From Software 'n such

[AGermanArtist]

Except for maybe Ninja Blade.

[ryu]

I 1shot Fume Knight on a new COC character. That's probably my new biggest achievement in these games lol

And wow the Alonne Sword is actually pretty bad. Long reach and good damage with buff, but:

- The buff doesn't last long at all, reapplying gets tiresome really quick
- Very low durability
- Low poise damage, can't stunlock unlike other Katanas in the game

I played the first section of Eleum Loyce with it and found the game harder compared to before with the Berserker Blade.

[Blinge]

Ah you mean one attempt?
not just 1 shot him with your COC

[Lemnear]

The only part of the swamps I dislike in fromsoft games is slower traversal. Specifically the whole waist-high water making you trundle at a snail's pace. DS1 is based and lets you skip that by using the rusted ring.

Demon's Souls has the best swamp though imo. Extremely atmospheric and oppressive area.

I knew the trick in DS3 was to use the dagger's WA to do a "quickstep", and it works even without mana, so you outrun everything Frogger-style.

I picked up Elden Ring again to explore the final areas of the DLC, and... it's all very nice (the DLC is better than the base game), BUT... I miss some special things from the other Souls games.
Like the leeches from DS3 in the Cathedral of the Deep, the ones that shorten your HP bar if they look at you... things like that. In ER, however, every enemy/boss is a humanoid with an increasingly fancier moveset, and so on until the end. I would have preferred more variety considering how long the game is. I miss the unique bosses in DeS, and the fights in DS3 are actually quite enjoyable, while in ER they aren't that fun to do.

[ryu]

Ah you mean one attempt?
not just 1 shot him with your COC

Yeah, first attempt with Company of Champions covenant lol

The boss usually takes me hours so that felt pretty good

[ryu]

So I just beat King's Field IV. Played it for the first time over the last week. I only had a vague idea of what I was getting into, it being my first game in its genre, it felt really good going into a new game with little expectations. All in all I haven't enjoyed a game like this in quite a while. But I have to say that I liked the early to mid game the best, when resources were scarce and I always had to be careful with taking damage. The moment I had a bunch of spells, tons of MP and access to cheap healing items and a healing spell the difficulty pretty much fell apart until the area near the coast (which was kind of annoying however), but the game kept up its great atmosphere regardless.
The level design is amazing. I always liked interconnected maps in games and this one goes all out on that, beating other favorites such as Dark Souls and the best Metroid games in its sense of place. And not to mention the amazing texture work. Honestly I think King's Field IV looks much better than many later Fromsoft titles.

Next is Shadow Tower, I hope. The disc I got is a bit scratched up and it already took me two attempts to get past the loading screen after the intro animation. Hopefully that's going to remain the only potential crashing spot in the game for me.

[Sweatlord_STG]

So I just beat King's Field IV. Played it for the first time over the last week. I only had a vague idea of what I was getting into, it being my first game in its genre, it felt really good going into a new game with little expectations. All in all I haven't enjoyed a game like this in quite a while. But I have to say that I liked the early to mid game the best, when resources were scarce and I always had to be careful with taking damage. The moment I had a bunch of spells, tons of MP and access to cheap healing items and a healing spell the difficulty pretty much fell apart until the area near the coast (which was kind of annoying however), but the game kept up its great atmosphere regardless.
The level design is amazing. I always liked interconnected maps in games and this one goes all out on that, beating other favorites such as Dark Souls and the best Metroid games in its sense of place. And not to mention the amazing texture work. Honestly I think King's Field IV looks much better than many later Fromsoft titles.

Sounds amazing, I've never played any of the series.

[ryu]

Sounds amazing, I've never played any of the series.

Amazing is pretty much what I think of it, yeah. It's easily one of the best games I've played in recent years. I imagine the biggest hurdle to the game is getting used to its slow gameplay. The combat may not look exciting and takes some warming up to, but is surprisingly intricate and forces you to get a feel for spacing and timing if you want to avoid damage.

