heck, lets talk King's Field

[edmonddantes]

Hey, I did a topic about Eternal Ring and Shadow Tower, what are the odds I would start playing King's Field again?  Whodathunkit!  Next you'll be telling me Superman comes from the planet Krypton.

So instead let's talk about Armored Core. Like seriously, is it just me or has From Software's former breadwinner giant mecha series just kinda... disappeared?  Like apparently the last installment was in 2013.  Its kinda making me think of Mega Man, how for decades Capcom milked the blue bomber and then suddenly the well just kinda dried up (seriously look at how many Armored Core games there were on the PS2 alone).

.....

But seriously I do wanna talk some King's Field, especially since I finally played the original KF--the Japan-only one that had to be fan-translated, and then I couldn't play on an actual PS1 because every time I tried to save there was a random chance the game would crash and render the resulting save unusable.  I finally got it working (using my Dell desktop) on an emulator called ePSXe... version 1.7.0.  Version 1.6.0 was bugged up the ass (apparently it was designed for computers that used Voodoo 3s, which I had, but wasn't what I was using) and version 2.0.5 just plain wouldn't boot... this was on Windows XP.

But whatever, 1.7.0 played the game, no crashes, the only weirdness was any time I talked to someone or read a sign the music would slow down, but whatever I can live with that.  Its better than crashing.

Here's a thing.... all these first-person games on PS1 actually started to hurt my thumb, so what I did was mapped the game to have controls similar to what I use for the MS-DOS version of Doom (I'm keyboard-only for that version).  It's weirdly appropriate... King's Field always felt like a PC game that was for some reason released on consoles (and yes, I know about Sword of Moonlight, but I sometimes had text glitches with that version) so playing it like a PC game somehow felt "right."

And it didn't hurt my thumb.

......

So.... a question.

People keep saying that Dark Souls is the "spiritual descendant" of King's Field.  Currently I've not played any of the Souls games, but I've watched videos, like the two by Hbomberguy, and that one guy who did a seven-hour response to hbomb (well, I watched part one of it... it was one of those lame vids that responds line-by-line and I don't freaking care about the healing flasks).

The thing that gets me is.... well, I can kinda see them being similar in terms of the dark fantasy aesthetic (tho its far less pronounced in King's Field games before The Ancient City) but other than that.... well... I don't see much similarity.  Supposedly the games also have references like having the Moonlight Sword... but so does Armored Core.  Like.... are the Souls games even RPGs?

King's Field doesn't really have an emphasis on combat or being challenging.  In a lot of ways its like the perfect grandson of how NES RPGs used to be... the perfect balance between console gaming's more structured approach and PC RPG's allowing you some degree of choice.  Which is what keeps me going.  I like RPGs because I like adventuring. and discovering new worlds, but PC games often feel too wrapped up in numbers (I remember loading up Wizardry VII, looking at all the options in character creation, and saying "no, screw this.") while... well, console games speak for themselves.  King's Field is the perfect median.  Yes, I can adventure!  I mean yes I have a clear starting point and often have to progress in order, but it feels more natural to see gates on the path and wonder what's beyond them, than to have to wait until someone explicitly tells you to go to the gates.

In that regard combat is more... something you tolerate.  I agree King's Field's is not the best combat engine, but its like the manual for Wizardry said:  "without monsters to fight, this would just be a game about mapping."

I mean, the monsters aren't pushovers--skeletons for example can potentially one-shot you when you first start the game, and most of the KFs have skeletons near the beginning of the game.  There are occasionally tough encounters, like that one cave with the big dinosaur things that throw rocks at you.  So you do have to watch your HP.  But like... these are more like beginner's traps more than anything.  Very often by the mid-to-late game, I'm so loaded up with restoratives that I could throw a pharm party.

By the way, since there's a "Final Fantasy II SNES is really Final Fantasy IV" situation going on with this series (due to the afformentioned "the first game had to be fan-translated" thing)... well, most fans use nomenclature like "KF1JP" or "KF2US."  I kinda hate that--its just a jumble of letters and numbers.

