From the top, I have to issue the warning that King's Field (US) is not for
everyone (then again, which game is?). Despite it's billing, KF only pays 
lip-service to the RPG genre. I'm not quite sure where all the reviewer's claims 
of a "vast world to explore" come from, but the game seems to be sorely lacking in 
depth. King's Field does do certain things very well, but it strikes me as work in 
progress. Too much has been left out to really call this game an RPG, either in 
the American sense (Ultima, etc), or the Japanese sense.
  Truth be told, the storyline seems an afterthought on the part of the
developers. You're stuck on an island until you retrieve some sword or another,
just enough to explain why you must crawl through all these caverns and
dungeons. :) The NPC's you'll meet don't seem eager to add much, either; "You'll
find {blah, blah} near the bridge," or "{blah, blah} will cure poison," or "My
brother got eaten by a rock" are the pinacle of the conversations you'll have
(there is no mechanism for your character to actually talk to these people - you
just press "x" while standing in front of them and read the text).
  Where this game stands out is in the exceptional use of polygons in creating
the monsters and the objects. Some of the monsters will actually scare you (like
the first time a translucent ghost pops out from behind a wall). I recently
found an archer who actually reaches back to his quiver, pulls out an arrow,
draws back the bow, and shoots. Pretty mean, but also pretty darn cool-looking.
Expect a similar (if not always as intricate) quality of movement in all the
other critters. When you pick up an object, it'll rotate in front of you, giving
you a complete view of the item. There are retractable bridges which operate
realistically, and chests whose lids rotate back on squeaky hinges, bouncing to
a halt in the open position. Water is transparent with animated ripples. All
these things are very impressive. Creature and object sound effects are less
impressive than the visuals, but are adequate.
  Unfortunately, the environment itself is a bit lacking. There's too liberal a
use of right angles, especially given the 3 dimensional nature of the game. The
texture mapping is good, but a trifle boring (there's also plenty of glitching
up close at odd angles). There's no trees; houses are built into the walls (not
free-standing); all these things make the game environment rather sparse and
uniform in nature. The environmental sound effects are good in and of
themselves, but it seems only one is played at a time (they don't seemlessly
blend together). More impressive localization of sounds (and a good Dolby
Surround ambience) would have been welcome additions. Overall, there's some
impressive stuff, but not enough of the "little things" that would make this
world believable.
  Combat with the creatures is well done, if a bit simplistic (notice a trend
here?). The name of the game is to try and swipe at creatures from the sides and
rear (which is really tricky with multiple creatures - 3 is a very lethal
number). Various weapons have different ranges (with the dagger you start out
with, you have to literally run into the creature to hit it), and there are
ranged weapons such as bows. Magic includes your standard fireball-ish sort of
things, and all the healing and other standard simple spells can be found as
well.
  Down to the technical/gameplay things:
  Prepare to die a great deal, and not to be happy about it; you can only save
your game at "saving posts," something I've always detested.  I went through the
beginning of the game at least 10 times (climb the light house, get the fire
crystal, blah, blah, die, start over...). Also, when you die, the game
immediately resets to the very beginning, forcing you to go through several menu
choices to reload a game (once you're lucky enough to reach your first saving
post). The box claims it consumes 15 blocks of memory (be prepared to have this
be the first thing your salesperson says as well - I think they see this as a
great time to push mem cards), but this is currently under debate (a debate I
would like to see resolved). I did buy a (second) memory card, effectively
bringing my total purchase to $87 for this single game (from Electronics
Boutique - I always buy here and then price match later - you can't beat the
return policy. Besides, I used to work here so everyone's nice to me!). Save
games so far have only consumed 2 memory blocks. I'm curious as to whether this
actually expands to 15 blocks for a single save game towards the end, or if the
"15 maximum" includes multiple save games (which are allowed)?
  Movement is a little sluggish. Your turning rate is noticably slower the more
polygons are on the screen, but it's nothing that isn't tolerable. Oddly,
creatures don't seem to effect the speed, only the intricacy of the environment
(walls, etc). Data is loaded in the background as you progress through the game,
which is just an impressive a feat as the creatures (there's also constant
music, which makes the data loading that much more impressive). I haven't
noticed any slowdown because of this.
  The inventory system is menu based and somewhat clumsy. All items are
categorized and must be dealt with via the appropriate menu option (ie, to ready
a shield, scroll down to shield, then select from your available shields).
There's also a lot of confirmation menus ("You have chosen to equip the leather
shield - Really? Are you sure? Yes or no?" I've already chosen it, haven't I?).
I can see this for irrevocable things, but if I equip the wrong shield, my life
isn't going to be over! A icon-based "paper doll" type of system (yes, ala
Ultima Underworld) would have been much nicer.
  All in all, it's a solid effort, but overall I feel the game should have gone
through a few months more development. There's plenty of little things that
could have been done here that would have added immeasurably to the game. Most
of the impressive flourishes in the game are exhibted by the items and the
creatures; unfortunately, the environment itself doesn't measure up. Perhaps
King's Field 2 (3 in Japan) will address these concerns. Still, as the first
PlayStation game of its kind, it deserves to be played. However, I don't know if
I'd consider the game worth its total cost (ie, the price of both the game AND
an additional memory card). That's going to have to be your own decision!
Adam Hendershot
adamwh@ids.net