Before we had Elden Ring, we had Sekiro and the Dark Souls games before that, with Demon's Souls being the first game that started the "git gud" culture among gamers.
All of these games have a lot in common, one of them being that they are all FromSoftware games. However, as you've probably seen in the previous paragraph's logic, FromSoftware's games are connected by their gameplay and the company's design philosophy.
This design philosophy dates back to the early PlayStation 1 (PS1) era with the company's first-ever game, King's Field.
You may not have heard about the game since it's the first game to be released for the PS1. In other words, it's pretty, pretty old.
To help you out, here's a summary of the game.
King's Field: History, Plot, Gameplay
King's Field is a first-person hack-and-slash role-playing game from FromSoftware, which was developed and published for the PlayStation 1 on December 16, 1994, per The Gamer. According to Screen Rant, the game was exclusively released in Japan at the time, but it became so successful in its home base that its sequel was released in the U.S.
The game's plot focuses on Jean Alread Forrester, a man on a mission to search for his lost father through a series of dungeons infested by an ancient evil that only a Dragon could stop.
If you played any FromSoftware game before, you'd find that King's Field has some of the mechanics you'd find in any Soulsborne game, such as a stamina bar that depletes when you attack and cast spells, as well as a large emphasis on exploration and loot to equip. One of the game's loot was made a mainstay in every FromSoftware game: the Moonlight Sword.
The game is set in a first-person perspective, a rare sight compared to the usual third-person perspective FromSoftware uses in more recent games. However, this design makes the games one of if not the first-ever first-person fully 3D RPGs.
Due to the presence of a stamina bar, the game was found to be the more difficult version of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, which was released around the same time as King's Field. However, to a Soulsborne veteran, this difficulty and its learning curve are to be expected from a FromSoftware game.
Is King's Field Worth Playing in 2022?
Even if the game is almost three decades old, the game is still a must-play for FromSoftware fans; aside from the game being played in first-person, King's Field feels just like its modern incarnations, albeit with a retro look.
If you can get yourself a PS1 and a copy for yourself and if you want to play a FromSoftware game not released within the past two decades, go try the game for yourself.
Unfortunately, the game is not available on CD Projekt Red's GOG digital video game marketplace, so you might have to use a PS1 emulator to play the game if you're not willing to buy a PS1.
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