everything.

 

[Yimothy]

I’ve reached Necron by going through the door mentioned in my previous post. In the room is the body of another dude who was sent to the island on the same mission as me, who I’ve encountered a few times previously (always in jail, I think?). Shortly afterwards his body is joined by mine. Necron is just killing me over and over. You have to rerun the four big enemies to unlock the door before each attempt (though maybe I should try warping out after opening it and see if that sticks), so each attempt takes ages.

I’ve been doing some grinding, more or less. Running the four big monsters repeatedly, getting about 2000XP for the lot of them each time. I’ve also done a bit of running around the world looking for stuff. I got some more crystal flasks to improve my healing reserve, and I’ve gained at least five levels since first reaching Necron. I’ve also had my magic power increase several times because I’m using so much of it on the four enemies. I still can’t win this fight.

I think the problem is I can’t avoid his attacks - he uses one attack that goes out from him in a big ring with no apparent way to avoid it, and another which has homing projectiles that explode and do splash damage so they’re very hard to avoid. Get close and he’s got very quick physical attacks. I just can’t seem to last. It’s getting very frustrating - feels like being back at the start of the game and dying every two minutes again, but without any of the discovery that made the start of the game so interesting. I wonder if there’s some trick I’m missing or if I just need to get better. I don’t like this kind of difficulty spike.

 

[jpfriction]

Haven’t read that part of the walkthrough I’ve been glancing at too closely but I think it recommended grinding for a hot minute right at the end so might just be a slog.

 

[Fyonn]

I think the Necron strat is "get in close so he won't use Flame and spam healing."

You missed something you should have for this fight: After you're told you can have Seath's Sword in the Shrine, it spawns in there. Once you get that, you can also open the doors that say Not Accepted and get some better armor, too.

 

[Yimothy]

I found the sword, thanks Lance. Just kind of sticking out of a wall non-obviously. Getting it didn’t let me through those doors, though.

I eventually beat Necron, I’m not sure if it was by getting better at the fight or by gaining levels and magic improvements. I started taking him on after each level up, and if I died I’d grind out another level. Which doesn’t take that long individually, but it was annoying. I was at 38 when I beat him - I closed in, used missile shield (not sure what difference that actually makes), fired off flash at him every time my stamina allowed it, and landed physical attacks in between. Flash is actually one of the spells he uses - it fires off multiple homing lights which explode on contact. The explosion does friendly damage too, so I had to get used to the right distance and timing to avoid harming myself. One advantage of being in close is his homing attack would occasionally hit him for me. Anyway, with frequent use of potions for recovery I finally managed it.

That got me the dark slayer sword, which the dude living on the cliff by the sea made for me - he asks you to bring him the dark crystal if you find it, which I’d forgotten until I went back there after getting it. Once he made it Necron stole it so killing him gets it back. That’s the thing that allows you to open the doors to Seath’s armours. I wound up with an almost complete set - didn’t find the leg gear. Also the arm equipment was the ruinous something rather than Seath’s whatever like the rest.

Anyways, past Necron was one last save point and then a teleport maze. Hooray! The maze was actually pretty cool looking, although it did look like a 90’s TV idea of VR. It wasn’t too complicated and at the end was Guyra, the demon/god/dragon/whatever that made the sword that I’m here to claim (the sword was visible behind it, in fact). At one point playing the game I thought it was going to give me a choice between siding with Seath or siding with Guyra, but if so then I totally missed it.

Guyra took me a few attempts. I wasn’t able to kill it with magic because the little floaty things around it were absorbing it, so I tried running up and hitting it with my sword (also, the sword is supposed to be the only thing that can kill it). This twice resulted in my getting knocked off the platform floating in space where the fight takes place and dying before I switched to killing the floaty things with the sword and then using magic. I used flash again, which has been my go-to for a while. After a while spend casting, it died and I had beaten King’s Field.

I loved this game, right up until I got stuck on Necron. That bit wasn’t great, but the rest of it, fantastic.

 

[Fyonn]

Congratulations! I think there's a way you're supposed to be able to grab the Moonlight Sword during that last fight, since it actually has stats and stuff. That said, nah, this is the only ending you get.

I think this King's Field is probably the most dense one, there's a lot of verticality to it. King's Field 2, going by US names, is a lot more horizontal iirc.

