The King's Field - Demon/Dark Souls Connection

If you have played any of the "Souls" games (Demon Souls, Dark Souls), you know they are one of the cool surprises of the previous generation and one of the few gaming franchises that made the old school style of gaming new again with all its challenge and deep game play elements. Now, you know that these games are very good, but did you know that they are not a completely new thing? By "not new" I don't exactly mean that their style has been used before because that is pretty obvious. What I mean is that the "Souls" games are a spiritual sequel to a gaming franchise of the past in the same way that Bio Shock is a spiritual sequel to System Shock.

That franchise from the past is called King's Field. It was one of those rare RPG games that appeared on the 32 and 128 bit eras and was one of those games that you used to find on game stores and asked yourself "what the hell is this about?" as you held the jewel case in your hands and saw that it was something different to what you were used to see at the time, a 3D first person RPG on a time where the Elder Scrolls saga was not as popular as it is now. The curious thing about this is that some of the creative minds behind the "Souls" franchise are also the ones that worked on King's Field back in the day and they managed to keep their "high difficulty - great reward" mindset even to this day. This series spawned 4 games, the first 3 of them releasing on the PS ONE and the fourth one on the PlayStation 2 with the name of King's Field: The Ancient City.

One mistake and our hero ends up joining the mummy club.

As stated before, King's Field was a first person RPG that focused its game play on exploration and puzzle solving with a really steep learning curve and hardcore difficulty. The games had a back story, but most of the time you were alone, exploring various dungeons and towns with certain death just looking at you from around the corner and NPC characters that talked to you in cryptic ways. The King's Field games were really hard and building up your character was even harder at least through the first 10 levels or so, mostly because attacking was so slow that most of the enemies could pretty easily hit you more times that you could hit them unless you used magic or ranged weapons and that just made it a little easier. All these things made up for a game that was so challenging, that gamers were divided into those who loved it and those who hated it, without any middle ground at all.

King's Field: The Ancient City addressed some of the issues of the previous games.

All of these hardcore game play elements may seem may seem familiar to you and this is because King's Field was the predecessor to the "Souls" (Bloodborne in a near future) line of games. All of the elements are there from the very beginning: a dark story line developing on a desolated and twisted world, enemies that can instantly kill you if you stray too far, lots of secrets and treasures to find, cryptic NPC characters that you can kill and lose for the rest of the playthrough, lots of mini stories within the main story, a defensive style of battle (which is going to change to an offensive one in Bloodborne) and even the classic bonfires appear on both franchises although they are not that useful in King's Field. In fact the game atmospheres on these two franchises are so similar, that you could just take any of the "Souls" games, put it on a first person perspective and there you go, King's Field V.

Two rpg game franchises united by bonfires.

Wrapping it up

There you go people, if you are a "Souls" fan, now you know the deep roots of the game you like so much. If you feel a little adventurous and you can't wait for Bloodborne to come out, you can give the King's Field games a try. Of course they are not as comfortable and good looking as the "Souls" series, but if you manage to get the hang of them, they can become very good experiences as their emphasis on exploration is something pretty rare nowadays that only survived on the "Souls" series.  

Bonus stage!

If you like to make mods or would like to make your own hardcore first person RPG, you can try King's Field: Sword of the Moonlight, which is a design tool that lets you create your own stand alone King's Field style games while also including the complete remake of the first title in the franchise. This was only released in Japan, but there is an unofficial English patch you could use.

If you like to try it, you can get Sword of Moonlight HERE with all the tools you need including the English patch. This sparks my curiosity so I will try it too, maybe later on we can compare some of our Moonlight sword made games.

Sources:
VG-24/7: From King's Field to Bloodborne
Sword of Moonlight Community
 

Will Sony really bring a new PS2 era?

Right now, the PS4 is the industry leader everywhere in the world except for Japan, where the Wii U is still beating Sony's machine. At first, one of the initial promises that Sony had with the PS4 was that they were going to bring a new PS2-like era in gaming and that was one of the things that attracted many gamers to their side right at the beginning of this generation. Because of this, expectations have always been high with the platform and almost every PS4 owner is eagerly waiting for Sony to drop or at least mention their intention to drop some of the big bombs of that "new PS2 era" or at least something that resembles it. Up until now there are no signs of that happening in the near future and it is almost certain that many of the first adopters are starting to wonder if this is ever going to happen.


The first "PS2 era" aspect that hasn't happened with the PS4 is the inclusion of a definitive JRPG on the console. If we remember back at the PS2 days, one of the games that even came with the console's demo disc was Final Fantasy X and that was a very big deal at the time. Nowadays with the PS4 we have some rpg games on the way for the near future like Natural Doctrine and Hyper Dimension Neptunia VII, but both of them are basically dedicated for a niche within the JRPG niche, which are tactic rpgs and fan service rpgs. Up until this moment there are no indications of a role playing release of giant proportions like a Nino Kuni sequel or even the revival of slumbering franchises like Wild Arms, Suikoden, Shadow Hearts or any of those that had very good offerings for the PS2.


Another aspect that is not there yet is the appearance of a PS2 era heavy hitter. Jack and Daxter is still out of the picture since the last days of the PS2 lifespan, Dark Cloud are two words that wont even appear on a Ouija board, The Last Guardian is starting to become like the Sony's Shenmue (a game that pulls a sad sigh out of developers every time it is mentioned), Tekken ended up stranded on the Wii U, Twisted Metal has been missing in action for years and action adventure games like Maximo, Medievil and Ape Escape are not even close. To be fair, they don't necessarily have to make direct sequels or reboots. They can come with new things that cater to those experiences, it should not be that hard considering all they have to gain from it.


Last but not least, if we have something to acknowledge about the PS2 is that it was the powerhouse of horror. Not only did it snatched Resident Evil from Nintendo's hands and had the best Silent Hill games around, but also had Siren (which had a pretty good chapter based game on the PS3), Fatal Frame which seems to be the horror franchise nobody (except for Nintendo) wants any more, The Suffering, Haunting Grounds, Clock Tower,  Rule of Rose, Trapt, Manhunt, Run Like Hell and others. Right now the only horror titles roaming the PS4 are Outlast, The Evil Within and The Order 1886 which is the only horror exclusive.

Wrapping it up

Instead of all those things that would had made for a promise in the process of been fulfilled, we are getting sort of a "PS3 Plus" deal here with all those types of games heading to the older console instead of the PS4, which is a mistake if they really want to widen the gap between them and the competition. With the Wii U and Xbox One beginning to solidify their game libraries, Sony should keep firing shots at them by giving the players a definite reason to hang on to their platform and the best bet they have right now is to rally the troops with their long time fans by giving them something to really hype for, other than The Order 1886, Bloodborne and No Mans Sky. Still, is it needed to say to all those gamers out there to NOT become pessimistic as the promised new PS2 era can still happen, let's just hope that Sony realizes that they have more to gain than the risk involved in that kind of strategy.