Playing these games after playing Demon's Souls, Dark Souls etc. is like playing Pathways into Darkness & the Marathon trilogy after playing the Halo series: they make you discover the origins of many gameplay mechanics and narrative tropes used in their more famous successors.

An Oldschool Fromsoft Collection (physical) would be absolutely sick!!! Other Fromsoft games include Evergrace and Forever Kingdom.

I was playing Shadow Tower and was very surprised to find a "Ring of Dark Souls" from one of the enemies in Death World.

It started with Ultima Underworld, another (after Wizardry) game made - and forgotten - in the west while loved in the Japan. So much there is barely any indie game inspired by those two.

My experience with fromsoft was such an obscure thing. I remember playing king's field 2 (3JP) when it was new, having not even seen the previous release, as well as explored shadow tower, and enjoyed the original armored core. From there, I didn't hear of the company again, until Dark Souls was released, and I picked it up, thinking it looked neat. Not long after, a friend said I should give Demon's Souls a spin. In those PS1 games, I was used to seeing the north american distributors names, leaving the Fromsoft name drop a nothing burger. It snapped into place when I saw the moonlight sword, and had my mind blown. Had plenty of fun exploring everything I missed in between.

Thank you very, very much for discussing King’s Field as a series. It’s rarely ever brought up, which is a shame considering how well-put-together the later iterations in particular got to be.

I'll be downloading Kings field 4 tonight, thanks for this video bro great work.

I came into this video to literally just say yes, you should. Elden ring may be a culmination of all the mechanics and even enemy types at times, but it definitely doesn't overshadow the other games where some of these mechanics were introduced. Good day everyone, and i hope some people will try out their previous titles for the first time if they haven't.

I was recommended this by my dude HPRshredder and man I enjoyed it a great deal! I know Kings Field fairly well but I've never really seen much of Shadow Tower or Eternal Ring so thanks for this! It really makes me want to crack out my copy of KF4 again! Will certainly be checking out more of your stuff!

I gave the King's Field games the attention they deserved last year and I can't even begin to describe how much I liked this series (and Shadow Tower and even Eternal Ring), even the very first KF that didn't leave Japan is fantastic imo. KFIV got into my top 3 FROM games and as far as I'm concerned is a total masterpiece, and KFIIjp is a phenomenal game as well. I can kinda understand how people might not view them this way, but for someone who evangelizes Looking Glass, FROM really hit it out of the park when they decided to create their own games after being inspired by Ultima Underworld. Echo Night series is also terrific.

Kings field 2 being the 1st in the US, came out shortly after the system, so we had no idea what was up & just start on the island. I enjoyed playing it first & played again a few years ago.

I didn't realize until watching this video right now that the reason I like Turok is because it reminds me of these old From Soft games. Thanks!

I got given King's Field IV for my birthday and found a promo copy of King's Field II (King's Field). KFIV is still one of the scariest games I've ever played as the atmosphere just absolutely grabbed me. I've found myself thinking a lot about this game and feel fortunate to have gotten them while they were affordable. Europe/Australia never got King's Field III nor the Shadow Tower games, so we had less experiences. This was a pretty solid video too.

24:56 Both games share a composer and have the golden seed item. They have at least something to do with eachother. also fun fact: The original japanese version of eternal ring had no voice acting that explains a lot. the story of eternal ring i do find very interesting though i aint gonna spoil you here.

EverGrace and Eternal Ring are two of my personal hidden gems on the PS2. I know that many people hate these two games, but they certainly clicked with me. Sadly I wasn't able to get into Kings Field (2), but the atmosphere of this game is very strong. Like with many many other obscure retro-games I hope they get put on Steam, GoG and many other systems to keep them alive.

i have an old modded ps2 and recently played king's field 4 as i went on a spree of old fromsoft titles, started with the old armored core games in preparation of ac6, and it's safe to say it's now one of my absolute favorite ps2 games i've ever played, i really enjoyed it a lot

I love King’s Field 1US. I got it at the perfect time and it was an amazing experience. It was on the new games shelf at my local game shop and the cover art got me. I had Twisted Metal and maybe something else like Warhog or Jumping Flash but I’m glad I somehow ended up with King’s Field. It absolutely stomped the games at the time on console. At the time I had a Voodoo Banshee and eventually a Voodoo2 and played Quake heavily but somehow King’s Field’s atmosphere had me hooked. It’s a memory I love returning to every few years. Playing through it again at 41 years old is still amazing. It’s crazy to me that it’s been over 25 years. Besides Super Metroid it’s my favorite game even though I can speed run it casually in a couple hours and I wish King’s Field 2JP was just a little longer. One more area or one more challenge. It was insanity and I spent months before beating it the first time and right before Final Fantasy 7 came out.