 

[Fyonn]

This thread, among other things, inspired me to tackle King's Field 4, the only one of the non-PSP King's Field games I haven't completed.
You might be wondering, after the experience gained with the creation of King's Field 2, 3, and Shadow Tower, what differences has King's Field 4 brought to the table?

Well, for starters, more skeletons. There are 16 in this room. You are expected to fight all of them. The combat is not significantly different from King's Field 1.

I should be clear, the game does not frequently ask you to fight a horde of this size. This is kind of a soft boss fight, as King's Field tends to do. And by this point, skeletons are largely a solved problem 1v1 - the game is asking the player to solve that problem en masse without getting surrounded.

Otherwise, there's a stronger focus on exploration of a tightly designed, small open world that loops in on itself and steadily grows larger. At this point in King's Field 4 a couple hours in, about as much physical area as, say, Dark Souls 1's Undead Burg has been covered, if not less. But that space has consisted of a ruined fort, a subterranean shop, a broken bridge, a chapel next to a mine, the mine itself, a secluded cabin near the mine, a second chapel and nearby dwelling, a graveyard, the depths of the first chapel, and of course, the tomb of the forest people, as seen above.

Where King's Field 2 feels wide open in a way, though limitations of equipment and keys restrict the player's movement, King's Field 4 is interested in intimate exploration of small spaces. Slowly walking down the halls of the tomb, concerned about the last remaining healing herb in my inventory, it's impossible to shake how much King's Field 4 feels like a fantasy survival horror game, an aspect that the Souls games have shed almost entirely, while still wearing the trappings. Comparing King's Field to Dark Souls 3 isn't dissimilar from comparing Resident Evil 1 to Resident Evil 6. All the same kinds of stuff are in there, but the flexibility and number of options afforded to the player make them entirely different beasts. Like, it's a big progression moment an hour and change into King's Field 4 when you get a pickax, because while it is a terrible weapon, it is heavy enough to break open barrels and boxes, allowing access to the stuff within, and on occasion, the stuff behind.

 

[Sarge]

Oh, yeah, I remember how it was a big deal getting that pickax. The early going really feels like it takes time to get traction in the game - you're pretty weak, and it feels like you're always teetering on the edge of death, looking for the next place to find respite and hopefully not lose progress. I think your "fantasy survival horror" description is spot on, and tracks well with my experience. It also helps that they achieved an astoundingly desolate atmosphere, buoyed by a smoother experience on more capable hardware.

 

[Fyonn]

My journey marches on. I've reached the Ancient City prpoer now, and it opens with a very King's Field 2 trap fortress. Typical find the switches to turn off the traps type deal. Dealt with some defense golems, which firstly involved juggling some "binding crowns" to shut them down strategically. Later, the game provides a extremely powerful technology that hard counters them: a wooden bow.

The game has proven to delight in showing just how deep the city goes (usually beyond the range you can see, but sometimes, just barely at the limit). Navigating the open sections of the Ancient City reminds me quite a bit of Naissancee. I met the snakemen from Sen's Fortress, just chillin' at what I think was the expedition's final stop (the campfire was still burning when I got there). The snakemen are astoundingly deadly, thanks to their mastery of doing a thrust instead of just point-blank swipes. My journal, which updates with information I could not possibly know and seemingly at random without telling me, says that the race attacking the expedition has never been seen before by the Earth and Forest peoples, so maybe the snake dudes are it?

Deeper in the city I met what I can only describe as medieval xenomorphs. They're weak to blunt damage, or maybe it's better to say that they're resistant to everything but blunt damage. They use dark magic, which I can tell because it influcts darkness.

I reached a spiral staircase leading up, and the another stairway leading up, and thought it was a suspicious amount of upward travel. Sure enough, at the top was the Holy Forest, where I encountered a member of the Forest people, a princess I think, and a magic recovery fountain. I helped her golem friend move again, and he promptly opened a door for me. Beyond I found my second vial, so I'm rapidly approaching carrying a comfortable amount of renewable resources.

I have also accrued a varied collection of elemental Carvers, a type of knife the Forest People use, and the only weapon at my disposal that can reliably stunlock single enemies at pointblank. King's Field 4 seems to have a degree of poise implemented, so the my strategy of "spam rapier" from prior games is less effective.

