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From Software King's Field (From Software)

Joined
Nov 6, 2009
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http://hardcoregaming101.net/kingsfield/kf01.htm

Just like Crooked Bee, I was mesmerized by From Software games for the PSX. They were crude, slow as molasses, controls were fucked, but I just loved their atmosphere (played the two western King's Field and that weird game which had ghosts on a boat at one point, still need to play "Shadow tower").

I never had a console after the PSX but I'd really like to know from the people who played them if the ones on PS2 or PS3 are as atmospheric and filled with dread as the ones on PSX?

I know that "Dark Souls" and "Demon Souls" are supposed to be astounding games compared to recent console shit. What interests me more is to know if they're as atmospheric and weird as those which were their blueprints on the PSX or if they went from "Daggerfall" to "Oblivion": going through a kind of action-packed kiddie-grimdark disneyification (although I'm pretty sure that From Software couldn't possibly have declined as much as Bethesda, at least not in such large proportions).
 

AlaCarcuss

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In a word - yes.

Both Demon's and Dark Souls are the spiritual successors of the King's Field games and have a very dark, foreboding atmosphere. It's a defining character of these games and it's wonderful.

Icing on the cake is the gameplay, due mostly to much improved controls, are actually better than in KF - making combat a real joy.

Didn't play the PS2 KF's (I intend to though), but if you liked the KF series on the PSx then you really owe it to yourself to give the DS's a try.

:thumbsup:
 

Einhander

Novice
Joined
Feb 18, 2011
Messages
44
i remember playing kings field 1 and 2 and loving them..My mates laughed at them as they were slow and painfull to play but at the time i found them to be awesome..Good Memories :love:
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
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Shadow Tower is a must imho. Brutal and fun. Many hate it though... but what do they know. Shadow Tower introduced the whole soul collecting thing, by the way: you collect SP ("soul points") in lieu of experience. It's basically a King's Field spin-off, but more combat- and crawling-focused (which only makes it better to me). There also was a sequel, Shadow Tower: Abyss, but the English version was scrapped... *rage*... even though it is widely considered to have combined the best of both King's Field and Shadow Tower series, since both combat and exploration are said to be top-notch in that one.

And yes, what AlaCarcuss said. From Software haven't really declined, even if their games have become more "mainstream" now. They're still brutal and fun. Yeah, fun and brutal. And stuffies.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
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MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Destroid said:
They also make the Armored Core games, which are pretty awesome.
With the (for now) most recent, For Answer, being one of the best in the series.

Their move to make the games less uber-hardcore was actually a good one, since after 4 you no longer had to use broken load-outs to just win the game (ie, in Nexus the double Wyrm sniper tank). You only had to use a broken load-out to win that ONE mission in For Answer (both on Normal and especially on Hard), and I think most who played it know what mission I'm talking about.
 

Black Cat

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Skyrim .///.
Beautiful Clown Painting said:
What interests me more is to know if they're as atmospheric and weird

They are basicaly King's Field with much better graphics as far as art design and mood is concerned, and are quite hard too. There's no actual decline on them.

Beautiful Clown Painting said:
played the two western King's Field and that weird game which had ghosts on a boat at one point, still need to play "Shadow tower"

The weird game with ghosts on a ship is Echo Night. There's a japanese only sequel which is being translated by some fans and a PS2 one, Echo Night Beyond, which was translated into english.

There's also Eternal Ring, which is the same kind of game as King's Field and Shadow Tower. Since we are at it, Shadow Tower has a sequel, Shadow Tower Abyss, which I don't know whether or not was translated.

And King's Field IV was also published in the west, just look for it as King's Field: The ancient city.

They all work quite fine in emulators, so just give them a try. FROM doesn't really change.

Humanity has risen! said:
King's Field games are too slow to be enjoyable, it's so long to move and especially to turn, it ruins the whole experience.

That's a total exageration. Once you get good at the controls you dance circles around and in between entire enemy parties while slashing here and there and dodging projectiles, the only kind of hard parts being battles in corridors because you can't exploit your mobility.