A really well done video, looking forward to more of yours, and wish you the best of luck with your game.

My favorite way to play Kings Field II and III is on a PS3 without the smoothing on, its gorgeous. II, III, IV and Shadow Tower have all been my favorite at one time or another. They all have thier different strengths and are all unique in their own ways, I play one of them just about every year. Well said about Shadow Tower, it is a different beast than Kings Field, I love it.

amazing video! my favs are KF4, STA and.... ETERNAL RING! And the ost are fantastic. kudos for the KF4 intro and "Leaving History" from ER. Tnx for the great content you upload

Id love ports or remakes of the Echo Night style games

Great video. Kudos for the writing and the narration. I was never bored nor did I feel the script had any filler. Looking forward to delving into your channel. :)

You have to make more videos. Great narration. Polite tones and sensible remarks, which are rare qualities for youtubers these days. Informative and descriptive video clips accurately comparing the games's differences. I see great potential.

This video is absolutely fantastic. I googled the exact title of this video and you perfectly answered my question

Good video, I may look into this and try to emulate kings field !

Great video about some of my favorite games! You have earned a subscriber!

awesome overview on these games! i also had a similar experience where kf4 really appealed to me, and i played it later on the ps2 emulator when it was pretty hard to get ahold of. one of my friends even sent me a copy of the game as a gift!

I first was introduced to Fromsoft through the first Armored Core game. Have been a fan ever since. Needless to say, I am beyond excited for the recently announced Armored Core 6!!!

for anyone looking to play these you can now play nearly every single one of these games with mouse injection via emulation meaning you have full native mouse & keyboard controls like any modern fps pc game would have.

Thank you for the video! It was very enlightening, and it makes me happy to hear your segment on the worth of old Fromsoftware games. They are so worth playing, I haven’t found one I regretted delving into yet.. And it’s been two years of checking them out! A while back, I really enjoyed watching a walkthrough of King’s Field (JPN), so this video was helpful in scoping out how the other games are like. Shadow Tower Abyss in particular sounded absolutely wild with its meshing of worlds... and Gun. I might say the title was a bit misleading, cuz I’m in the Fromsoftware 2000s third person RPG faction and got a little sad. But I’ll make my own videos one day, heh. And I would endorse another video talking about other old Fromsoftware games!

You can play Shadow Tower Abyss translated also on original hardware, all you need is a memory card with FMCB installed, and what you will use to boot it up is up to you, you can burn disc with modified ISO, play it on Hard Drive using Network Adaptor on FAT model (that's the way I used to play it), use USB drive (I don't recommend it, many games have mojor problems with it and it runs SLOW, also trying to get games above 4GB is a pain in the ass), use SMB served connecting your PS2 to modem or straight to your PC using Ethernet cable (I used this method before I've got FAT model and Network Adaptor SATA from Aliexpress, it requires a lot of configuration and your PC must be running all the time when you want to play) or new recent method that is probably the best and least complicated is buying an Memory Card with a Micro SD card slot, it works perfectly both on slim and FAT model, it's of course piracy but come on, I won't spend thousands of dollars to play it all legaly especially that PS3 and Vita stores are dying

Thanks for making the content!

Really great topic, nice script and overall well done video :) You really know how to make interesting videos and im glad i found you by accident, subbed for sure

Great video! I became a really big fan of "before dark souls" from software after playing shadow tower / abyss, and i'd love to see more pepole discover and play games like kings field 2/1 us and shadow tower abyss. Also, every time you mentioned Vagrant Story, i get a dopamine injection from just hearing the name of that game (it looks like a AAA release whit duckstation new graphics settings widescreen and geometry fixes). I will also check out your game too!

The Nostalgia for the time before Elden Ring launched... that feeling needs a term.

A Kings Field collection for modern systems would be nice.

Thanks man. Ive never felt so old. Im staring at my PS2 and my kingfield games. Dont forget the save card. You will need it.

A great video. Although I agree that the Soul's like style can be seen in these earlier games. For me it's Evergrace that really shows it though. Probably because it was third person instead of first person.

