King’s Field Retrospective

Considering how much attention and praised From Software’s console action-RPGs Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls have gained, Eurogamer must have thought this is a perfect period to publish a retrospective article on what is considered by many the spiritual predecessor to these two titles, the PlayStation-exclusive King’s Field, which shared the same challenge that its successors are widely known for. Here’s a snip:

Some limitations are intentional. The attack motion seems outrageously slow at first, a looong swoop of the sword that makes you feel like a 90-pound weakling with a sledgehammer. The upshot, though, is that every move counts. You can’t hack and slash in King’s Field. You have to learn each foe’s rhythm and respond with precise timing to escape unscathed.

And King’s Field will let you learn these things, which is the glory of it. It does not lecture you on how it must be played; it places you in a well-designed world and trusts that you’re curious enough to figure things out.

King’s Field came with a basic manual – in the early days of the PlayStation, they were still bothering with such things – but aside from that, there’s no tutorial. Want to know what a button does? Press it. Want to know what an item does? Use it. If you’re wondering where you ought to go next, don’t look for a big pulsing arrow at the top of the screen. Instead, how about you try going somewhere and see what happens, hotshot?

The island of Melanat is filled with obscurities, and it seems there is always some weird item or mysterious landmark that defies explanation. Just as in Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, an essential part of the ethos is that you never entirely understand how the world works. It invites not just geographical but also conceptual exploration, to the very end.