[Blinge]

Nice man!! now you've gotta watch my KF4 magic only video! haha

Your observations are pretty on point.
The issue with all KF i'm afraid is that the hardest part of the game is the beginning lol. towards the end you become super OP.
If you liked 4 you should definitely play the ps1 trilogy.

1 might be a bit rough for you once you've found a translation patch.
2 you'll love, for the world design.
3 is polarising.

[ryu]

Nice man!! now you've gotta watch my KF4 magic only video! haha

Already done! I wonder how high your magic stat was at the end, since I did a melee-main run and still ended up having way more magic power by the end than strength (the king's crown is insane wtf). Also you severely understated how awful the mine cart section is. I died at least 3 incredibly dumb deaths there and kept cursing for the rest of the evening lol
I might give the first the games a shot some day. My gaming budget for the rest of the year is already on hold for a bunch of stuff that's just releasing in the last quarter. And to be honest I'm more curious about King's Field Additional 1 & 2. Apparently there might be no translations for those so I wonder how well known they are in the English community.

Anyways. I checked out Shadow Tower for a couple hours. The game crashed another two times on me so I guess I'm giving up on it for now. Anyways it's... an experience. Like I legit thought I was playing a prototype disc for a while lmao. I understand music was left out because they wanted the ambience to rely on sound effects, but it just feels even more rough that way. Still I thought it's a cool horror game and wish I could properly play it.

So here's the big question. How's Shadow Tower Abyss compared to Shadow Tower und KF IV?

1 might be a bit rough for you once you've found a translation patch.

I collect Japanese games and understand the language, so thankfully no need for patches. And with that I'm glad I watched your videos because otherwise I would have probably missed out on the English voice acted Ending of KF III hahahi

[Sima Tuna]

I've never understood if Shadow Tower is supposed to be a King's Field game or not. I've seen footage and it sure looks like one.

[Sumez]

The level design is amazing. I always liked interconnected maps in games and this one goes all out on that, beating other favorites such as Dark Souls and the best Metroid games in its sense of place.

Oh man you really should play King's Field 2 (jp numbering) then.
While 4 does have a neatly interconnected map, progress is entirely linear and heavily forced on the player, even though it does seem open enough to never feel super restrictive. You're still *discovering* where you need to go, rather than being pushed there. And it's really nice how you keep returning to that central area.

King's Field 2 is incredibly open ended, and the way the map connects into itself in several areas is just incredibly well done. Might be my favourite interconnected map in any video game, with games like Dark Souls and Super Metroid also being big favourites of mine in that area.

KF3 is the opposite. It follows the DS2 school of world design, with the same ability to freely teleport anywhere, and distinct areas connected via dedicated tunnels just feeling entirely unrelated to eachother.

I've never understood if Shadow Tower is supposed to be a King's Field game or not. I've seen footage and it sure looks like one.

Does it matter? It's definitely adjacent, similar to Eternal Ring. But it's its own series.

[Sweatlord_STG]

I checked out Shadow Tower for a couple hours. The game crashed another two times on me so I guess I'm giving up on it for now.

You need the Disc Doctor or something If not I'd ask for a refund.

[Sumez]

If you already got a Shadow Tower disc, just get it resurfaced with a high quality machine. Worked wonders for all the games I did that on

[ryu]

If you already got a Shadow Tower disc, just get it resurfaced with a high quality machine. Worked wonders for all the games I did that on

Unfortunately I don't know anybody or any place with such a machine. :/

[Sumez]

Do you have a store somewhere around you that sells old used CDs or disc based games?
They'd probably have one, even if they don't advertise it.

[ryu]

Do you have a store somewhere around you that sells old used CDs or disc based games?
They'd probably have one, even if they don't advertise it.

Sounds like a plan, thanks for the hint!