And exploiting your mobility to make enemies fall when fighting on bridges never gets old. :smug:
 

Hobo Elf

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I've seen a lot of people regard KF4 as the weakest link in the series. Been playing KF1 (2) ever since I beat Dark Souls and yeah it's pretty good, but I don't see how KF4 is any different from this game other than having a bigger budget and being on a newer system.
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
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Jun 1, 2011
Messages
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If I remember right KF 2 (3) is a lot better than 1. I don't know anything about KF4 and how it ties into the previous games. I don't think it does from what I've read. Plus people have said you move twice as slow in KF4 compared to the previous games, which doesn't sound fun.
 

Machocruz

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I've loved everything From Software has done. Otogi is way slept on. It has an ethereal atmoshpere similar to that of Demon's Souls. The sounds and visuals are quite dreamlike at times. I bet From are really into ghost stories.
 

Vagiel

Augur
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Jan 20, 2008
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Greece
Actually FROM soft might be the company with the most flawless record, bringing both real innovation and sticking to its principles at the same time. I hope their recent success will not change that.

Everyone with a hint of love for dungeon crawling and exploration owes to themselves to try Kings field.

Oh and since Otogi was mentioned, please take a look at this and tell me it is not at least intriguing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZySNXLnCtQ
 

Machocruz

Arcane
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Hyperborea
Vagiel said:
Oh and since Otogi was mentioned, please take a look at this and tell me it is not at least intriguing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZySNXLnCtQ

That demonstrates something else about From Software. I've never seen them put anime kids into any of their games, even something as obviously Japanese as Otogi. Drawing up characters who look the part comes before an "art style."
 

AlaCarcuss

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Oh god yes, I forgot all about the Otogi games on the xbox. Very unique and beautiful games.

Didn't even remember they were From games. What awesome developers these guys are. Wish to god they'd try something on PC sometime.

Oh shit, does this mean I'm becoming a weeboo?? :(
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
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AlaCarcuss said:
Oh god yes, I forgot all about the Otogi games on the xbox. Very unique and beautiful games.

Didn't even remember they were From games. What awesome developers these guys are. Wish to god they'd try something on PC sometime.

Oh shit, does this mean I'm becoming a weeboo?? :(

Well they did make Sword of Moonlight for the PC. It's a toolkit to make your own King's Field games.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Yes! So they didn't ever decline! It's really great to know that they stayed as "weird "as ever. And yes Black Cat, it was indeed "Echo night", a totally incredibly moody game even if its gameplay is broken. I'll try "Shadow Tower" and the other games on PCSX2. In fact, I was afraid that with better systems and faster gameplay their games could lose their dreamlike quality but it seems that it's not the case.
What I particularly loved in the KF games that I played were the sound, the fact that the NPCs had no face, the general design, it felt like you were alone in a dream-like state of mind, like if you were caught in an abstract astral realm. Never saw anything like that anywhere else in a video game.
 

AlaCarcuss

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Beautiful Clown Painting said:
What I particularly loved in the KF games that I played were the sound, the fact that the NPCs had no face, the general design, it felt like you were alone in a dream-like state of mind, like if you were caught in an abstract astral realm. Never saw anything like that anywhere else in a video game.

Which is why you really should try Demon's/Dark Souls. Aside from the fantastic gameplay, the atmosphere is very much like what you describe.

A few other adjectives that I would add would be "Dark", "Foreboding", "Oppressive", "Lonley". Your fist time wandering through a new area fills you with a genuine sense of dread, knowing death could come at any moment.
 

Beggar

Cipher
Joined
Dec 7, 2014
Messages
718
Since there is no proper fanbase around this game, you're my only hope.
Playing King's Field: The Ancient City and just stumbled into game breaking bug. I'm halfway through the game, putting into it a bunch of hours and don't want to start all over again.
So all the area behind two doors area sealed, you go into the darkness and you're dead. It happened when I entered the room with NPC, before that everything was fine. I could load save file, but the problem is that I'm playing on emulator and with save state function.

kings_field.jpg
kings_field_2.jpg


It is in the area with the dude drawing a map

kings_field_3.jpg


Any ideas? Maybe someone else got the same problem?
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,098
I played all the king's Field games on their original platforms, minus the adventure ones on japanese psp's, but never got anything like this bug. It seems to be emulator related. Have you tried to boot the image from the disc and for the image? Have you messed with the emulator? Which emulator did you used? There is another emulator that you can try compatible with your saves? When I got something like this generally I mess with the emulator configuration and something clicks and works. I can garantee that this thing doesnt happens when using a ps2 even with a pirated copy of the game.
Edit: have you tried to leave the area, forcing the game to reload the area? Putting some items on the ground before leave maybe can help. Teleport and get back walking, go walking and come back teleporting, this kind of stuff maybe loads the area.
 
