// KOTAKU — GAMING
Things I Said Out Loud, To No One, While Suffering Through FromSoft’s Grueling Dark Souls Predecessor For Kotaku’s Warp Week
Last week, I spent roughly ten hours of my limited time here on God’s green Earth playing King’s Field: The Ancient City, the fourth game in a series by developer FromSoftware. Today FromSoftware is better known, of course, for Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but King’s Field 4 is a fascinating look at the run-up to the Souls games, and a really cool way to see where some of their ideas originated.
Unfortunately, King’s Field 4 is also brutal, as you might imagine from the sadistic individuals who make Dark Souls. It’s also, being a PS2 game, clonky as heck, especially playing in the modern day when we’ve gotten many, many games that include features such as functional camera controls and sensible hit boxes. As a result, I had a…well, I had a time! playing King’s Field 4. I wrote about some of that time in my review for our Warp Week 2002 yesterday, but I thought I’d also share with you the disjointed, absurd list of thoughts that went through my head as I played the game last week that were too unusual or unhelpful enough to make it into the review.
If you’ve never played King’s Field 4, that’s okay. Just read this and imagine it’s Dark Souls, or whatever Souls game you’ve played. It’ll have roughly the same impact.
First off, this introduction is incredible. I miss the days of games opening with cutscenes like this. The guitar that kicks in around 0:23 is fantastic.
Of course “grave misfortune will befall those who behold The Idol That Stares Into the Darkness!” I would simply not behold The Idol That Stares Into the Darkness, but maybe I’m just built different.
I’m pretty sure FromSoftware is still using this exact same font, over two decades later.
How do I move and look around at the exact same time.
Well, I’m dead. I’m not sure how I died. I seem to have died from walking forward a few steps. I think the ground killed me. That somehow tracks.
Before I set off on my journey I must visit the shop of the acclaimed merchant…David…Bunch???
This right here is the most Sad Dark Souls Man I have seen in my life. Every Dark Souls game has this man in it. Is this David Bunch? What terrible fate has befallen him?!