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Post by Discoalucard on Oct 10, 2011 17:20:26 GMT -5
The author had a limited time frame to complete this, so by the time he got to Shadow Tower Abyss, real life intervened. It's understandable. This was actually also written a few months before Dark Souls came out.
Anyway, I'm trying to get away from including all related games in a single article (in cases like this, or especially for companies.) The reason is that they tend to get lost in the index of the site if they don't have their own articles. That, and given the circumstances, either the article can go up minus Demon's Souls, which is technically a whole separate series, or it can not go up at all. The former is more preferable.
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Post by splatter on Oct 10, 2011 17:47:38 GMT -5
As of this writing, the section on Shadow Tower Abyss isn't just short, it's nonexistent! Cool article, though. The only King's Field game I was very familiar with was The Ancient City, which I mentally pair-up with Arx Fatalis as the last hurrahs of this era. There's still a correction I can make... Combat was real-time in Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, the attacks simply had cool-down periods before they could be repeated. It's the same system as Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder. Btw if anyone knows of any other first person games for ps1 or 2 or Saturn that are not shooters, please PM me. I'm already aware of Echo Night, the wizardry series and Lunatic Dawn Tempest The Note. There's also Baroque, Hellnight, and the first couple of Devil Summoner games, though all of those are covered by articles on the site.
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Post by ves on Oct 11, 2011 9:22:18 GMT -5
So, in this month's issue of Games TM, there was a retrospective on From Software's output and it noted that the US translation of King's Field IV / The Ancient City had named NPCs after members of the King's Field fan community. I was wondering if anyone would could clarify that (and see if this was also in the EU release)? Fair enough if nobody can't, I just thought I'd bring it up seeing as that being thorough is one of this site's trademarks.
Overall, excellent article. I have a fondness for immersive sims and dungeon crawlers that I need to satsify more often than I usually do.
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Post by Discoalucard on Oct 11, 2011 9:42:00 GMT -5
Wikipedia mentions it, but it's unsourced: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Field_IV#Naming_of_Characters_in_the_Agetec_ReleaseThe only thing you coudl really verify is the name of the King's Field fansite webmaster, if that's true. It's worth asking around, though. Would be an interesting shout-out from the localizers. Don't know about the Metro 505 release...the author would've been working off the European version, though.
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Post by ves on Oct 12, 2011 12:16:59 GMT -5
Thanks for clarifying. I'll check into that one of these days, but I swear the last time I found that Wikipedia page, that entry you showed me wasn't there at all. This was a good few months back, however. I do mean to find a copy of this game sometime, although I'm in Europe, so it'll be a PAL copy, so I can't assume it'll use the same translation. They'll usually use the US translations in most cases, but there are exceptions (I like to nitpick how 'armour' is often spelt without a 'u' even in EU releases).
Also, it's Metro 3D, not Metro 505. It's easy to mix them up with 505 Games because they too released quite a few niche JRPGs and shoot 'em ups in Europe as well. A lot more than Metro 3D to be honest.
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Post by cj iwakura on Oct 12, 2011 19:52:21 GMT -5
Interesting tidbit: apparently a major boss from King's Field is IN Dark Souls.
Seath the Scaleless.
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Post by Karuvitomsk on Oct 12, 2011 21:41:26 GMT -5
Spoilers (Highlight) : Yes, Seath is a boss. But what's more interesting is that, apparently, the Ancient Stone Dragon who leads the Path of the Dragon is supposed to be Guyra.
Interesting stuff.
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Blake Casimir
Full Member
Space meditations from Alpha Centauri.
Posts: 105
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Post by Blake Casimir on Oct 13, 2011 20:23:05 GMT -5
Thanks for putting this up Kurt, and the correction is appreciated, Splatter. I haven't played Lands of Lore in over a decade which explains the mistake!
Since completing this I'm pleased to say that there are some newer dungeon crawlers appearing for various platforms: Deadly Dungeons, Descend, Legend of Grimrock, and Sword of Ahkranox. (The latter two are still in development but looking good!)
Finally I would vote for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls having their own article. They aren't first person, and are very different games as a result. Shadow Tower and Eternal Ring both play very similarly to King's Field, hence they're better off being in the same article IMHO.