My elf friend has told me that the king's chambers are ahead, as well as a thing called "the hall of five wands." Hopefully I'll find the Red and Blue wands in there, because as she spells out in case it's your first rodeo, wands teleport you to guideposts with the matching markers; and I've already found the Red and Blue markers.

 

[Fyonn]

I finished King's Field 4.

It's difficult to put into words how it made me feel, the slow, foreboding start, the creeping dread of recognizing how close the Ancient City was the first time, the relief of emerging into the Holy Forest, a growing respect for the dignity of the city descending into its second floor, the secret evils of the widda and their frankly incredibly chill high priest, the realization they flooded the entire bottom of the city, speaking to Serrak in the melancholoy of his mansion, descending into the old battlefield, returning the idol to where it belongs, and what comes after.

King's Field: The Ancient City goes up there with Bloodborne in the "best things From Software ever made" tier.

I'm excited to tackle Shadow Tower Abyss soon, as I know it brings that Ankoku Shinwa / Junji Ito atmospherics to the table, and I'm here for it.

 

[Peklo]

Lunacid has been out in Steam early access for a couple of weeks now. It's straight to the point about what it is, wearing its vintage FromSoft stylings gleefully. Those inspirations are just as well, as developer Akuma Kira of the development house KIRA (Lost in Vivo, for example) has long toiled in expressions of creeping low-polygonal horror inspired by the abstractions and anxieties of the PlayStation generation's iconic fidelity, and Lunacid is no different; it's so tapped into the evocations of the era that Robert Belgrade is here narrating the opening at you, and many visual filters ranging from the dithering of the PS1 hardware to Silent Hill's noise effect to the horror staple of VHS artifacting are presented as central display options.

It's no superficial show of credibility as the game quickly establishes its keen understanding of King's Fieldian or Shadow Towery atmospheric texture, movement and combat rhythms and exploratory fibre--it's not a complete showing by any means at this stage in development, but what is here is a substantial and authentically presenting reincarnation of a long since passed game type that delights simply through existing at all. It's not just pure retraux either as influences from later From games and the wider first-person-whatever genre pump through it as adaptive curveballs--movement stats via running and jumping can be developed via the familiar Souls level up schema, gradually turning the game kinetically from a King's Field into a Jedi Knight in a transformation that's simultaneously absurd and joyful in how it's all accounted for in level design, opening up different possibilities in traversal and exploration.

If the modern From lineup is what's the baseline for contemporary dungeon crawls, returning to the earlier standard as seen through fresh outside perspectives can be extremely refreshing in what stands out as different amidst all the compellingly similar. Weapons level up through use and eventually evolve into different, powered-up forms. Boss battles are not only de-emphasized but practically absent, allowing the exploration and secrets take center stage. There is music on a consistent basis, and importantly it has tremendous range, whether Kira's or Jarren Crist's ambient offerings veering between serene and hair-raising, or the ThorHighHeels grooves that grant the world greatly expanded tonal diversity not limited to the merely foreboding and gloomy.

That is perhaps the game's best quality in general, as its heritage in horror on the developer end is plainly conveyed to startling and troubling effect on a frequent basis, with many environments emphasizing claustrophobic darkness and the unmentionables that echo in the distance or right next to you in the equally as capable sound design. From's own work has always had at least one foot in horror, and here that tonality reaches levels of distressing that are truly something to be witnessed, treasured, and quickly escaped from. The mysteries and obscurities of the world to be discovered are often such through means of perplexing interactions or painstakingly hidden details, but also veiled further by the sheer oppressive pressure existing in an environment and trying to scope it out fully while subject to such weight can generate. It's a game world that has no resolution to the stories that exist in it as of now, and there are parts of it that I'm not altogether keen on like occasionally the written text's writing voice along with some character models, but there is more than enough here even now to justify it as far more than a shallow imitation of the lesser-celebrated greats.

 

[Poster]

Looks interesting. I'll have to keep an eye on it along with Monomyth and Dread Delusion.

it's so tapped into the evocations of the era that Robert Belgrade is here narrating the opening at you

Heh, the trailer narration definitely has that King's Field intro feel to it.

