King’s Field (PlayStation) Review
A spooky and challenging dungeon crawl.
~by tankMage (December 2024)
Score: 83/100 (Good)
I was hooked from the start thanks to the sense of mystery that pervades King’s Field. Melanat Island, the game’s setting, is a grim land haunted by an obscure past. The player is given little in the way of guidance and the old philosophy of “look around and figure out what to do” is very much alive in this dungeon crawler. In fact, I took several wrong turns and died before I made it to the first save. In one instance I fell into the ocean trying to see if I could swim. Another death came at the hands..err…tentacles of a kraken. Some gamers may decide enough is enough after taking so many deaths in the first five minutes, but I became determined to conquer the game. While at times frustrating, King’s field is a good old fashioned dungeon crawl that is only made sweeter by its bitter moments. A brooding atmosphere, complex dungeon, and cool equipment make it worth playing, though you’re going to have to deal with a few issues if you decide to dive into this game.
The action is kind of slow, though much of this is due to lag. In some ways slowdown really hurts the experience, but it’s impressive that a game from 1995 is fully 3D when many of its peers used 2D environments or character models to save processing power. A meter that has to refill to attack at full power further slows down the action, plus you’ll have to wait for a different meter to replenish between spell casts. The meters are kind of annoying despite the fact that they were probably implemented them to keep players from cheesing enemies to death by circling them while slashing. From was only partially successful at preventing the aforementioned circle slash cheese method, but you can’t blame them for trying. Honestly, you need to cheese the game a bit, because just about everything is a major threat until the hero, Alexander, becomes more powerful.
While we are on the topic of combat and enemies, both are fairly simple. Walk up to things and hit them, then back away or circle strafe to avoid getting hit back is the name of the game. Players can mix things up by casting ranged spells or using a bow. The monsters themselves are the usual suspects: ghosts, skeletons, demons, and the occasional knight. No bats in this one! There are also some cool looking headless reaper skeletons and termites of all things. None of the creatures are very convincing looking, but there is a certain mystique to the primitive 3D models. On a side note, even friendly NPCs are unsettling thanks to their lack of eyes; skin covers their eye sockets making them arguably creepier than any of the monsters.
The dungeon itself is a confusing tangle of passages and death traps. I can’t remember how many hidden pits I fell into and, as I stated before, wrong turns led to a lot of deaths in the beginning. Memory and experimentation are vital to solving the riddle that is Melanat Island. Ultimately, this was what I really enjoyed about this game. Uncovering secrets and getting stronger felt really rewarding. There were also a few bosses placed in key locations, but they generally felt anticlimactic as you could just play keep away and hit them with the bow or spells. Luckily the final two bosses made up for this deficiency thanks to their superior movesets.
I really enjoyed the music, though it’s not the sort of thing I’d want to listen to outside of playing the game. Most of the tunes were macabre string and harpsichord pieces that ratcheted up the sense of tension by a few degrees. The sound work was also quite well done and I could often hear monsters before seeing them. Many of the noises made by the creatures were sufficiently spooky. Too bad the spell sound effects sounded very generic.
Speaking of spells (and weapons aaaannnd armor for that matter) King’s Field offers up a nice arsenal of magic. The ultimate spells for each element were especially well done and I was pleasantly surprised by what From managed to pull off using the PS1’s modest graphical capabilities. Weapons and armor also had their own models even though you cannot see Alexander. As the game progresses, the player’s gear gets suitably cooler looking. Fans of From games will recognize a few of the weapons that appear on Melanat Island, but I’ll leave it at that.
Sadly, there are a few things that really hurt the overall experience of King’s Field. I mentioned slowdown earlier and it’s a biggie. Framerates tank in busy areas and controlling Alexander feels like wading through quicksand when this happens. Alexander will zoom around in smaller zones where the processor is able to keep up with the game. The end result is an inconsistent feeling gameplay experience. In all fairness, lag and slowdown are nothing new and some of the greatest games ever made suffer from these issues, but King’s Field is on a whole other level; I suppose that’s the price From paid for ambitious fully 3D environments and characters.
The user interface also leaves something to be desired as they had to work with the original PS1 controller, which was very limited due to a lack of thumb-sticks. Consequently, looking up and down or just moving in general is a cumbersome affair. Fighting flying monsters, which are mercifully uncommon, is a really miserable experience since you have to press the L2/R2 Buttons and wait for Alexander to slooowly look up or down in order to actually hit the monsters. The inventory is kind of fiddly as well and you have to spend a lot of time filling up potion bottles, though this is more an artifact of the era King’s Field was created in than a failing on From’s part.
Final Thoughts
Despite being clunky, ugly, and sometimes outright cruel, King’s Field has that old-school, hardcore dungeon crawler charm to it that is difficult to replicate. Action RPG veterans will appreciate this game as it offers a good deal of challenge. Uncovering secret items, beating, bosses, and even figuring out where the heck to go next feel like modest victories. Completing King’s Field is no small feat, so I highly recommend it for experienced gamers. It’s also packed with early From Software lore that serious fans of the Souls games will likely appreciate. That said, skip this game if you lack the patience to deal with slowdown, convoluted mazes, and ridiculous death traps.
Thanks for reading my King’s Field review!