What I prefer to do is identify the games by their contents, like so:

King's Field 1 - The Royal Cemetary Adventure (because it takes place in the Royal Cemetary).

King's Field 2 - The Island of Melanat (because it takes place on an island called Melanat).

King's Field 3 - The Excellector Quest (because you get a sword called the Excellector at the beginning of the game).

King's Field 4 - The Ancient City (because that's what it says on the box).

See, I find its easier to say "Final Fantasy IV is the one with the dark knight named Cecil" than it is to say "Final Fantasy IV is the one that was called II on the SNES."  It only asks people to remember what the game was about, not collate all these numbers and random trivia.

'Twas actually working on a longer post about these games, but real life keeps interrupting me so... well, I'll be back with more thoughts.

Anyway, King's Field fans unite!

(And I really do want to know how much Dark Souls really has in common)

[mainpatr]

King's Field always seemed more like Ultima Underworld or even Morrowind than a Souls game.

But, Seath from Dark Souls was a final boss one of the Kings Field games.

[edmonddantes]

Yeah, that's my impression as well... particularly Ultima Underworld.

I think that's one reason these games were criticized back in the day. They're like PC games but were released on consoles, where people's ideas of an RPG was more along the lines of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, and then King's Field was more like a lite version of Ultima Underworld. PC gamers who might've liked it wouldn't have known because it was for the Playstation, and it was just too alien to console gamers who didn't have prior PC experience.

Heck, I'd like one day to do a poll of this--like, to see if there's any King's Field fans who weren't previously experienced in PC Gaming.

EDITS AND ADDITIONS

One, I wanna propose a theory.

Common belief is that King's Field: The Ancient City must take place AFTER the Ps1 trilogy.

I instead think of it as a prequel.

Admittedly, my reasoning is probably kind of braindead.  But simply put:  The Ancient City's lore goes on about "people of the forest" being invaded by evil, which you eventually clear out.

then the Royal Cemetary King's Field game begins with a text scroll stating that the "Dragon of the Forest" once cleared out evil in the area.

Its like.... yeah, as soon as I saw KF1JP for the first time, that was the connection I made.

....

Opinion time tho...

Personally if I were to rank the four main games (I don't know if the two PSP games ever got fan-translated so I can't play them yet) I would have to rank them as such:

BEST King's Field II (Melanat Island)

King's Field I (Royal Cemetary)

King's Field III (Excellector)

WORST King's Field The Ancient City

Admittedly I and III are currently dueling for the position of second-best to me.  I has a short-n-sweet feel while III feels like a vast adventure and has some slight changes in feel that I'm not sure whether I love or not.

The Ancient City tho... its kinda.... well, to lay it straight out, it feels more like a sequel to Shadow Tower than to King's Field.

I mean, I like Shadow Tower, but I didn't want KF to have things like degradable weapons (they don't break, just they degrade and get weaker as they're used, and honestly I think its absolutely stupid that the MOONLIGHT SWORD isn't immune to this), and while I liked ST's horrific tone, it kinda gets overbearing in a very long game like KF4.

In general tho I feel like the graphical upgrade provided by the PS2 actually somehow made From Software's games worse, like they somehow all look more generic while on the PS1, you could tell a definite aesthetic difference between King's Field and Shadow Tower.

I still need to play Shadow Tower Abyss tho...

[wyrdwad]

Your timing is impeccable. I was just on a podcast called "Platforms & Pitfalls" where King's Field was one of several topics of in-depth discussion. The episode should be going live very soon, so be sure to check it out to hear me weigh in on a series I know very, very little about!

(This isn't just a random plug, BTW; the podcast very specifically addresses comparisons to Dark Souls, as well as Ultima Underworld, so it's literally exactly ON-topic.)

-Tom

[ReyVGM]

The King's Field / Dark Souls connection comes from the open world design. You can go most areas even if you are not supposed to.

And yes, Dark Souls is an RPG. An action RPG.