 

[YangusKhan]

I started playing King's Field for PSX (U.S. version). This time in earnest. I have dabbled in these games very briefly in the past, with the most time spent on King's Field IV (but still only a handful of hours). I even have a post in this thread about wanting to use a notebook the next time I play these games! I did not actually do that yet in my first play session, and I can already feel myself forgetting a few things I wanted to make note of lol. There's been a couple surprising things to me so far: 1) I actually found an in-game map that is pretty useful, and 2) when this game's framerate isn't completely tanked, it runs extremely well and the speed feels perfectly fine.

I am running out of places to explore in the starting area, but at the same time I definitely feel like I'm missing some critical things because I only have 1 piece of armor so far. The big outstanding sections I still have to look at are: the Lighthouse, a cave behind a waterfall that has some skeletons, and the wooden doors that I believe will eventually lead to the village but those rooms are also filled with scary-looking humans wielding polearm weapons.

 

[YangusKhan]

I've explored the opening area as throughly as I can, but there's still a section of the map I haven't been able to figure out how to get to and it's somewhat frustrating; there's actually a save point over there too, but I have not been able to discern why exactly there needs to be a save point there because nothing much is over there, save the parts of the map I can't figure out how to access. I ventured forward a little bit into the first village but stopped for the night after finding another save point.

 

[Yimothy]

I’m not sure what area you’re talking about on the map, but one thing with the maps is that they’re incomplete, so if it looks like there’s nothing there on the map that doesn’t mean there’s not something that isn’t on the map. Anyways, I’d just keep poking around whatever areas are open to you - I don’t think I fully explored the opening areas until much later in the game when I had more resources to facilitate it.

 

[YangusKhan]

I’m not sure what area you’re talking about on the map, but one thing with the maps is that they’re incomplete, so if it looks like there’s nothing there on the map that doesn’t mean there’s not something that isn’t on the map. Anyways, I’d just keep poking around whatever areas are open to you - I don’t think I fully explored the opening areas until much later in the game when I had more resources to facilitate it.

This is what I ended up doing, yeah. For the record I was talking about the southern half of the first area, where there's clearly sections there but are not accessible and even after exhaustively checking for hidden walls, I couldn't find any leads.

So I ventured forth into the village areas more and made some good progress. Still not a fan at all of these soldiers with the spears, so when I found the first soldier base I promptly turned around to explore everywhere else instead. Found an Earth spell for healing, and a couple more NPCs including the key maker; I'm unsure how the keys for unlocking chests or doors work in this game, but I also can't afford to buy even a Silver key unless I started selling stuff, so I didn't do that just yet. I wrapped up the session after finally finding the corresponding guidepost Key for one of the Gates I already have. There's still a good chunk of the northern village underground tunnels I haven't explored enough yet, and then just the soldier base I think.

I do find the respawn behavior of enemies kind of annoying simply because I don't understand what the rules for it are; it seems some enemies never respawn, and other times some will respawn after barely even moving away from their location at all.

 

[BubsyFan_86]

I recently tried playing King's Field IV again (my third attempt), hoping to use it as an entry point to the broader King's Field series. Judging from my previous save files, I stopped playing both prior times at level 2. I remember besting the evil plants, but being stymied by the pill bugs.

This time I looked up a video to just watch someone beat the pill bugs, and it unlocked the whole game for me. Now that I understand the dance of feints that is KF's combat, I've been enamored. I can't stop thinking about it. It's an incredibly arresting, investing game, in a way that's truly rare. And the feeling is potently enhanced by the first-person viewpoint and the absence of load times; it's an immersive, emotional experience.

The little moments in this game destroy me. In the Holy Forest, you find what may be the last bit of food for a hulking forest golem, situated - starving and immobile - beside an enormous mausoleum door. The food you find (dew, to be specific) imbues the golem with life, and it musters its massive limbs into motion to relocate in front of the door and open it. And then it never moves again. The small quantity of dew provided energy enough to aid in your quest but not to change the golem's fate; its doomed silhouette will greet you each time you return to the surface from the underground mausoleum.

