There is still the strength bar on screen, allowing you to attack but since you can’t actually move in combat, all you can do is hold up your shield to block enemy attacks. There’s somewhat more NPC chat this time, given that you can select places to visit around town on the map but there isn’t much point elaborating: it looks like a 90-degree angle fixed-map, turn-based RPG, except with boring real time one-on-one-combat. Gold is better earned here in the casino rather than killing monsters. Progress in both games involves – in a similar fashion to old-school RPGs – visiting the town, dropping into the dungeon for a bit, keep going until you’re nearly dead, then beating a hasty retreat to the town again. Really, if it weren’t for the different introduction movies, dialogue and dungeon layouts, this looks practically identical to the first game. So off you trot merrily into that most dangerous of places again, to find the truth. The leader dies, you rush back to their son to inform him of the event, only to be met with disbelief and probably some nasty words.

A party is sent in to ensure that the Pillage King has not re-awakened. The second game takes place 10 years on, earthquakes near the town open new parts of the dungeon. After waking from a year-long coma (funny how it’s always an oddly specific length of time), you naturally set out to find out what happened to your unit. The first game portrays you as a member of a unit of knights, whom having previously visited the local dungeon (as you do, particularly on Thursdays), were decimated in a particularly deadly battle.

Or even a particularly good Wizardry cop-off. They seem hastily designed, there is practically no animation nor even smoothed movement between map tiles, and the solid artwork can’t make up for the fact that both games simply do not play like a King’s Field game. The two King’s Field Additional titles on the PSP are both strictly old-school 90-degree-grid-movement first person RPGs.

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