How is your PSOne/PS1 gaming going?

[Exhuminator]

I stuck with the game, and before I knew it I found myself enjoying it immensely, eventually going on to beat it.

I didn't know you beat it, congratulations!

I found the difficulty for this King's Field to be very much front-loaded at the beginning of the game.

That is true as a general rule, King's Fields tend to get easier the longer you play them. Except that isn't true with King's Field III. There are parts in the latter half of King's Field III that are rather intense. In order of difficulty, I would rate the FromSoftware first person dungeon crawlers from hardest to easiest:

Shadow Tower
King's Field III
King's Field II
King's Field IV
King's Field III: Pilot Style
Eternal Ring
King's Field
Shadow Tower Abyss

I plan to continue playing through the rest of the series at some point

Looking forward to it!

Tank controls will forever be a love-em-or-hate-em affair, but I would contend their implementation in SH is certainly no worse than other games using them at the time,

I don't have a problem with tank controls by default. I've used them since the original Alone in the Dark on DOS, and have beaten plenty of games that use tank controls. However, when you're not playing a fixed camera, fixed perspective game, tank controls start to not make sense. Silent Hill has a free floating camera most of the time, and the game supports the dualshock, so it really didn't need tank controls. I think Team Silent just put tank controls in it, because those controls were vogue as a survival horror staple at the time.

All told though the tone, setting, and atmosphere in Silent Hill is the hook. I think I can honestly say that when it's firing on all cylinders, it's one of my favorite horror settings regardless of medium.

The things that Silent Hill got right, were its tone, setting, and atmosphere, I agree. Too bad the other parts of the game don't measure up.

I feel like there's still a lot to love about these early 3D affairs, if you're open to a different play style.

I agree, there's so much creativity on the PS1. It really was a wild west of 3D game design. For example, beating Jumping Flash earlier this year was a very fun, very unique experience. It's too bad so many people disregard the PS1 due to its archaic 3D graphics.

[Xeogred]

Can't you customize all the controls in Silent Hill 1? I don't remember. I know you can in 2-3. I don't like using the joysticks for these games. Playing RE2 when it was new must have cemented this control scheme into my mind. In a zone with fixed camera angles, wherever your character is looking... UP is going to make them go that direction. Seemed pretty easy to me.

[Exhuminator]

Seemed pretty easy to me.

It is easy, when you're playing in a static environment with a fixed camera. However when the environment is 3D, and the camera moves around the player, tank controls cause the player to continuously have to reorient just to walk straight.

Tank controls sensible:



Tank controls not sensible:

[Xeogred]

Meh.

Also have to say, I dabbled into Tomba the other day... doesn't seem good. Nasty 2.5D style and very weird floaty controls.

[chuckster]

Meh.

Also have to say, I dabbled into Tomba the other day... doesn't seem good. Nasty 2.5D style and very weird floaty controls.

Never thought much of Tomba myself, Tomba 2 is fantastic though. There's something about the art style and overall feel that makes me insanely nostalgic.

[nullPointer]

Last night I beat Silent Hill for the umpteenth time! (Okay that might be an exaggeration; the number is definitely greater than five but probably less than ten). I got the 'sunshine & rainbows' Good+ ending, which according to the majority of fandom isn't strictly canon, but hey who doesn't like a nice ending right? It had been so long since the last time I beat the game that I had almost forgotten about one aspect of the ending that is completely amaze-balls.

The 'blooper reel' at the end of the credits is a pure stroke of genius. I wish more games would do stuff like this although I suppose it would lose some of the novelty at that point.

I should post some additional thoughts over in Games Beaten, but I've neglected to post any of my games beaten for the entire year, so I'm not sure I'll pick now as the time to start, lol. This time most of my post-game ruminations regarding Silent Hill involve plot spoilers anyway.

Seemed pretty easy to me.

It is easy, when you're playing in a static environment with a fixed camera. However when the environment is 3D, and the camera moves around the player, tank controls cause the player to continuously have to reorient just to walk straight.

Tank controls sensible:



Tank controls not sensible:

I'm not even going to lie, I agree with you on this. There are definitely some camera issues with Silent Hill. I was reflecting on the comments here as I ran the gauntlet from the Indian Runner Hotel to the Lighthouse on the night before last. There are hoards of enemies swarming you, and part of this segment has you maneuvering across several narrow planks. Navigating onto the small surface area of these planks while dodging the enemy onslaught would be hard enough with a fixed camera, but with the mobile camera it can really devolve into an exercise in frustration. Of course I tend to be a survival horror 'ammo hoarder', and I think the 'correct way' of handling this segment is to go in with guns blazing, at which point the controls become much less of an issue since your enemies are dead at your feet.

