Author Quits King's Field 4 Review After 10 Hours, Citing Brutal PS2 Gameplay

1 articles · Updated · Kotaku · Aug 12

Roughly 10 hours into King's Field 4, the writer said they stopped short of finishing the PS2 game for a Warp Week 2002 piece after repeated deaths, poison sections and clunky controls.
The account frames the fourth King's Field as an early blueprint for FromSoftware's later Souls games, but says modern players face awkward camera movement, slow combat and unclear systems that often required Googling.
Examples from the playthrough included dying to hidden lava, inching through bug-filled areas, draining a poison-curing spring and getting stuck for hours in a poison swamp with sinking planks.
The writer said the game became more manageable after the swamp, yet the published takeaway remained that King's Field 4 is a fascinating but punishing look at ideas FromSoftware later refined in Dark Souls and Elden Ring.