[edmonddantes]

I just had an experience in King's Field III/2US/The One With the Excellector which I thought I should warn people about. Most of the design of this game strikes me as a "you get used to it" or else you already have a taste for it sorta thing, but I just ran into a part that was straight-out bad design, that almost led me to restart the game thinking I had messed something up.

Okay, there's this part in the town of Ralugo where everyone is asking you to get this red antidote for a kid. They tell you a monster drops it... but in fact its pre-set in the environment, past a narrow cliff edge.

Now, this cliff edge is indicated by a sign saying DANGER! But here's the thing...

It's very much a first-person equivalent of the "you can just WALK across it" thing from the Ninja Turtles NES game. If you press the strafe keys at all while on this narrow path, you fall into the lava and die. But if you just RUN on this path, turning slightly where necessary, you'll be fine.

I did not know this until I experimented, and I actually thought I had missed by chance to do a necessary plot quest and almost restarted the game. Then I happened to experiment and discover this little trick (and the afformentioned red antidote) and was able to continue.

Again, this is one of the first times a King's Field game did something I had to outright consider bad design since I imagine a lot of people will, like me, fall in the lava and think this narrow path is just impassible. In fact KF3 has a lot of elements I don't care for, tho I still think I like it more than The Ancient City.

.... Just heard in a video that the Souls games have weapon degradation/weapons needing repairs, which... I'm not sure I like the sound of.

[kaoru]

Apr 14, 2019 21:56:21 GMT -5 edmonddantes said:

It's very much a first-person equivalent of the "you can just WALK across it" thing from the Ninja Turtles NES game. If you press the strafe keys at all while on this narrow path, you fall into the lava and die. But if you just RUN on this path, turning slightly where necessary, you'll be fine.

There you go, another clear connection between KF and DS: Shitty platforming that barely works and when it does because you did the unintuitive thing instead of the obvious one.

[ReyVGM]

Apr 14, 2019 21:56:21 GMT -5 edmonddantes said:

.... Just heard in a video that the Souls games have weapon degradation/weapons needing repairs, which... I'm not sure I like the sound of.

Weapons rarely break. You can repair them at save points at anytime after you buy the repair kit. It's really not a problem at all. You're not going to be running around thinking "oh no I better not use my weapon to avoid breaking it". Every time you save, just repair whatever damage they have.

[edmonddantes]

kaoru the funny thing is this is the only instance like that I've run into in any of the KF games.

Tho, to be honest while I'm still liking KF3/2US, I'm remembering why I consider the first US one the superior game. Its not a big thing, but rather a couple of little things.

Those things being:

1. Item descriptions. In KF1US you could, early-to-midgame, meet this girl named Meryl, a fortune teller lady who will tell you what items do and if equipment has special effects. The only problem is she teleports around--but once you know places she can appear, you can force an appearance by going far enough away (generally only a few feet or where the area is even slightly outside your visual range even with the Light spell active) and coming back until she appears, which doesn't take too long.

KF2US tho... you don't get a convenience like that. Instead the game gives a built-in "Guide" but its info fills in gradually as the game goes on, I'm not sure what triggers it. Right now I have two items--a Wind Necklace and a Black Jewel--that are equippable and I have no idea what they do, but somehow I can get info on some new helmet I just found in a treasure chest. Like, what the hell. This game really needed a Meryl-like convenience.

2. The way magic works. Okay, the plot this time is you're a prince who first has to learn all five magic elements (think Avatar: The Last Airbender) from different wizards, but once you do you upgrade your skill in each element by repeated casting... this is also how you learn new spells.

I've never been a fan of this kind of thing, and KF2US demonstrates a problem with it. Early on, your only means of refilling MP is Moon Stones, which you can buy, but cost 650gp (keep in mind at this point most monsters only drop 10-20gp). It very much encourages you NOT to use magic... and then suddenly you have to make up for lost time when you finally find a gold fountain which restores all your hp and mp. Yes, there are crystals that when used raise your proficiency, but they're rare. Some elements like Water are hard to practice because the first Water spell you get is Dispoison, a spell you'll rarely have to use naturally (this is probably why the game throws tons of water crystals at you around the time you get water magic tho).

