Its actually kinda funny that one of the ideas pitched for kingsfield was actually armored core! Think I'm kidding? Watch Majuular's retrospective on the franchise. That vid actually has him go through the origin of fromsoft, and playing the fan translation of kingsfield 1... And he played all of them on as close to native settings as he could
29:48 i believe, funningly enough, zelda 1's keys were universal which is why the merchants scattered about would sell keys. I found that out the hard way getting stuck for abit in the final dungeon 😅
That control scheme is actually the standard for a lot of there games including armored core. Im fact more fromsoft games have that control scheme than dont.
26:34 the counter point to that is that alot of games that do let you screw yourself over do not bother to tell you that you have rendered the game none winnable and you have to figure that out for yourself by inevitably searching for resources outside of the game to tell you so, in my opinion any time you have to such for information not contained within the game to figure something out that is a major design fail, its why alot of the old point and click adventure games get flack for have said unwinnable scenario and you not realizing it until you have played for several more hours of gameplay.
I'd agree but only for accidental cases like selling a quest item or such and not having a are you sure? prompt for ex. I prefer having it be possible bc it gives the player's decisions more weight rather than railroading the game like a tourist trip; "Look, we the devs made this and we want and expect you to see everything and experience it the way we intended." It's fine for some games to be that way but also keep an open market available.
@@Rokkettdog I know some people like to maintain that freedom of choice but personally to me that illusion of choice can sometimes be far more annoying, its like the game is saying sure you CAN do whatever you want but you will never be able to actual complete the game. Personally i'm just not invested in maintaining that illusion of choice in games, im already aware that while i may effect HOW the story plays out how it ends is always in the developers hands so which much rather have less chances of softlocking a gaming experience that try to decieve myself in to thinking i can change the out come of the game. But im also well aware i could be in the minority when it comes to my views on games, I tend to view them as more interactive stories so the illusion of choice has no benefit for me as it would others.
@@NerdKing2nd I understand that view and yes the ending of games always play out as intended by the devs. Thats prob why and where I differ from that view bc I have a ( sometimes negative ) habit of never fully finishing games and instead spend so much time playing with the tools and mechanics of the journey that by the time I reach the last dungeon, quest, boss whatever, I lose interest since there's not much left to do. Oddly enough ha we may both have a minority view on game design.
24:29 The Dark and The Abyss are not exactly the same. It's more that the Dark is really dark and mankind can assume their "true form", while with the Abyss it's the inner humanity (read: tiny fragment of the Dark Soul) of Manus running wild and super agitated, causing chaos and suffering. Even then, the details are vague but The Dark is a grey area while the Abyss is just bad.
Haven’t finished the video but i am loving how much kip is (lack of a better word) geeking out on the design and mechanics. Edit: just to have an opinion I think souls way of storytelling is interesting but ultimately not for me if your story is dependent on me seeing a item or talking to an npc a number of times I think it’s incredibly boring. And on soft locking by selling items I think are dumb because I don’t think it adds anything to the experience.
I think the only point of disagreement I have with you and IP is the ability to completely brick your game by selling the wrong item or attacking the wrong thing by accident. I think if you’re giving g that choice to people, it should be as obvious as you can make it that this is a bad idea. And certain key items that are required to finish the game should either be unsellable, or at a minimum have that little pop up that says something like “ArE u SuRe aBoUt tHaT?!” To make sure you know the gravity of the decision you’re about to make and to also stop it from being like a mouse slip or something. I know DS and ER do this by not having the npcs attack you after one hit, which I think is good implementation of this. But the selling of an item you can never get back in a game like Elden ring where you might never know why you can’t progress and waste hours and hours on something you could never finish seems kind of like bad design to me. I get the artistic freedom to do so, but in terms of design, it just seems a bit malicious if it’s poorly implemented. Otherwise, completely agree and a great video/reaction.
I finished KF2 and 3, and I would love a return of Kings Field by Fromsoftware. A Treacherous Dungeon Crawling RPG in First Person would be amazing to play. Could be a Remake, or a totally new game, I simply don't care, just more modern visuals, maybe in-pair with Elden Ring, adjustment to some systems, and better narrative and area design (things that suggest that there is a secret passage/hidden treasure). I simply love the overall idea of the game.
I'll say, I'm very half and half on having the story be laid out strictly through item descriptions and NPC dialogue, mostly because a lot of the time that stuff is not voiced. My eyesight isn't that great, and staring at small letters on a big screen can end up straining them. Also, outside of books where I have to use some imagination to visualize what's going on, reading it bit by bit from descriptions and NPC boxes can get pretty boring, and when I'm bored, I don't feel like continuing. This is why I'm glad Stellar Blade at least had the thought to give side quest NPC's voiced dialogue.
