Hello, all!
I have recently gotten into playing FromSoftware’s older titles, namely King’s Field and Shadow Tower: Abyss.
It’s all thanks to a Youtuber called Majuular. I had no idea at all about these games, since at best I’m just a light and casual fan of Dark Souls 2/3, and Elden Ring. What I mainly enjoy about Dark Souls/Elden Ring is the exploration aspect, hence the casual.
I’ve got to say, if you haven’t played King’s Field IV: The Ancient City, or Shadow Tower: Abyss (Shadow Tower: Abyss is a Japan exclusive, but a fan translation patch is available!), and you enjoy romping through retro games with that certain something that only FromSoftware provides, please give these games a try!
To add context, after watching Majuular’s video on King’s Field, and his video on Shadow Tower’s series, I started to look into more of From’s older games, and found a game that is heavily inspired by King’s Field called Lunacid. Well, I played the HELL out of Lunacid, and loved it so much, I started digging into finding other games like it! While this led me to find out that not a lot of games are in this niche of gaming, I did find a few! I can provide those to you if you so wish, just let me know!
I am happy to report that there is also a toolkit that can make similar games to King’s Field, provided by FromSoftware all the way back in 2000, and lastly updated in 2001! This caused me to start looking for games that were made in this toolkit, and again, I did find some, but not a lot! I was also able to find a Remade demo for King’s Field 2 by someone going by Rotmilldev, who did a wonderful job, and the only thing I’m disappointed by is that the demo is only the first part of the game!
Anyway, the real reason I am posting this is to get some discussions going on similar games, getting King’s Field/Shadow Tower on people’s radars that might incite some inspiration or interest, and to give any info I can to anyone interested in trying these forgotten gems!
As I am currently in King’s Field IV right now, I can help anyone else who wants to spin it up for a try, and give some hints on settings or insights into why I’m falling in love with these games. If you are interested in it, I can also give you a .pnach file that will introduce better feeling controls for this game, at the cost of making it easier to fight any enemies due to the game being developed for a slower player character, which in turn means slower enemies to match.
Thanks for reading all this. I’m sorry to geek over it, but I would love to discuss it with anyone else interested! :)
Copying my reply from the other post, lol.
This is a great King’s Field game in terms of accessibility, but King’s Field 2 and 3 (JP) are where the real DNA is at. KF3 Pilot Style is kinda cool but ultimately just feels like a romhack of the 3rd game. Which I guess it kinda is, it is a demo that a really small number of fans got, and it has differences from King’s Field 3.
King’s Field is a slow game. It is designed to be played slow and to progress slow, not so dissimilar to the best games in the Survival Horror genre like Resident Evil 1, Silent Hill 1-4, Kuon, Haunting Ground, etc. Making any part of it faster detracts from the overall experience. My biggest recommendation for people playing King’s Field is to play it the way it was designed. Use the original controls, don’t use speed hacks to make the game faster or run with a higher framerate (doing this easily makes the game uncontrollable), and get out a trusty pen and notepad. The reward from completing the game in this way is not even remotely comparable to looking everything up online or using cheats to make it easier, plus you get a fun souvenir for your time with the game at the end. If you aren’t going to enjoy the game like this, then King’s Field just isn’t for you, as it will have other inconveniences you will absolutely find annoying enough to drop the game for. And that’s okay, not every game is designed for every person on the planet to enjoy.
As far as games similar to King’s Field, many claim to be similar but are actually not. The only game that looks truly similar is Monomyth, but that has some significant deviances from the KF formula as well.
Lunacid is not realy much like King’s Field IMO, it is Shadow Tower, but not Shadow Tower Abyss (which was way better IMO than the original in basically every way). Personally, I did not really like Lunacid that much. I was sold on the game by the idea that it was a faithful successor to King’s Field, but it just isn’t. Too much of the game is different, to the point that I would say the only similarity is that the game is a first person RPG and that it features a bubble compass. The theme, setting, gameplay pacing, and characters are more fittingly Shadow Tower. Also, the anime style characters stick out compared to the rest of the game’s art style. I love anime, but felt that the game should have featured more realistic/stylized-realistic characters like in King’s Field. The music was also very much Shadow Tower and did not sound like King’s Field.
