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King’s Field III (1996): the fall of Verdite

The trilogy ends with a son marching on his father’s castle, and the largest PlayStation world in the series wrapped around the feud.

King’s Field III was released in Japan on 21 June 1996. Its villain is the series’ first hero: Jean, who saved Verdite in 1994, is now its king, and has fallen into madness and sealed himself inside his castle. Aleph, the hero of the second game, gave his life in the attempt to seal Jean in. The quest falls to Lyle, Jean’s son, who sets out to kill his father and end the curse on the kingdom.

Structurally it is the trilogy’s expansion: a large portion of the game is spent above ground, crossing the Verdite countryside between dungeons, which makes it the biggest of the three PlayStation games. It is also quietly the most playable, because it is the first King’s Field with an automap. The dragons’ war resolves here too: Lyle restores the shattered Moonlight Sword and defeats Seath. North America received it on 20 November 1996, renamed King’s Field II. Europe never received it at all.

THE EDITIONS

How Japan sold the ending

The original (1996)

Serial SLPS-00377, launched at ¥6,300 with the standard spine card. The full-price first printing of the trilogy’s end.

The Power Completist

A Japanese variant documented by the community archive: the same game in a cardboard slipcase, bundled with a small guide book. An early, modest ancestor of the collector’s edition, and the hardest III package to find complete.

The budget lives

The Best reissue followed on 13 September 1998 (SLPS-91089), then a PS one Books edition on 29 November 2001 (SLPS-91426) at ¥1,890. Japan kept the whole trilogy cheap and in print for years; the West got one printing each.

The missing Europe

Sony published II in PAL territories but passed on III, so European players who met the series in 1997 never got its ending. The numbering page in this archive maps the full tangle.

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King’s Field III (1996): the fall of Verdite

THE EDITIONS

THE FIRST WORD