[Blinge]

I've never understood if Shadow Tower is supposed to be a King's Field game or not. I've seen footage and it sure looks like one.

It's the same as asking if Bloodborne is a Dark Souls game.

[ryu]

So I had a look at KF Additional on Youtube. What a let down. Considering what the PSP can do there's no excuse for those games to exist in such state post King's Field IV. What the hell happened there?

[Sweatlord_STG]

If you already got a Shadow Tower disc, just get it resurfaced with a high quality machine. Worked wonders for all the games I did that on

That's what I already said. Something like the Disc Doctor! It's a machine like that that takes off a layer to make it work again.

[Sima Tuna]

I've never understood if Shadow Tower is supposed to be a King's Field game or not. I've seen footage and it sure looks like one.

It's the same as asking if Bloodborne is a Dark Souls game.

I didn't know if there was, like, some deep lore answer or someshit. I'm sure Vaagividya has something about it.

[Sumez]

Nahh, no lore overlap. KF games have connecting lore, but then again you shouldn't care.
What matters is that they have a secret room with a skeleton guarding a chest with a shield in them

[BareKnuckleRoo]

And compared to a lot of games where skeletons are treated as easy newbie trash enemies, in From Soft games, skeletons are real dangerous early on. Those boneyboys don't mess around!

[ryu]

Looks like I won't be getting Shadow Tower fixed any time soon. Over here we have companies that have specialized in CD repairs where you have to send them a request and eventually the discs per mail.

So I picked Armored Core VI back up to maybe finish the remaining endings. What was the point of the alt mission at the dam where you were asked to betray the Redguns? It was crazy difficult and, as far as I could tell, got me absolutely nothing for the effort??? Thanks Miyazaki!

Also, there's another thought I had after finishing King's Field IV: could Dark Souls II have started as a King's Field game? Putting the obvious similarities aside (the giants, the king's ring) this would also explain the cheap visuals because it would be understandable for a King's Field game to have a significantly lower budget than a Souls title. Apparently the founder of fromsoft who had been doing supervisor and producer roles for many years was also in a lead game design position. That's strikingly suspicious if true.

[Sumez]

Also, there's another thought I had after finishing King's Field IV: could Dark Souls II have started as a King's Field game? Putting the obvious similarities aside (the giants, the king's ring) this would also explain the cheap visuals because it would be understandable for a King's Field game to have a significantly lower budget than a Souls title. Apparently the founder of fromsoft who had been doing supervisor and producer roles for many years was also in a lead game design position. That's strikingly suspicious if true.

Dark Souls 2 most definitely feels more "King's Field" to me than any other FromSoft game since Demon's Souls.
In fact, I'm one of many people who bounced off the game when it first came out, but returning to it after having played all of the King's Field and adjacent games, I appreciated it much, much more.
I don't think it was ever intended to be a King's Field game though, and I don't think any ideas that made it into it were leftover King's Field things either. The development process is well documented, and I've heard nothing of the sorts. But the King's Field games are all very much Naotoshi Zin games (the founder you were talking about), so it's probably not unreasonable to assume that his involvement in the game (the only credited one I think in the entire series?) is probably what made it feel more "kf like".

[ryu]

The development process is well documented, and I've heard nothing of the sorts.

I'd imagine it difficult for them to admit that they based Dark Souls II, a game they had taken Bandai Namco's money to develop, on a low budget internal project. But you're right, I'm just speculating. And the low quality textures of Dark Souls II can probably be explained by the scope of the game just as well (as well as From doing a couple of projects concurrently at the time).

[Austin]

If you already got a Shadow Tower disc, just get it resurfaced with a high quality machine. Worked wonders for all the games I did that on

That's what I already said. Something like the Disc Doctor! It's a machine like that that takes off a layer to make it work again.

Those portable devices are terrible. Don’t ever use them.

Best to suck it up and ship the disc out for a professional repair.

Or, make or buy a softmodded PS1 memory card and just burn a copy of the game.