Also, I am fairly sure Sword of Moonlight has received fan updates in order to keep it running on modern operating systems.
*** I am doing the same! Again, thank you for your comments! :)
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment!
I haven’t gotten to the first or second game just yet, as I will be backtracking from the more refined, and as you said, more accessible games to the older titles as those will play more similar to the games I’ve found that used the toolkit for their creation! As you said, the website I linked to for the toolkit is the website hosted by the gracious person who took their time and love of the King’s Field series and used it to improve the engine!
I understand what you mean by the game being purposefully built for the slow gameplay, but that just isn’t how I want to spend my time as someone who doesn’t have a lot of free time. That means that if I can, I will increase the walking speed, the combat speed, or whatever else I need to do to make the game more enjoyable for me, such as being able to use the right analog stick to move the camera. I’m not in it for the slow pacedness of it, I am in it for the exploration, level design, and over feel the games provide. I think it is awesome that people choose to play these games as there were meant to be played, and as you said, would even recommend it for those that want that challenge! I know there are others like me though, and that means that if it can help them enjoy the game for themselves, why try to invalidate their enjoyment? We can both play the same game, and talk about the level design, the secrets, and the atmosphere, while still being able to enjoy the game in our own preferred way. That’s part of the fun of gaming after all! Some play on easy, others play on the hardest difficulty, and that’s just fine!
I am sorry to hear you didn’t like Lunacid that much, and while I agree the anime characters are pretty out there (and definitely not something I enjoyed seeing for the first time), you don’t see them often enough, or at least I didn’t through my entire 30 hour playthrough, where it became such an issue as to quit playing. Lunacid’s developer only mentioned it being inspired by King’s Field, and I think it took that inspiration very well. Maybe they changed the wording by the time it was fully released, but I never saw anything that said it was supposed to be a successor, only that it was heavily inspired. With that said, I understand what you were wanting, and I am sorry you did not get it. For a casual like myself, however, it was an absolute blast that made me go on to start playing King’s Field and Shadow Tower, mainly because there aren’t enough games like them!
As for the music, I am enjoying the music on King’s Field IV, I enjoyed the music on Lunacid, and I hope that when I get done with King’s Field IV, I’ll enjoy the music in Shadow Tower!
All in all, the limitations of the past are gone. I understand they were working with the technology of the time, and I love what they were able to accomplish. No loading screens on a PS2 game, let alone PS1, was such an amazing feat that I don’t think they get enough credit for! But, these limitations do not have to exist any longer, and I think people should be able to play any game, no matter if the developers are targeting a hardcore market or not, because I think limiting people from playing games is kind of sad. Video games are supposed to be an outlet, a hobby, something you can do to take your mind off of things or have a little escapism. If that means allowing them to play a game with more modern controls, as I have done for King’s Field IV, why should that bother anyone else? You can still play the game the way it was intended to, while I play it in a way that is more satisfying for me.
Again, thank you for the time and effort you put into your comment. I just want others to try these gems out too. :)
I definitely think ones wanting to get into King’s Field should work backwards from the 4th game. The storylines are not really that connected, and the farther back you go the more annoying certain users can find the lack of various features. 4 is a good start to see if someone will like the overall feeling of the game, and the farther back you go the more hardcore of a fan you are to like the games.
I wasn’t invalidating your way of playing, only mentioning my opinion that the reward is better if you play it the original way. Also, some may think that the modified experience is the way the game is supposed to be played when that isn’t the case.
Yeah, Lunacid wasn’t bad it just wasn’t what I was expecting. That and Kira and I just don’t get along, he tried to argue with me on Discord and I just didn’t care enough to argue back. As I said, it definitely felt far more like Shadow Tower, which isn’t a bad thing but it is disappointing to me to taste an orange when I bite into an apple.