Last edited:

LivingOne

Savant
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
485
Since there is no proper fanbase around this game, you're my only hope.
Playing King's Field: The Ancient City and just stumbled into game breaking bug. I'm halfway through the game, putting into it a bunch of hours and don't want to start all over again.
So all the area behind two doors area sealed, you go into the darkness and you're dead. It happened when I entered the room with NPC, before that everything was fine. I could load save file, but the problem is that I'm playing on emulator and with save state function.



It is in the area with the dude drawing a map


Any ideas? Maybe someone else got the same problem?

I did. The solution is written here: https://code.google.com/archive/p/pcsx2/issues/1172

Good news! I was able to find a solution to the loading issue. I decided to try the same fix one more time and it worked. It doesn't seem to work every time so I think that's why it didn't work the first time around but I figured out what works best. Changing the EE round mode to negative any time before climbing the stairs seems to make it load properly (positive doesn't work in the second area). Sometimes it still doesn't load but if you just go down and climb the stairs again it should work. This applies for both problem areas and as soon as the area loads, you can turn EE round mode back to Chop/Zero to avoid other glitches. Thanks again for your help and suggestions!

Remember to put the emulator's settings back as they were once you are past that area or you may have stuttering/performance problems. Switch those settings back and fort every time you want to traverse that area again.


Also, restarting will not fix the problem.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
I remember that bug, since I replayed the game thru emulator last year and I encountered exactly the same issue in exactly the same spot.
26CE038AA01D26B258AF9E3C2F0DB35ED7F41F71
This fix that was mentioned by LivingOne worked for me.
I guess one problem you might have here is that you apparently relied exclusively (?) on emulator's savestates. Once I adjusted the settings, I loaded the latest save I had at the moment, made at the save point that is placed relatively near to that location. I am not so certain that the same solution will work if one tries to load a savestate previously made in the problematic area.

EDIT: Good, I'm glad that it worked for ya.:)
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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king's field 4 is the best game From has ever made. the slow pace is part of the game design philosphy. they were all about the atmosphere and the world design and the lore in a way that is incomparably mature and developed especially in contrast to the childish ways these facets are represented in a modern From Soft 'Souls game.

THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE CASUAL ACTION GAMES LIKE THE SOULS GAMES ARE.

the music in the king's field games is also the best work From's composers ever made. they are just dripping with mood and immerse the player in the environment in a way that the bombastic 'Souls soundtracks will never be able to achieve. the music in the King's field games is actually there to compliment the area design and the narrative of the game with subtle cues and haunting use of repetition and sound effects.

very few games have ever managed to make the player as completely lost and alone in an unreal world as the king's field world with even the NPCs you meet being but the barest representations of recognizable humanity; instead they serve as cryptic avatars that conduit both the gameplay mechanics as well as the smallest and most esoteric of explanations.

the 'Souls games attempted to mimic these design philosophies but were never as good at it as the team behind the king's field games was at them.

tl;dr

'souls games = zelda
king's field = planescape: torment
 
Last edited:

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,024
king's field 4 is the best game From has ever made. the slow pace is part of the game design philosphy. they were all about the atmosphere and the world design and the lore in a way that is incomparably mature and developed especially in contrast to the childish ways these facets are represented in a modern From Soft 'Souls game.

THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE CASUAL ACTION GAMES LIKE THE SOULS GAMES ARE.

the music in the king's field games is also the best work From's composers ever made. they are just dripping with mood and immerse the player in the environment in a way that the bombastic 'Souls soundtracks will never be able to achieve. the music in the King's field games is actually there to compliment the area design and the narrative of the game with subtle cues and haunting use of repetition and sound effects.

very few games have ever managed to make the player as completely lost and alone in an unreal world as the king's field world with even the NPCs you meet being but the barest representations of recognizable humanity; instead they serve as cryptic avatars that conduit both the gameplay mechanics as well as the smallest and most esoteric of explanations.

the 'Souls games attempted to mimic these design philosophies but were never as good at it as the team behind the king's field games was at them.

tl;dr

'souls games = zelda
king's field = planescape: torment

if you say so ...
 

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