Just bought Shadow Tower on PSVita, the game has remaps, and with the vita controllers you can remap to both analogs, and both left and right hand to L1 and R1 for shield (left) and weapon (right) so it feels like an old Souls thingy. I'm just having trouble hitting stuff, I don't understand the reach of the weapon right now. I reached the Shadow Tower, and the game is scary AF, lots of scary sounds coming from just beyond what you can see, or on the other side of the door or wall, so it's actually a really nice game.

The physical editions of these games are such a treat! The booklets are dope and I think one of the game's actually released with a physical copy of a map.

With the return of armored core, I'd love a new King's Field game, first person dungeon crawler would be awesome.

Just played shadow tower, ive never had died so much in my life, arguably the hardest from software games.

DEF some are i remember loving the kingdom games lol

I remember all the reviews of Kings Field being really bad back then but now people love them. I play through kings field 1 and 2 north American like 4 time kimgs 1 and like 6 times kings 2. Loved them

I will probably never get to play the King's field games, but what really got me interested in these games is the soundtrack. It has that old "Zelda game" feeling to it, it's making me weirdly eerily nostalgic. I wonder how people would feel about the game back in the days..

I've always held this: if the game cannot be purchased through official legal means (i.e. a brand new copy from a legitimate store or website) for a minimum of 10 years, it should be fine to emulate.

Great video! Thanks for the upload!

there is another king's field game called king's field 3 pilot style it takes place between 3 and 2 apparently.

Absolutely agree with your opinion about King,s field IV - this game have more atmosphere than ds series

It's quite sad How almost no one talks about Evergrace and It's weird and unique soundtrack, I love that soundtrack

Do you sometimes feel discouraged to make videos when the video that you put so much effort in gets little views? Great segmentation with this video btw

I still have my copies of all the Kings Field games

It's so rare to see people talk about these games, but still it makes me very happy every time i stumble upon videos like these. From Software's older games are truly special. So i'll give you my story of how i got here whether you like it or not lmao: My first exposure to From Software was actually Armored Core 2 back in 2008-2009 when i was about 12 years old. The game was only in english but i don't speak english natively, so at that time i barely understood anything. Somehow i was able to get through ~50% of the game until it became too difficult and i lost interest. Then in October 2020 i stumbled upon Iron Pineapples video covering King's Field 2 (or KF1 in US/PAL) and finally became more aware of what these games actually are. I knew about their existence for quite a while but that's about it. I am an absolute sucker for 5th gen early 3D games & their jank and when i realised King's Field is like a first person Metroidvania, i knew i just had to check these games out. (i love the Metroid Prime games) But instead of playing King's Field 2 i actually played King's Field 4 The Ancient City instead, the reason being that i got quite a lot of spoilers from his video. So i figured i might as well just play one of the other ones because i wanted my first experience to these games to be as fresh and blind as possible. And i'm so glad i went with KF4 because it's in my opinion the best game ever made. I'm not even exaggerating. It managed to dethrone Zelda Majoras Mask from the #1 spot on my favourite games of all time list. I have never played a game that nails the act of exploration, isolation and atmosphere so well like KF4 did. Majoras Mask is still really close to it though, which is why it used to be on spot #1 before i played the King's Field games. I don't even care that the combat and movement in these games is slow, i'm actually glad it is. I'm so burned out from all these super fast-paced combat systems in videogames. It's why Bloodborne is at the absolute bottom of my favourite From Software games list. I just can't deal with BB's too fast combat while dealing with its horrendous performance. Hopefully a remaster with stable 60fps will change it, because there are aspects i really like. It's just the insufficient performance that ruins everything for me. :/ After i reached the sacred forest in King's Field 4 i knew this game was special and at that point i absolutely fell in love with it, and when i reached the ending i almost cried during the credits because the intense music combined with the fact i'll never be able to play this fantastic game for the first time again hit me really hard. Then i went on to King's Field 2, then 3 and finally played 1 last. I enjoyed King's Field 2 so much that i ended up speedrunning it. KF1 while primitive compared to its successors was still really good and short (Yes i see short game length as a plus, so many games nowadays are drawn out like there's no tomorrow) but i didn't particularly like KF3. Mostly because i don't like the layout of the world and how there's most of the time just empty fields with not much to see or do. And they've butchered the magic system. In KF2 and KF4 you were encouraged to explore because you can find more magic spells that way. In KF3 you learn new spells for example by spamming fireball to increase your fire stat, after reaching a certain value you get a new fire spell. It's so dumb and completely limits the possibilites and even the quality of the loot itself. Instead of a spell you get a consumable to increase an elemental stat. That's just boring. I tried out Shadow Tower once but i really didn't feel that game. It has no music which just killed the atmosphere for me and i am not a fan of the durability and "economy" of that game. Your health and equipment is basically your money, but both are very limited. I don't like it. Just give me the standard gold from killing enemies instead, then i maybe could have a bit more fun and especially less stress while playing this game when i can just buy stuff if i ever run out of it. Eternal RIng thankfully wasn't like Shadow Tower and instead is just a more linear and story focused King's Field, which i also really liked. Though i won't see myself revisiting this game as often as KF4 and especially KF2 due to its linear nature. The rings were probably the best way these games ever handled magic because you finally were able to equip more than 1 or 2 spells. With the rings you were able to have 5 spells and the ability to quickly cycle through them. King's Field 4 really needed this, sadly they went a bit backwards there. Though the Ring crafting could've been a little more clear on how it works. I still don't quite understand it and i've already beaten this game twice. And that's where i am today. I probably won't be playing the Shadow Tower games for the reasons i've mentioned above, but yeah, the King's Field games and Eternal Ring are absolutely worth checking out if you can deal with the aged graphics, controls and lots of jank. I was able to tolerate and appreciate them for what they are now, and not for what they once were when they first came out. These games still hold so much good design and atmosphere under all that jank that i pity everyone who passes them up simply because they didn't age well.