The limitations may be gone, but for some games like King’s Field, the limitations are part of the games identity, IMO. And perhaps this is because I played the games in release order rather than reverse. For example, a big part of Resident Evil’s identity to me will always be fixed cameras and tank controls. To me, playing an RE game without them doesn’t give me the same experience as the ones that do. Games like RE4 and newer Resident Evil games just feel like action shooters, not survival horror. Which is fine, just different. They’re not made for me and that’s fine. I can have Crow County and Hollow Body instead.
I love King’s Field, and have enjoyed it even before YouTubers like Iron Pineapple, Josh Strife Hayes, and Majuular “popularized” them. It is exciting that more people are starting to play them, but it is also worrying in the same way that anything starting to go mainstream is worrying. The fear of the experience being watered down to the point that two players have vastly different experiences and cannot even communicate about the same game anymore.
I hope that my previous comment did not come of any way negative! I’d say that I’m rather bad about getting my thoughts across the web, unfortunately. I took no offense to your comment at all, and I apologize if I did come of that way.
See, I’m not even really into it for the story either! I know there is one, and I do digest the hints they’ve given along the way, interact with every character until they start repeating the same lines, and I always try to make sure to check every nook and cranny I can to not miss anything. I’ve just gotten past the Forest Golem, and all I know now is that the Wand is in the King’s Tomb, and that’s what I need to find next. I’m actually about to boot it up right after this comment!
Your opinion on beating it legitimately isn’t wrong, by any means, I think you’re right. The reason I included the controls snippet is to mention there is still a way to play for the people like me, or to someone with less patience for such a game. I did mention it wasn’t the correct way to play, and would put the enemies at a disadvantage. My main goal was to provide a means of entry for those that hear it’s so sluggish and has horrible camera controls (for someone in 2024, anyway).
I’m sorry to hear about you and Kira. I have never interacted with a game developer before, so I can’t really comment on that too much, unfortunately.
I think they can provide limitations while still making it accessible enough for someone who has never played a King’s Field game before, or even someone who can’t move their hands/fingers like another person can. I played the original Resident Evil games, and the new remakes even though they are not really my types of games. I thought they were both very good in their own rights. Sometimes the camera angles had more intense moments, and sometimes the over the shoulder view had more intense. While I see your point about changing the core of the game, and what games like Crow County are trying to recreate (on my Steam wishlist already!), it isn’t always a bad thing to change the games up. Seeing what they were able to accomplish on the PS1 is impressive, and seeing the same game (albeit refreshed in some ways) through a new lens is also interesting. I guess I just look at them as they are and what they are. They’re each their own entity, and I just go off of that. I’ve never heard of Hollow Body before, so I’ll look that up while I boot King’s Field up!
I can see that you do, and as a newcomer to the series, I can see why! I have always found that having more people to talk about a game with is more fun than it disappearing into obscurity and only lauded by a few who gave it a chance, even with what most would call some issues! Try to look at it this way, there will always be people like you who want it to be the purest version of a game they love, and that’s perfectly good! Allowing others to join in on that fun, and letting the love for the games/series grow is also a good thing. Look at Elden Ring. It is the purest form of Dark Souls mechanics, while also introducing loads of new and exciting things. More people played Elden Ring, thanks to previous games achievements, and the fervent fan base it has garnered. That is awesome! While the combat may not be as hard as Demon’s Souls was (it can be, but I feel like the older games were a bit harder, but maybe I just got better?), more people are able to play it thanks to the refinement and additions!
If FromSoftware were to revisit the King’s Field games, I know they would only improve upon, not tarnish, the series and allow new comers to play and enjoy it like they did with Elden Ring. :)
In the mean time, there are a few games I have wishlisted that will hopefully scratch that itch when I finish these games. Dead Wells, Mohrta, Verho, and Fiend’s Isle were the ones that seemed to get the closest! It’s such a niche genre, I hate that it’s not more popular!