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Post by KeeperBvK on Oct 14, 2011 0:55:02 GMT -5
Finally got around to reading the article, so let me start by saying: Great work. I had already been slightly interested in the King's Hill series for years, but now I feel rushing out and buying any of them ASAP. That being said, I've also got a few things that might need to be fixed:
For KF II it says in the title that it's been released in Europe and the USA in 1996, while below the game's section it says that the US version had already been released in '95.
For the PSP games it initially says they'd been released in 2001 and 2004, respectively, which is obviously a bit early.
Sword of Moonlight lacks information on the year of release in the section's title (it's in the text, but not in the title).
Why is the Shadow Tower Abyss section this short, especially compared to the part covering the original Shadow Tower? Not only does it lack just about any information, serving as little more than a note on its existence, but there's not even a single screenshot or a cover shot to be found in he article. That's kind of a disappointing near-close to an otherwise great and detailed article.
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Blake Casimir
Full Member
Space meditations from Alpha Centauri.
Posts: 105
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Post by Blake Casimir on Oct 14, 2011 2:46:57 GMT -5
With an article of this size, mistakes slip through sometimes. They'll be fixed eventually.
As for Shadow Tower Abyss: I haven't played it past the forest yet. There is still no English translation, and I'm not sure I want to play it through in Japanese at the moment. When I posted the article, as Kurt mentions, I also ran out of time due to real life stuff (tm).
I did originally include a separate section for STA, but the decision was made to excise it from the article for now, since it didn't say much. I assure you that the game will be covered. Just not yet.
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Post by cj iwakura on Oct 15, 2011 11:11:27 GMT -5
Spoilers (Highlight) : Yes, Seath is a boss. But what's more interesting is that, apparently, the Ancient Stone Dragon who leads the Path of the Dragon is supposed to be Guyra.Interesting stuff. Which game are they in?
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Post by Karuvitomsk on Oct 15, 2011 19:18:59 GMT -5
Spoilers again: If you mean "where does Guyra show up first?", he's the final boss of King's Field II (US I), and in the backstory he's Seath's nemesis. This is also the case in Dark Souls, but for different reasons.
During his boss fight in Dark Souls, Seath also drops the Sword of Moonlight, which was an important item in II(I). Not sure if it's in any other KF games, but it's a recurring item in lots of other FROM games, like the Armored Core series and 3D Dot Game Heroes. It was even in Demon's Souls. Obviously this isn't as relevant to canon.
After learning more about the two by playing through Dark Souls, it seems difficult to really connect its continuity to King's Field (actually, some people theorize that it's more connected to Demon's Souls than FROM claimed -- the entire gameworld could be the Northern Lands beyond the Nexus' one broken Archstone), but the reuse of the characters and the similarities between the styles of world layout.. it makes me want to place all of these games under the "King's Field" umbrella.
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Post by cj iwakura on Oct 16, 2011 10:47:22 GMT -5
Dark Souls also has Patches the Hyena, so there's some crossover.
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Post by TheGunheart on May 12, 2017 20:28:04 GMT -5
Okay, sorry to bump but two things. First of all, the images in the article are all broken now except for the box art.
Second, I'm playing King's Field 2(3) right now, and uh, there's a part of the article that's outright untrue.
"Talking of which, the Path of Poison is one area in the game where the player will have to make use of a specific type of key. Unlike other key types, these open rooms and unlock items from containers. They are also one-time-use only. The player is initially given two, and then must find some later on. However, in order to progress further, one of those keys must be used to open the only passage that accesses the next area. Again, these are one-time-use keys, and if you have already used both of the first two you're given, you cannot progress any further. Time to re-load that last save from an hour ago!"
The only time any of the doors require one of these keys to progress is after you've attained access to the Cave of the Dwarves, which has a shop where you can buy as many as you like.
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Post by edmonddantes on Aug 26, 2017 7:16:29 GMT -5
Just re-read this article but there is one thing I don't see noted which might should be.
See, one thing about KF2, 3, and 4 (I haven't played the first) is a peculiarity about how conversations work: You have to talk to NPCs multiple times in a row to see everything they have to say. I don't mean coming back later... I mean the first time you meet them they might have five different lines but they'll only show one each time you ask.
When I first played KF2 I thought the first thing they said was all they said, since the game gives control back to you after the text ends and this was still a console RPG. The games made a LOT more sense when I discovered they said something different if you talk to them again... even the shop NPCs...
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