I love the much older games of Fromsoft cause you can see the threads of where it all began. It is ever present that they had worlds in their mind, the closest thing to a King's Field like title to me is Dark Souls 2 and the way it handles itself and certain areas. It felt like King's Field 5 was in the works for that one but it was then turned into a Souls game because of Dark Souls 1's success. This video gives me life, when I look back at the older titles. Thank you.

Didn’t watch until now and I’ll answer before finishing a watch, yes, mostly because I started with Armored Core 2 in knowing who FromSoft is and discovered Evergrace which is fun to me :3

Thank God! At first I thought that you are a Elden Kid and you made a video if games like Darks Souls 1,3, BB are worth playing lmao.

As someone who played their Armored Core PS2 games back in my childhood days, I say yes.

Kingsfield!!! Best soundtrack EVER! Hate the missing atmospheric music from the past. It been hollowed out. Ive had to dub in old tunes on new games.❤

This is great!

The screen your character makes when he dies freaked me out the first few times. Oh who am I kidding it still scares the poo out of me. But I love it. NOT POO the game I meant

I personally prefer the older ps1 look of King's Field. Everyone says it looks rough but I like it more than most modern first party Sony games. Objectively, it's worse but I like it more

I could snort KF IV like a drug. BTW KF 1 US pissed me and my older brother off so much we returned it to the rental store withtin the hour. Still own all my physical US copies.

Super underrated channel

My favorite Fromsoft game is Echo Night. Sure their dungeon crawlers are fun, but honestly, I love the almost dreamlike atmosphere of the old adventure game. It reminds me abit of Myst in that regard. Kind of surreal and extremely fun.

Shadow Tower is such a fun game, very challenging

No lie King's Field and Shadow Tower are top teir PS1 era gaming

The Ancient City is the first PS2 game I ever owned. It was a Christmas present in like ‘01 or ‘02 and it sat collecting dust for months because I couldn’t even make it past the first trap lava pit like 3 steps into the beginning of the game. Weirdly, it was the show Beastmaster that made me want to give a real try.

imo these are the best dungeon crawlers ever and they are way better than souls series

King's Field 4 is probably the PEAK of realtime dungeon crawling. I honestly can't think of a better game of this genre.

i still love enchanted arms so much and wish that game got at least some love from the general public it was a great jrpg.

do you have any links or anything to how to setup sword of moonlight on modern pcs in english?

I love Eternal Ring. Absolutely LOVE IT and you are right, you are absolutely wrong.

