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! :)
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.