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ASCII Corporation, FromSoftware, PlayStation

King’s Field III, PlayStation

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King’s Field III is the second sequel in FromSoftware‘s classic first-person RPG series and was first released in Japan in 1996. It was published in North America by ASCII Entertainment under the title of “King’s Field II” (because the original King’s Field was only released in Japan).

For my money, King’s Field III is the best of the three PlayStation King’s Field games, with larger, more interesting environments, and a bigger scope than the previous two games. The graphics are still borderline laughable, and the controls are still cumbersome, but the gameplay has evolved reasonably well in the space of a couple of years.

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ASCII Corporation, FromSoftware, PlayStation

King’s Field II, PlayStation

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FromSoftware‘s King’s Field II was initially released in Japan in 1995 and it is another first-person RPG with open world exploration, dodgy graphics and challenging combat. It was later published under the title “King’s Field” by ASCII Entertainment in North America and Sony in Europe in 1996, which does cause some confusion as the western titling ignores the actual first game in the series. For clarity: the official English language “King’s Field” is actually King’s Field II – the sequel.

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FromSoftware, PlayStation

King’s Field, PlayStation

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With Elden Ring currently wowing gamers I thought I’d take a look at the series that began FromSoftware‘s journey into the action RPG genre, and that would be King’s Field – released in Japan only in 1994 for the Sony PlayStation – and, to be honest, it couldn’t be any further removed from Elden Ring in terms of presentation…

I’ve played a lot of RPGs in my time, and I would go so far as to say that it’s my favourite genre of video game, but King’s Field came as a bit of a shock to me. Yes, King’s Field was an early 3D RPG on the PlayStation, releasing the same year as the PS1 was launched, but it post-dates Ultima Underworld by two years and is archaic in comparison.

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Midway Games, Midway Studios San Diego, Nintendo 64

Doom 64, Nintendo 64

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Developed by Midway Studios San Diego and published by Midway Games in 1997, Doom 64 is a sequel to Doom II that contains a single-player campaign, but no multiplayer.

In total there are 28 campaign levels and four secret levels. Monster and weapon graphics have been redesigned and are unique to Doom 64.

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Obsidian, PC, Steam, Ubisoft, Windows

South Park: The Stick of Truth, PC

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South Park: The Stick of Truth is a – gasp – turn-based RPG based on the popular South Park animated series. It was developed by Obsidian and published by Ubisoft in 2014. It was co-written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of South Park, and is a hilarious level-grinder with tons of detail, loads of quests, graphics that are identical to the TV show, and all the voices that South Park fans have come to know and love (most provided by Stone and Parker).

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Addictive Games, Amiga, Cinemaware, Fissionchip Software

The Kristal, Amiga

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The Kristal is an obscure British adventure game based on an un-produced theatre play written in 1976 (called “The Kristal of Konos“), developed by Fissionchip Software and published by Addictive Games in Europe and Cinemaware in North America. The fact that Cinemaware picked up The Kristal for distribution in the US and Canada is a surprise in itself, as that kind of thing didn’t happen very often back in 1989 when this game was first released.

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Atari Games, Sega Master System, Tengen, US Gold

Gauntlet, Sega Master System

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The Sega Master System conversion of Atari‘s classic arcade game Gauntlet is surprisingly good. For starters: it’s got the fastest fire rate of any of the home versions available, and it plays with a high intensity. This does, however, make the game especially challenging because the health of your heroes does tend to go down rather quickly.

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Atari Games, Atari ST, Mindscape

Gauntlet, Atari ST

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This 16-bit conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet was developed by Atari Games and was first published in October 1987 by Mindscape.

While, graphically, it’s not quite as lush as the original arcade game, it is very close to it and Atari obviously took care with how it looked and played when they translated it to the ST.

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Gremlin Graphics, MSX, US Gold

Gauntlet, MSX

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Another fine 8-bit conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet, by Gremlin Graphics and published by US Gold in 1987. The MSX version was created by the same team who did the ZX Spectrum version and therefore is quite similar. Which is not a bad thing as the Speccy conversion is quite excellent.

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Gremlin Graphics, US Gold, ZX Spectrum

Gauntlet, ZX Spectrum

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The ZX Spectrum conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet is surprisingly good. It was developed by Gremlin Graphics and published by US Gold in 1987 and features all 100 levels from the original, only in multi-load chunks. This was because the game was initially released on cassette only and required loading after a certain number of levels were traversed.

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