King's Field II (1996)
Genres:Role-playing (RPG)
Themes:Action, Fantasy, Horror
Game modes:Single player
Story:King's Field II is a medieval-themed first-person role playing video game produced by From Software for the PlayStation in 1996. It is the third entry in the King's Field series and the last one for the original PlayStation.
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.905
As an early zoomer, I didn't play this growing up; but I've been a FromSoft fan since I played Elden Ring (like how Breath of the Wild made me a LoZ fan), & so when I randomly heard about King's Field in a Gameranx video, I was intrigued enough to dig into it; which's how I found out it was FromSofts very 1st IP, & shortly afterwards, about the spinoff series, Shadow Tower, & that they're the IPs that pioneered everything the Souls games & Elden Ring're famous for now, & where many iconic Fromverse elements, like Seath the Scaleless & the Moonlight Greatsword, made their debut. So naturally, when I started emulating retro games on my Steam Deck (because getting the og hardware's prohibitively expensive now), I had to download both the King's Field & Shadow Tower IPs to play; & while they're, as FromSoft games're famous for being, brutally difficult, I've been enjoying them, & I immediately noticed their control scheme was what'd be standard keyboard & mouse controls mapped to a controller, as demonstrated by modern games that, while officially labeled "Soulsborne", or a similar term, actually, whether the developer realized it or not, take more after King's Field &/or Shadow Tower gameplay wise due to being played from a 1st person perspective (surprising the difference it makes); which's why I came up with a new term for such games I even made into a Steam tag; "King's-heir". Games like Monomyth, Dread Delusion, & the upcoming games Dreamspring & Labryinth of the Demon King. So, as you may've guessed, I wanna see both the King's Field & Shadow Tower games made playable on PC for both longtime FromSoft fans, & simply curious newcomers, to enjoy, & discover where many iconic FromSoft elements came from, & where the legendary studio got their start; & if Nightdive Studios doesn't remaster/remake them, I wanna see them added to the GOG preservation program (if you see this reposted on the other King's Field/Shadow Tower games, the story's the same there as it is here).
I spent many, many hours playing this game on the PlayStation 1. It was a huge influence on me finally liking action RPGs and not just sticking rigidly to turn-based titles. Also as an earlier FromSoftware title it's place in gaming history is cemented. It needs to be available for current generations to experience.
I grew up with retro games, but I didn't play King's Field until long after playing its spiritual successors, Demon's Souls and the Dark Souls series. Something about these games are truly special, and they make for intensely immersive dungeon crawlers with a high focus on exploration and using your inventory intelligently.
For how late I got into them, they easily take the spot of one of my favorite series of games of all time, especially the Verdite Trilogy.
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