A Return to From
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #188. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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Here’s the Thing is where Rob dumps his random thoughts and strong opinions on all manner of nerdy subjects – from videogames and movies to board games and toys.
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At this point FromSoft has pretty much turned the Dark Souls formula (really the Demon’s Souls formula) into a money printing machine. And that’s fine! I have loads of fondness for all of its “Souls-likes” that aren’t Dark Souls 2, even though I do admittedly lack the reflexes and patience for Sekiro. But here’s the thing: For as beloved as From’s catalog continues to be, and for how well it iterates and experiments with this proven design ethos, I really wish it would consider returning to its long-forgotten roots – even just for one game.
I’m talking about the King’s Field trilogy/quadrilogy and its sort-of spinoff series, Shadow Tower.
Calling these games something like “a first-person proto-Dark Souls” is as accurate as it is reductive, but it’s a good place to start for the unfamiliar. They take place entirely from the player character’s perspective, feature some pretty… deliberate magic- and weapon-based combat, involve a lot of exploration and investigation and will absolutely murder the shit out of you if you aren’t paying attention. Especially at the start.
Of course, since the original King’s Field was released for the PlayStation well before dual analog sticks were a thing (1994!), it’s pretty clunky to control. And since that was the template the rest of the games followed, it never really changed. Even the slightly more modern less old King’s Field: The Ancient City (a.k.a. King’s Field IV) on PlayStation 2 uses the classic “L2 and R2 look up and down” control scheme. Though to be fair, while Shadow Tower Abyss (also for PS2) has the same defaults, it does include a “left stick to move, right stick to look” option.
Clunky and awkward though they may be and undeniably are, there’s just… something about these older first-person FromSoft games that hit different. I think it has something to do with the perspective making things feel a little more personal – and sometimes more claustrophobic or isolated. Well, that, and the feeling of exploration in these games has yet to be matched by any of the beloved development studio’s third-person titles.
It feels easier to get turned around in all those first-person caves and tunnels and, yes, fields. It’s definitely easier to miss certain details if you aren’t thoroughly checking a room. Plus, the series is chock full of secret doors (and traps) that perfectly blend in to the rest of the environment, so you’ll need to keep an eye out for suspiciously empty rooms or potential environmental tells.
This sense of discovery is what made me fall in love with the series back in 1996 when the second game was released in the US, though here it was just called King’s Field since the first never made it stateside. It’s something that’s stuck with me for almost… 30 years at this point, damn. It’s why I’ve always been so enamored with games that just let me explore – often at my own pace – and reward curiosity and diligence in some way. King’s Field and Shadow Tower have been my metric for literal decades, but nothing has quite measured up in this regard.
Not even third-person FromSoft games, to be honest. I mean yes, obviously there’s exploration and hidden doors and whatnot, but it just isn’t the same. For all their touted difficulty, the Soulsian stuff never really made me feel like I was fighting for survival in the same way those earlier games did; where even something as simple as a secret room housing a single health potion was kind of a big deal until the late game.
Try to think of it like this: What most people know as “a FromSoft game” weighs combat encounters more heavily than exploration, while the first-person games skew in the other direction. Both kinds offer both things, but in different proportions and with differing amounts of polish and care. Both approaches have their place – it’s just that the latter one (the older one) is way more my jam.
Saying I vastly prefer FromSoft’s 30-year-old approach to action RPGs over its 14-year-old tried-and-true formula probably seems ridiculous. Maybe even disingenuous and hyperbolic. But it’s the truth. For as much as I’ve enjoyed everything that isn’t Dark Souls 2, none of it has scratched the itch left behind by the King’s Field (and by extension, Shadow Tower) series. Like I’ve said before: it just hits different. And I really, really wish From would revisit this particular kind of game again.
It was clearly good enough to evolve into what we now expect from the company – dark fantasy settings, challenging but ultimately fair design, talking to NPCs multiple times, drip-fed story, occasional exposition via item descriptions, etc. – so it’s not like the spirit of the series is gone. Heck, Shadow Tower Abyss even lets you equip a melee weapon in one hand and a gun in the other, which you can switch between on the fly, kind of like Bloodborne if you squint at it. So just ditch the automatically refilling heals, focus on exploration over fighting mechanics and combat encounters and I feel like it could be a perfect modernization.
With all of that said, there are at least a few goddamn heroes out there in the indie games scene who have been using King’s Field (and Shadow Tower) as partial inspiration for their own first-person action RPGs. I’ve heard great things about a lot of them, like Lunacid, but unfortunately most of these spiritual successors are only on PC so I’m SoL.
Thankfully Labyrinth of the Demon King did recently release on consoles (as well as PC, naturally), and while it’s maybe not quite what I’ve been craving for 20+ years, it gets pretty damn close. Also, it’s just excellent on its face, so you know, give it a look if the idea of a first-person survival horror dungeon crawler set in feudal Japan sounds interesting. There’s even a demo!
To be clear: I would be utterly astonished if FromSoft ever made a new King’s Field or put out a remake of any kind. I mean, why would they? For all intents and purposes this series is pretty niche – even if it does have a small but very appreciative fanbase – and such a drastic change-up now could alienate a good chunk of their current players. Doesn’t mean I can’t hope for one anyway.
Really though, I’d be perfectly content with a HD (possibly remastered?) collection for modern consoles and computers. Even the “newest” PS2 titles are over 20 years old, with King’s Field: The Ancient City releasing in 2002 and Shadow Tower Abyss in 2003. You can’t tell me a Switch, let alone a PlayStation 5 or modern PC, couldn’t handle it. And that way From wouldn’t have to worry about pissing off its core audience, because the new stuff would still be what everyone’s used to. This would just be a fun look back at what once was for anyone who might be curious, or something for those already in the know to enjoy as thoroughly as we’ve enjoyed the original releases.
Unless and until then, at least there are other ways to revisit one of my favorite games series. In fact, I’ve been on something of a King’s Field II (King’s Field III in Japan) kick lately, and in all honesty, it still holds up pretty damn well – even with the awkward controls. Nostalgia is certainly going to be a factor here, but I haven’t just been speaking from a misguided or rose-tinted place. This shit does indeed hit different. Even now, almost 30 years later, it still feels like peak FromSoft. Slow, kinda janky, utterly captivating peak.
Just imagine what they could do with the series now.
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Rob Rich is a guy who’s loved nerdy stuff since the 80s, from videogames to Anime to Godzilla to Power Rangers toys to Transformers, and has had the good fortune of being able to write about them all. He’s also editor for the Games section of Exploits! You can still find him on Bluesky and Mastodon.