I think there are two mitigating factors to the camera issues in Silent Hill, though obviously neither of them squashes the problem completely. 1) For the most part the camera moves slowly around you, meaning that your corresponding control movements involve slow and sometimes unconscious adjustments. In this sense it becomes a bit of a 'waltz with the camera', lol. Having said that, there are at least a few of areas where the camera does make some wild jumps in perspective. These times when the perspective makes sudden wild changes are when the control issue presents itself most clearly. Typically these camera shifts are for the purpose of drawing your attention to a specific area, or alternately for the express purpose of making you feel disoriented. In the case of the former, it might have been nice if the camera movements were handled a bit more smoothly gracefully (how's about a nice smooth camera pan, Silent Hill!? Ah well, that would come in the next gen), and in the case of instilling a feeling of disorientation, well ... mission accomplished. The other mitigating factor is that 2) most of the game takes place in rather confined corridors and the camera at least has the good sense to obey the spatial layout of a given area. I can't think of a single instance in which the camera had collision issues with walls, ceilings, etc., nor any moments in which action was occurring off screen and the camera couldn't accommodate. In this way I'd almost be tempted to say that the camera in Silent Hill is a hybrid between fixed and freely moving. There are plenty of areas in the game where the camera acts exactly as fixed perspective.

But yeah, neither of these mitigating factors alleviates the problem completely, and I could certainly understand how for some this would effect their enjoyment of the game. I just see it as another baby-step towards the largely problem-free 3D camera/navigation systems we enjoy today.

Edit:

If you like these style of games, I highly recommend Hard Edge / TRAG. I beat that last year and absolutely loved it.

http://www.retrocollect.com/Reviews/ret ... ation.html

Such a cool chill OST too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B7wAfa ... ADB6D63391

And the weirdest award goes to Galerians. Was a bit too cryptic for my tastes so I had to use a guide at times, but I'm glad I played that one. It's everything ultra insanely weird about 90's anime sci-fi all rolled up into one. I think in my 15+ years of internet life I've never seen anyone talk about this game, ever. As obscure as it gets. I have the PS2 sequel ready to play sometime.

I almost forgot to mention it, but thank you so much for these recommendations! The backlog expands ever outward, lol! I'll definitely be checking these out at some point. Hope you feel better soon, man!

[Exhuminator]

The backlog expands ever outward, lol! I'll definitely be checking these out at some point. Hope you feel better soon, man!

If you're looking for good esoteric survival horror games on PS1, please don't pass up Koudelka. Koudelka really is a gem once you get used to its unusual combat system.

[marurun]

While on the one hand, the primitive 3D of the PS1 is something of a barrier, there's definitely more going on than that. I think there were also lots of design and control issues. While the PC had sorted out FPS games pretty well and 3D racers were well-understood, 3rd person games of various stripes, 3D platformers, and other types of 3D games were still relatively experimental, trying to figure out which control schemes made sense and which design elements worked and didn't. So a lot of PS1 and Saturn 3D games were rough around almost all the edges. The games looked and, for the most part, felt clunky, in part because so much of the medium was new.

[nullPointer]

The backlog expands ever outward, lol! I'll definitely be checking these out at some point. Hope you feel better soon, man!

If you're looking for good esoteric survival horror games on PS1, please don't pass up Koudelka. Koudelka really is a gem once you get used to its unusual combat system.

Cool man, I'll definitely look into it! It's a title I've heard bandied about from time to time, but I think the title is literally the only thing I really know about it, lol.

After playing a solid month of horror themed titles (October Rulez!), I'll definitely be detouring into some lighter fare for the time being (currently venturing forth into the Phoenix Wright games), but I'll definitely earmark Koudelka as something to checkout sooner than later. Thanks again!

other types of 3D games were still relatively experimental, trying to figure out which control schemes made sense and which design elements worked and didn't. So a lot of PS1 and Saturn 3D games were rough around almost all the edges. The games looked and, for the most part, felt clunky, in part because so much of the medium was new.

Yes, I think that in order to fully enjoy (primarily 3D) games from this generation, possibly more than any other generation, the player requires either a firm sense of warm fuzzy nostalgia, or a somewhat academic historical perspective regarding the state of games at the time. I think a lot of us here probably have a bit of both to varying degrees. Having said that, I would contend that these games didn't necessarily feel clunky at the time, in part due to the fact that it was all so 'modern', lol. It was just a new and different way to approach/play games. I think it's only in hindsight that these games feel 'off'. At the time of release games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil felt absolutely fresh and revelatory (except for the possible exception of crusty old holdouts like yours truly who were dragged kicking and screaming into fully 3D games)

[BoneSnapDeez]

Developers jumped to 3D too early. 5th gen would have been better off if everything was in 2D. Look at how brilliant games like Magic Knight Rayearth turned out. Then you have something like Final Fantasy VII which looks and plays worse than the original NES Final Fantasy.