The game's music is extraordinary and extraordinarily effective at conveying mood. The level design is exquisite, wrapping around on itself and surprising the player continually, while maintaining a concrete sense of being a coherent place with history and purpose. The details and textures are subtle and thoughtful; you might see a fistful of shadow scurry away after you land the killing blow on a possessed soldier, or small flying bugs orbiting a torch on the wall. I love that most enemies don't respawn, so it feels like you're restoring the rightful dignity of this place as you progress, while also making previously stressful and scary stretches into tranquil spaces of reflective ambience.

Oddly enough, I have found myself most taken by the game's lighting -- specifically the clear design and intent in its use. I can't say that I've ever found myself remarking on a game's lighting implementation before, at least that I can recall. The overall aesthetic or graphical style? Sure. But lighting in a game is not something I've consciously considered. I don't know that I've ever seen a game use light in quite the way this game does.

As far as I can tell, there are no consistent "rules" for how light operates in the dungeons of King's Field IV, and when I say "light," I'm speaking as much about its absence. Visibility may change from room to room, area to area. Sometimes you may see nothing beyond the next doorway other than inky blackness; other times, you may see torches on a distant wall - though curiously they don't seem to be illuminating anything around themselves. Sometimes the only thing you see are the gravestones.

Sometimes there may be light around your character in a radius, lighting objects up as they come within distance of your body's halo; other times things seem to light up in an ordered sequence as you approach - this throne, then that door frame, and so forth. Sometimes you enter a room and there is no light, so you cast a spell to find your way around; other times you enter a room and there is no light, and your light spell can't help you. Sometimes you walk through a door into a hallway, walk for a bit and then things go dark, and you continue hopefully forward because there's nothing else you can do, until you reach a door that is suddenly illuminated before your eyes.

Fyonn wrote upthread that this game "goes up there with Bloodborne in the "best things From Software ever made" tier," and I wholeheartedly agree despite not even being halfway through. This may be my favorite From game ever, and that's as somebody who has devoured their content from Demon's Souls onward.

 

[BubsyFan_86]

I went on vacation, and since I had been playing KFIV on physical hardware, I decided to play King's Field II (KFI US) on my Steam Deck until I could come back and finish off KFIV.

KFII is an excellent game all around, and not nearly as difficult as I'd imagined it would be -- having access to a HP restoring fountain pretty much right off the bat is a huge help. Also, you find a crystal flask (King's Field's version of an Estus Flask) pretty early, and once you find the merchant who can craft crystal flasks, your survivability rockets upwards (the game showers an attentive player with materials to craft flasks, seemingly because a specific NPC only accepts the flasks as currency for some crucial items).

The only real difficulty spike I encountered was with the damned archers, who I quickly learned to despise and run away from at every opportunity. Seriously, the archers in this game seem waaayyy overtuned; they can hit you from seemingly any distance (long before you can actually see them in many circumstances), they do huge damage, they actually lead you (so you can't simply sidestep their arrows, which, given your limited mobility, makes evading them extra difficult), and they have a very fast, powerful melee attack if you try to bum-rush them. There's a point where you open a door and are greeted with two archers at point blank range, and it was the only part of the game where I resorted to save states, as I got repeatedly obliterated immediately after opening the door.

Beyond that, only the fight with Necron posed a serious challenge (I think I might have been under-leveled? I fought him at 30), but I popped the Seath's Plumes and Demon's Picks I'd been hoarding, and I was able to mostly stunlock him by alternating melee attacks and casts of Waterfall (which, helpfully, doesn't need to be aimed and tracks the target for its duration).

The level design overall is quite excellent, with a dense, interconnected and self-contained world that resembles a smaller scale version of Dark Souls. I will say that the interconnectedness is not quite as extensive as I'd hoped for, being mostly limited to intra-area connections and the "hub" of Seath's fountain that opens up somewhat late in the game; I'm not sure I ever experienced that thrilling feeling you get in later From games when a path ends up in a familiar, unexpected place (like the Undead Parish elevator in Dark Souls, or the Miner's Graveyard connecting to David Bunch's shop in KFIV). The east shore area/village where Leon is located in particular has no easy connection to the the bulk of the map, resulting in a long trek or the need to utilize a warp key (which are limited until late game). Nevertheless, the exploration is superb, with each potential new path providing enticing new possibilities.