18:23 I would say IronPineapple is REALLY stretching it when he says you are *REQUIRED* to rub your face against every wall in order to complete the game. Certainly for a bunch of the secrets and little bonus rewards, like extra gold and consumables, and non-store bought equipment you have to do that. But, being required to do this to simply *BEAT* the game? No. In fact, there is hardly anything that is actually *REQUIRED* to beat the game. If you REALLY take a look at what you're absolutely required to do to beat the game, then nearly all of the content in the game could be viewed as optional. Think about it. For those of us that really know this game, what are you actually required to do to beat it? Well, you have to defeat the Tarn in the Ice Cave in Zone 5 or 6 (depending on how you count it) to remove the Ice Wall blocking the hallway to the penultimate zone. After that, you have to do the boss gauntlet in that zone and defeat the large Copper Knight, Tarn, Earth Elemental, and Demon Lord bosses and then Necron all in one go. After that, it's just find your way through Guyra's Dimension, which if you know the way, is literally only three teleporters and BAM! you're at the final boss. In terms of walking distance, it might take you like 10-20 minutes to go from the beginning of the game to the end. The main difficulty really is just surviving those things, which is where leveling up and looking for all the stuff in the game can come in handy. And if you only do those things listed above, grinding to level in order to have the HP necessary to get through some of them will be somewhat required. But not to an absurd degree. Even things that seem like they need to be done to beat the game, aren't. Finding all the Elemental Crystals to learn the spells? Optional. Doing the Sandler quest to open up Central Village and one of the paths to East Village? Optional. Getting either of the Dragon Stones to open up Seath's Fountain? Optional. Finding Crystal Flasks or Crystals to be made into flasks so you can take advantage of said fountain? Optional. Getting any of the keys to open doors or chests? Optional. Finding or buying equipment so you do more damage and take less? Optional. Getting the maps, or the Keys and Gates to teleport? Optional. Nearly every single thing in the game is optional. The only thing they all do is make the game drastically easier and longer obviously. But not a single one of them is actually REQUIRED to beat the game.
Hey kip have you every seen some videos from a creator called ymfah? If you haven't then my god is that some top quality stuff that you need to see. A whole proverbial rabbit hole of stuff to watch and react too.
As fun as it is to see someone going through the game first time, I don't like that Iron Pineapple calls Kings Field a Metroidvania, because I don't think it's a good representation of what King's Field delivers. It also makes him no better than the critics that overlooked the franchise by calling it a Doom clone.
I think the Skyrim comparison is less of a praise for Kings Field and more of a knock at the ancient design ideas used in Skyrim. Somehow, Bethesda is loving BACKWARDS with their UI. Skyrim is like a slightly improved version of Kings Field inventory, but Starfield is a worse version of it.
The first time I ever played a Souls game, was a demo kiosk of Dark Souls 2. Now, this was at the end stage of demo kiosks, so it was the WHOLE GAME, so in theory, I could have played the whole game. I spawned into the start zone, walked to the witches hut, and due to being a dumb kid, couldn't understand the character creator. So I spun a full 180°, and proceeded to play Donkey Kong Country Returns instead. And, later my first TRUE Souls experience was Dark Souls Remastered on Switch. Good times...
10:35 That's surprising bc while dark souls 2 doesn't have many actually viable spells, magic is very good and definitely better than 3 and arguably better than 1.
25:25 Jedi: Survivor had something like this too. If you got to an area that you definitely weren’t supposed to be yet, the game would warn you and create a new file staring from there so you can go back to before if you got soft locked. There’s a compilation of Joseph Anderson absolutely breaking that game and it remains one of my favorite videos on RU-vid. 😂
Great reaction as usual Kip, is kind of interesting how the limitations of the time both inspire ideas that are so cool is a shame they are no longer used today and also create scenarios that are more detrimental to the design of the game, case and point the re using of the keys takes advantage of the limited memory space, no need to make more keys if you can just re use the same one, and yet that same limitation makes the hidden walls harder do spot Older games have some really fascinating designs into how they were made, sometimes an idea is just janky as all heck cause is the first time they ever try to do it, and yet it works. Is pretty awesome
I grew up on the king’s field “4”ancient city on the ps2 and it kicked my ass so much for years growing up. I loved it even if I didn’t know what I was doing and just having fun and being tortured by the difficulty. It was a great game. I would recommend it if you can emulate it personally.