Dude, holy crap, thank you for making a video that talks positively about the original Shadow Tower. I feel like a crazy person for considering it really good & outright preferring its uniquely unforgiving tone & horror atmosphere over King's Field (which I still like)

They are sick. But they are even better at like 40-60% speedup. Shadow tower abyss was the first one that I played and it is my favorite alongside kings field 4 the ancient city one

Clearly from my name I like kingsfield, 4 being the only one worth playing for someone new to the series is totally valid. Someone had to say it as much as I love the other 3

I think they're worth playing kingsfield is beautiful I love skeletons

There's some nice Japanaese games that never got loclaized. Such a shame. I am incredibley thankful for people who take the time to translate these for emulation. I feel they do quite a phenomenal job for not even getting paid for it. It would be nice if these got adequate translations and were ported (without any adjustments / aditions / modifications aside from bug fixes and key remapping) to newer devices at a reasonable price (reasonable being cheap because of how old they are). I bought Monster Hunter Diaries for the 3DS along with the guide book. Not that I can understand anything said as it is all Japanese.

Now that Elden Ring has been out a while has anyone noticed any connections to Eternal Ring?

I played PS1 Kingsfield (US) when it was new, and it indeed felt clunky and janky even then. But it was an experience that you just wouldn't get elsewhere on console. And while From Software's ambitions pushed beyond what console 3D could deliver, trying to work within those boundaries created a lasting gameplay experience that just might not have existed otherwise.

Shadow tower abyss is actually crazy

It saddens me lost kingdoms never makes it into these lists 😞

You can still get shadow tower on ps3 for like 6 bucks , I just got it tonight and I'm diggin it, with the flaws and all

am i the only one that has no issue with kings field controls whatsoever? or just tank controls in general, the movement is actually pretty satisfying and smooth

Yes. Next question.

I still boot up eternal ring every now and then for a playthrough.

Gotta love all of em, but Kingsfield 2 level design, monsters and music was the best in my opinion. it's my favorite one and no I didint started with that one but it's the one I have the most nostalgia for some reason.

The most horrible sin of this video: You forgot to mention that patches seems to originate from shadow tower abyss if you had the encounters with that character you know what one.

i wish people would talk about otogi

I’ve been really trying to get into this series especially KF4. The biggest thing that holds me back is the turning speed, it’s soooo slow. Is this something I just have to get used to?

Yes, indeed.

9:57 False. There is a Gameshark code that unlocks framerate. And with overclock you can get it to have performance levels comparable to KF2. The code (NA Version): A7019656 14402400 you need an overclock of around 220% to more of less lock it to 30

TLDR: Yes but if you're a souls fan you may not necessarily be a fan of their older games. The patience you have will definitely help, though over the years having improved your skills in each souls entry you may have become a little too speedy and would dislike the slower paced, ultra cryptic games of old.

I always find these games to be much more human with their clunky, slow controls. I cant roll around like a maniac or sprint repeatedly for hours, but what i can do is walk. Its so much more relatable!

Always was an AC fan since AC2 hit the PS2 as a launch title in 2000, to be honest I've never seriously played any of the newer game by fromsoft since ACVD despite sitting on the demons souls and dark souls games for years now have instead gone further back by currently going through the KF series lately. I've just never been interested in their newer stuff, the older games they made were much more experimental they were fresh to the industry then and just trying anything to see what works and sells like so many other developers back then. After going through nearly the entire AC series as well as finally playing the KF games, I've tried their newer soulsborne stuff but its just not the same and quickly became bored feeling its too generic and repetetive compared to their older games while the KF games were some of the first true dungeon crawler crpgs on a console completely different vibe and approach to game design than the newer soulsborne games.

Just to answer the question: yes

Lunacid, check it out if you like King's Field games!!

As an avid fan of many of From Software's offerings (Dark Souls 1 & 2 being my favorites with DeS close behind). I've looked into some of these via longplays, but never from the perspective of someone like me who started with Dark Souls. Queueing this up RN to watch at work lol.

Employee: "Hey boss,this one guy has an idea for a game, but I'm not sure it's going to be successful." Boss: "Just let him make it. When it flops just reassign him to one of the mech games. By the way what's his name?" Employee: " I think it's Miyazaki."

Honestly, I think at least Armored Core 1 should've been included as well, since most of From Softwares iconic convoluted/complex storytelling and narration nowadays was experimented on in AC1 and everything From learned from AC1 was used as basis on how to write compelling stories like in Echo Night and Shadow Tower. In the sense that, you don't need lots of exposition to grasp what the story is about, as long as you build your storytelling into the world itself.

ALL of Fromsoft games are worth playing. For their Kings Field you have Lunacy. Nothing is like armored core, all of them besides 9breaker are their own compartmentalized experiences with their own nuances. Eternal Ring and Evergrace are both unique in their own rights. If they were released today I think they would have a good following and sell even better due to the pedigree.