KF3 was more open, a little more Zelda-ish and not as integrated but very pleasant, long and deep with a lot of secrets. KF2 was brillant with a nightmarish atmosphere and the most clever level design in the entire series where everything is integrated.

KF1 Japan was more like a tech demo, painfully slow, boring, ugly and limited. I don't understand the people who like King's Field Ancient City, that game is garbage. Shoot exploding sword lasers! Nowadays you couldn't have such a major hidden feature in a game, the publishers just wouldn't let you, they would put it on the feature list on the box and have it excessively signposted and tutorialized in-game. The game never really tells you about it, but all the cool high level weapons have these special magic attacks.

Then there was discovering the whole hidden Sword magic system on my THIRD playthrough. Killing NPCs was unheard of back then, something Dark Souls inherited too. I thought this was an exploit, because NPCs never die right? But they do die! I was shocked when I killed the shopkeeper guy I was wailing on, and then certain characters in the game won't help you anymore because you're a murderer. I remember discovering you could beat on NPCs and get Strength upgrades. Going back through the early areas I found tons of secrets and items in hidden rooms I never knew about. The game has a lot of depth, it seemed like every time I replayed it I found something else new. I have a lot of good memories about King's Field 2 (aka KF3 japan).

Download king's field iv