despite wanting to get into previous king's field games but feeling walled by their varying levels of clunk & difficulty, i actually found king's field 4 to be a very, very appealing game. it has the hallmark details of fromsoft's later games that i love, but presented in ( to me ) a new, exciting way -- and knowing what comes after this one, it was really cool recognizing the stepping stones that would eventually lead towards those later games.

removing the compass & more easily accessible maps, for example, is one of those stones. although not really dungeon crawlers proper, in demon's souls and beyond, the lack of compass & map contributes to the necessity to familiarize yourself with the world ( which is reinforced by how easily you die & how easily you come back ); in king's field 4, the lack of these features feels more like an iteration on previous titles, done in a way to help promote more thoughtful, "fresh" gameplay from its players. of course the game was designed around the missing compass & maps, but you can tell that as they went on, this more oppressive approach to level design only got more deliberate, refined, and clever.
in that sense, king's field 4 serves as a nice bridge between earlier & later map design: i actually felt like i knew where i was going based on landmarks & room layouts, whereas in previous king's field games, many of the rooms were too difficult to parse & keep separated in my head -- this was in fact the biggest roadblock for me getting into them. i just could not really envision the world without feeling overwhelmed & directionless. ( this can be a good thing, but it was just off-putting for me for the whole game to feel that way from the start. )

this more active involvement in navigation contributes to another factor that i found inviting here ... which is the atmosphere. i LOVE the tone this game sets ... it is utterly immaculate. the soundtrack does so much to drive the mood & immerse you, something fromsoft became stingy with as these games went on; it felt awesome seamlessly swapping BGMs as you entered into a new area & were hit with a new, exciting, foreboding feeling, unsure what awaited you, but recognizing very quickly just how on edge you needed to be based entirely on how the music changed. it's so good! the sound effects are great as well, as is the vague, gloomy art direction ... the meticulous & slow animations ... the puzzles & secrets ...

hey, speaking of the animations though. they really are perfect ... perfect in the sense that this game could not function with a different approach to it. for example: if they wanted to make the animations more detailed or naturalistic, but keep the sluggish pace, i think it would feel really off & frankly bad to the player. the really wide movement berth you have is simply part of the king's field experience, and trying to convey that in a more realistic setting just ... it wouldn't feel good. but you can tell that they continued to be compelled by this mindful, slow gameplay style, and the way that they transitioned from here to demon's souls & beyond shows that they understood they couldn't quite do the same thing again with their approach to combat & navigation. i'd be curious to see if they couldn't pull it off today, though ... regardless of how odd it would be to see a king's field-style game with modern graphical fidelity.

the story isn't breathtaking, by any means, but there's something awfully compelling about how it's told. like i mentioned earlier, it harkens to fromsoft's later games ... just a very simple plot, but whose details are so thoroughly basked in mystery & history that you can't help but be engrossed. that was the case for me at least! how did we get the idol? why does it always fall back into our hands? who are the people who lived here before? what happened to them? on & on & on ... it's just so fun how you have to dig for these stories & how you aren't ever told explicitly what's happening, it makes those "oh my god -- AHA!" moments feel SO much cooler & more intense, regardless of how much you like the story on paper.

i feel like i'm rambling without saying much in this one, but ... idk! i'm a modern fromsoft gamer, so it's hard for me to not just sit here comparing this thing to the games that were so clearly inspired by it. king's field 4 is it's own beast & has a lot of unique, thrilling things going for it that you won't get in those later games, and i'm really glad i saw this to the end. i'm almost wondering if i shouldn't go back & give the older king's field titles another try, now that i've been won over to the genre so thoroughly by this one.