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Collecting King’s Field

Start in Japan, where the originals are common and cheap, and spend the real money only where the West made the series scarce: the long boxes, the guides, and the Dark Side Box.

The first thing to know is that this series is two different markets. In Japan the trilogy was a success, reprinted for years in budget lines, and it shows: the 1994 original indexes at about $63 complete, and loose Japanese discs of II and III change hands for under $10. A complete Japanese set of all four games has sold for $99.49. In the West the same games are one-printing, renamed, long-box artifacts, and the prices follow. Every figure on this page is a sold-listing index value or a dated sale recorded in November 2026, kept as price history, not as a quote for today.

The American anchor is the first long box: King’s Field (Japan’s II) indexes at about $76 loose, $182 complete, and $539 sealed, with complete long box copies selling between $149.99 and $189.99 from August to November 2026. King’s Field II (Japan’s III) indexes at about $135 complete. The Ancient City indexes at about $130 complete; a complete copy sold for $142.93 on 30 October 2026. Judge completeness by the parts: the long boxes shipped with a foam disc pad, a registration card, and a hint-line phone card, and the first game exists in two cover variants, the Black Sword and Pink Sword printings, with a revised manual between them.

THE CENTERPIECE

The Dark Side Box, 2007

What it is

Released 25 January 2007 at a package price of ¥10,290, the Dark Side Box is the series’ official monument: all four games in one multi-fold case, six soundtrack discs, a memorial DVD, a hardcover visual book, a folding map of the series’ world, and one consolidated manual, wrapped in a simulated gold-foil slipcover inside a green marble-textured box.

Its price history

Recorded sales climb steadily through the Souls era: $419 in February 2023, $425 to $450 across 2024, then $504.47 in March 2026, $649 in April 2026, and $750 in May 2026. The sealed index stands at $1,558. Those are dated sales, recorded here as history.

The paper

Guides appreciate like the games. The Prima guide for The Ancient City indexes around $70 loose and $131 complete with its poster; the 1996 ASCII guides index around $69 and $55. Japan’s 2001 trilogy Scripture is the shelf’s scholarly prize and the hardest to source in the West.

The checklist

Buy the disc serial, never the title: SLUS-00158 is Japan’s II, SLUS-00255 is Japan’s III, SLUS-20318 is IV. For Japanese copies, the spine card and registration card separate a complete copy from a loose one wearing a case.

The covers, verified The guide shelf More from the Library

Collecting King’s Field

THE CENTERPIECE

THE FIRST WORD