I adored the game's opening; you're dropped on a seashore beneath a twinkling night sky, and the openness is readily apparent and compelling, with several directions to explore -- including a boss enemy, magic spell, hidden waterfall cave and solid loot within immediate striking distance. I suspect this game could be completed quite quickly on a second attempt due to its significant openness.

My only (minor) complaints are that the paucity of wall textures make many areas seem too similar and can make navigation/orientation a bit difficult, and I wish there were some indication of which key is needed to open a chest (to avoid needing to try every key each time). I suppose I would have appreciated if some areas/pits weren't total dead ends that require warping out of, as there's potential to softlock yourself if you don't have sufficient MP/MP recovery items. Oh, also the music isn't great, with one common track being especially pervasive and unpleasant.

I dived right in to KFIII (KFII US) following this, knowing that it's somewhat divisive, often being either folks' favorite or least favorite, depending on preference. The huge, open areas and linearity turned me off a bit, and I stepped away hoping to come back later with a fresher appetite.

 

[BubsyFan_86]

Oh, I forgot to mention one small detail I really liked -- there are 3 maps to find in the game (the Pirate's map, Miner's map and Necron's map), and each of them is incomplete in different ways that are each entirely in character for the person who made the map.

For example, the Miner's map (logically) has complete layouts for all the mine areas, while the Pirate's map has some, but not all of them mapped. Necron's map has almost the entire island mapped, though there's one particular late game area that isn't mapped; there's a very securely locked door with a trapdoor that activates upon a failed attempt at opening it. Necron's map has the area behind the door fully mapped, but the are beneath the trapdoor isn't at all. Meanwhile, the Pirate's map has the area beneath the trapdoor mapped, while the are behind the locked door isn't at all.

 

[Peklo]

I played King's Field II and III.

I have opined on and endorsed King's Field II previously, based on what in hindsight was maybe a third or fourth of the total experience; that position has not wavered in the present--on the contrary, strong first impressions are only reaffirmed by the game when taken at length. It would track as a daring and successful meditation on virtual 3D exploration in any era, but as a 1995 PlayStation game, as its studio and company's second game ever, about half a year after their first, it comes across as unthinkably adept. The confidence in its assumed structural form is matched only by the ambition of those designs and how committed they are to realizing a setting: the island of Melanat is something that will unerringly lodge itself into one's brain matter both for the intricacy of learning and navigating its spaces, and also for how convincingly those elements when coalesced together manage to depict a world, aided and not hampered by all the presentational and technological abstractions inherent to its medium.

There are many actions you undertake throughout the course of the game that from a perspective of conventional wisdom would not rate as sufficiently "quality of life" in game design, but which all enrich your connections to the presented setting. The aforementioned characteristic sets of three maps, varyingly detailed according to the author's knowledge base and priorities, all of which remain contextually relevant throughout the game instead of one all-purpose map. Items and equipment whose specific uses remain guessed at until you take them to the fortuneteller Meryl who can describe their functions more fully, contextualizing a genre tradition of identifying items in tying it to a figure within the narrative and their geographical location instead of providing an impersonal tooltip to call upon. Even the very act of saving the game supports the setting's nuances, as the three sets of keys and gates discovered are the means through which you "create" your own personal safety exits that you can teleport back to, both allowing for flexibility in navigational expediency but tactilely limiting itself to your resources and your decisions on where to place such hotspots, and when to take those lifelines to another location. Exploration in King's Field II is never in danger of regressing to rote going through one's motions both for the strength of the individual layouts and the actions you need to take within them every step of the way, always considering the risks, rewards and internal relevance of such decisions. It may be a causality loop of sorts, but for any game whose prime appeal is exploration, engagement in its setting is what bolsters and facilitates that interaction to begin with, and this is a game with keen insight to that dynamic.

