At first blush the rigid grid-based dungeon crawling of From Software's 2006 PSP exclusive King's Field Additional I appears to be a drastic departure from the immersive die 'em ups that came before it, this UMD upstart choosing to ditch the freeform exploration of old in favour of a right angled labyrinth and the solitary town above … Continue reading Taking an old series to new depths
A wave of dread washed over me as I booted up King's Field IV for the first time; I wasn't concerned with the legions of monsters that lay ahead or if I'd be able to piece together the scattered scraps of plot, I was worried FromSoftware's first-person free-roaming dungeon 'em up series might be something that only … Continue reading Field four from From
The following is a brief record of my wanderings in the world of King's Field II (retitled as plain King's Field for US and EU players - something of a Final Fantasy IV/II situation there) and shameful proof of my total lack of any sense of direction whatsoever, even in a game happy to display … Continue reading Prepare to die
FromSoftware have something of a habit of creating worlds filled with darkness and ghosts, desolate spaces still reeling from the aftershocks of horrific events long since passed (as well as their natural creative companion... action-sims starring giant mecha), and 1998's Echo Night is no exception, surrounding leading man Richard Osmond with the spirits of those killed … Continue reading Death is but a door, time is but a window
Like all the best FromSoftware games, it wasn't until I'd cartoonishly bumbled my way into an impossible-to-continue position and been forced to start over again before I really got the hang of Armored Core 3 Portable. Well, I say "Got the hang of" but it'd be more honest to describe my second go as "It … Continue reading The joy of mechs
This Shadow Tower: Abyss article was supposed to be a straightforward one. It's the accomplished sequel to a game I fell in love with, a title filled with beautiful environments, an expanded combat system that allows you to lop off individual body parts, and has been rebalanced in the player's favour. It's essentially everything a … Continue reading Monkey paw wishes
Shadow Tower, FromSoftware's 1998 PlayStation exclusive first-person horror die 'em up released long before we collectively "got" the tense dark fantasy themed games they'd been trying sell us since the original King's Field, is referred to by my son as "The staircase game": It's not because you spend a lot of time trudging up and … Continue reading Nightmare fuel for nightmare fuel
As hard as it may be to believe, there was once a time when From Software published all sorts of strange and wonderful games that didn't have "Souls" in the title; these games may have on the whole sold next to nothing and were rarely localised but even so a lot of them were genuinely … Continue reading Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 