In KF1US, there was just an all-encompassing magic stat which raised after enough general magic usage and covered everything, and new spells were found rather than given as your skills increased. (The very first KF, the Japan only one, also had you having to meet wizards, but then you gained new spells by simply levelling up).

ADDENDUM:  One thing that makes this whole premise weird is that the place where the Wind Mage is, you can't even get in there without having a point in Wind already (which you get from a Wind Crystal, which a kid just gives you--that's how I figured this out).  It's just odd that you would even need to do that since common sense would dictate that you shouldn't use it until you've met the Wind Mage and gotten the ability to cast actual wind spells.

3. It may just be me but it seems like your player character gets staggered a bit when he takes a hit. It's not a big problem except on narrow bridges where I'm sometimes afraid he'll careen off the edge to his death. Fortunately this is easy to mitigate, and doesn't affect his ability to cast spells or hit back.

4. I'm going by memory here since I haven't found a Phantom Rod (item that reveals secret doors and wall panels) on my current playthru, but I recall them changing how it worked--in KF1US it made secret walls/panels transparent so you not only saw them, but saw what was in them (since some could be traps). Here IIRC it makes them flash red. I also found the effect less noticable IIRC so sometimes I wouldn't even notice a change.

A lot of these issues were reverted in King's Field: The Ancient City, tho that game in some ways felt like a retread of previous From Software RPGs. It also had a weapon degradation system (they wouldn't break--there was a minimum level they could sink to--but as they got more used they did less damage etc. Which I find just stupid. Especially when it still happens to the effing Moonlight Sword, which should NOT be able to degrade). Still it gets points for returning to "learn new spells by finding crystals" system and having just one stat to cover all schools of magic.... I do wonder why TAC doesn't have Phantom Rods tho.

[edmonddantes]

So, bumping. Right now I'm taking a break from King's Field III due in part to burnout and also due to the hurting-thumb issue I mentioned in another topic (I dunno why, but holding up to move forward starts to hurt very soon in. Dunno if its the game, controller, or something I'm doing).

Its hard to give a fair analysis of KFIII in this circumstance, because burnout always makes things seem worse than they are. I do think its safe to say I had more fun with the first two installments at least.

Some advice I will give to people starting out on the third game:

1) when the Excellector gets fully powered, use it as long as you are able.... but that said, don't go out of your way to power it up, because as soon as you finish finding the three Ichrius objects and turn them over to Leon, you're gonna lose it (and when you get it back, its at level one again--another just plain odd design decision, tho soon after this I got the Triple Fang, which was better anyway).

(This btw is another thing I don't like... games with parts where you have to wait for an item to be forged.  To be fair, in KFIII's case, five such items--the Promeus armors--are optional, but the Ichrius Key is mandatory and since the three Ichrius items are what allow quick teleporting around the world, that's like five minutes where you're stuck in the starting town with nothing to do).

2) It's okay to backtrack to buy some crystal flasks from the graveyard dude after you find the first golden fountain since you're not that far out--you only need about ten flasks for now, BTW--but after you've crossed the path of poison, don't worry about backtracking until you get all the Ichrius stuff (DO explore the military base until you find the Capricorn sword BTW, because this will be the strongest sword in the game for a long while).

3) If you're replaying the game or don't mind looking up online maps... once you get to the Field of Ice, go to the Passage of Death and find the Royal Key (its on the end opposite of the entrance, inside a secret room). This key opens a locked chest you can find in a small shrine (in a secret room) at the very beginning of the game. Said chest contains an awesome sword called the Triple Fang, which in my run was the first item (besides the crappy Earth Shield) to cause you to regenerate MP. Which is something I wish the game had given me earlier. You've basically won the game at this point.

Hopefully I'll be playing the game again in a year and will find this topic and follow my own advice...

(What I do hate is that I'm probably making KFIII sound like a terrible game.  It really isn't, I just get grumpy when I'm burned out on playing five similar games in a row)