It's something to keep in mind for the immediate--less than a year later--follow-up in King's Field III, which upends the series paradigm yet again. For all the extreme short order production that the series underwent in its infancy, you cannot fault any of the initial trilogy for stagnation in how to approach the shared formula; all of them, regardless of individual preference, land on distinct permutations on it that allows such delineation to take root in the first place. For my own context, part three is the series overindulging itself, reaching for too much and managing to say less for all the strain undertaken. Instead of the first game's sequential and compact immediacy or the second's interconnected cohesion, King's Field III possesses an Elden Ring-esque mentality to impress with a wide sprawl setting afire the possibilities in one's imagination through its inherent promise... which goes promptly unfulfilled in practice in what's done with the suggestion of open exploration. The game is almost a literalization of the series's title, the golf course etymological root inadvertently capturing its approach to environmental design, with this being (so far) the only game in the series that features literal fields of enemies, vastly larger than the PlayStation's draw distance could ever render at once on a regular basis. It's not an intrinsically doomed idea, but so little is done with these sprawling arenas full of nothing in particular that it emphasizes strongly why dungeon crawls adopt the forms they usually do by contrast.

In that light, the hope would be that the game's (still numerous) interior spaces would pick up the slack, but they are also stymied by previously unwitnessed faults. There's almost no single location in King's Field III that doesn't overstay its welcome and spread thin its ideas in enemy placement, topographical diversity and environmental hazards; the default state of being in the game is wishing for the current section to have ended several rooms and passages prior. There's also an incredibly vicious mean streak tied to these extended slogs, as the game's punitive entrapments are often one-and-done deals tuned so severe and abrupt that they track as something intended to challenge "veterans" of the series without considering how sudden one-shot wall spears would interact in a game where one of the primary verbs of it is ceaselessly rubbing against every even surface to find hidden paths and compartments. The game doesn't feel certain of its own structure and so tries to "punch up" the proceedings with wildly haphazard results, as if the common thread in design sensibility characterizing the series had begun to unravel.

Despite the inadvertently memorable qualities of King's Field III's level design and structure, the unlikely lasting impression of what the game was and will remain in memory comes from its writing voice. As to whether by this I refer to the source material in the Japanese scripts is uncertain, but doubtful--King's Field as a series up to this point has expressed the same kind of quiet and potentially blackly humorous mini-tragedies wrapped in straightforward fantasy aesthetics as later From works would espouse, and it's really no different here... except once you start reading the game's text, and start questioning from where large chunks of it originate, creatively. There are so many paragraphs and asides to it that read mean-spirited, callous and prone to riffing on the material that runs both tonally incongruous with the content (I think From games are very funny, but not expressed like this) and actively seeks to undermine it with contextless levity--a hallmark of a certain brand of game localization, perhaps never more in style than in this game's era, from the depths of 1996. It's the only way in which I can rationalize some of the present writing decisions, a compartmentalization that doesn't necessarily improve my opinion on the work in total, because what we have is what we have, but at least it goes toward explicating the dissonance that I have not encountered in any other From game in any other era. A more blunt way to describe it would be that the game's English script reads like it contains a lot of made-up shit in it, never serving any other than a detrimental purpose.

I did not hate King's Field III despite its inadequacies and misfires being the most striking things about it--the series commonalities are generally too sound for total disregard, but it did come as a stark relief to put it to rest by the end of it. It's capable of generating some startlingly evocative individual moments, but even those are largely beholden to its place in the series's history--if vague allusions and thematic reflections are what you're used to tying From games together, the initial King's Field trilogy is a significant break from that model, as they serve as direct, personally connected sequels to one another, and wield that sense of nostalgia and attachment as a deliberate design element at this stage of their sequence. Experiencing them so much later is in a way an advantage, because this era of the company's output is a closed book and can be understood as a complete work: if King's Field III is for me the nadir, then the upheavals and refreshments to the concept are known, in Shadow Tower, Eternal Ring, and all the rest to come, and I remain eager to experience them too.

~~~​

If you're interested in something actually funny, witness the ending narration from King's Field III. It's unbelievable and one of the best things I've ever heard, making all the rest of the game worth it on its own.

 

[Poster]

If you're interested in something actually funny, witness the ending narration from King's Field III. It's unbelievable and one of the best things I've ever heard, making all the rest of the game worth it on its own.

Okay, you got me. I was not ready.

 

[Sarge]

That's pretty interesting - I know a hardcore King's Field fan that has KF3 as his favorite. I plan to eventually play through it.

 

[Fyonn]

I agree that KF3 is weaker than KF1&2. I'd say it's the weakest one overall. King's Field Pilot Style - the demo game for KF3 - tells a story that happens before KF3 and is effectively an entire King's Field in miniature. It's like an hour and a half long or so, but it still has that KF progression arc.