Verho – Curse of Faces

Written by Eric Hauter on 11/7/2025 for PC  

Gamers love to complain, and we all have specific things we like to complain about. Some folks like to play the hits, griping about generally accepted topics like how Madden stays the same from year to year. Others like to zero in a narrower issue, like how the Pokémon franchise just can’t seem to nail down an open world game. And then there are those hyper-specific people, the fools who can’t let go and still obsess over some eclectic thing from the distant past. That’s me. I know that I’m fairly isolated on my island of complaining, but FromSoftware’s abandonment of the King’s Field franchise is perhaps the biggest thorn in my video-game-fan side. (For the record, the second biggest is the lack of a decent follow up to the PS1 tactics classic Vandal Hearts.)

King’s Field was an early PlayStation series, with two US entries released on PS1 and a great follow-up (King’s Field: The Ancient City) on PS2. A precursor to the Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls franchise, King's Field games had a similar difficulty arc, but played in first person. Players were plunked down into a game world with little direction or explanation. Incredibly dangerous monsters lurked in the immediate vicinity of the starting area, waiting to one-hit any fool that wandered into their line of sight.

Dungeons are stacked with secrets. Explore slowly, and try everything. I'm sure I've missed half the stuff in the game.

It was up to the player to scrounge up some starting equipment and learn how to survive, usually through the process of messing up and getting repeatedly killed. Over time, the player would come to terms with the mechanics of the game, increasing their survivability though a combination of experience, raised levels, and better gear. From that starting area, players would slowly push out into the surrounding area, discovering secrets and putting together the pieces until they gained a fuller understanding of the game’s world and story.

I played all three original King’s Field games to death and loved them deeply. I just spent three paragraphs talking about King’s Field and my undying adoration for it because I’ve spent the last 25 years or so waiting for a game that can match the vibes of the original series. I’ve tried bootleg fan-made projects, weird Japanese imports, and Steam sound-alikes that all failed to capture the original King’s Field sense of exploration and wonder. Until Verho – Curse of Faces, that is.

Kasur Games’ Verho goes beyond coming close to replicating King’s Field’s unique vibes; this game absolutely nails it. Curse of Faces looks, feels, and sounds like a King’s Field game, feeling for all the world as though it were streaming onto my PC directly from an alternate dimension PlayStation 1. For my money, it is King’s Field in everything but name. Souls fans, take note. This is how it all started, and you owe it to yourself to take a run at it.

I cannot tell you how many times this dude wrecked me.

The story of Verho – Curse of Faces is laid out at the beginning of the game in a brief cut scene. A long-ago war between two wizard types left the world in a terrible state. As the result of a curse laid down by one of the wizards during their battles, if anyone in the world sees anyone else’s face, both parties immediately die. After a long period spent with everyone apparently spontaneously combusting, “somehow humanity survived,” as the game puts it. By way of adaptation, everyone in the world wears masks all the time.

The player starts the game by picking the mask they want to wear in a short intro before being thrust into the world, in effect picking a class, which in turn dictates their starting stats. This by no means locks a player into their initially chosen path; it is possible—even easy—to create a hybrid character.

For example, I initially chose to be a Thief, which is a Dexterity-based character. I started with above average Dexterity, and a modicum of Health. My Strength (used to wield heavy gear) and Intelligence (used for magic and mana, of course) were nil. But during my exploration, I kept finding equipable spell crystals that sounded intriguing. Before I knew it, I was sinking points into Intelligence so I could have a few spells at my disposal. So now I’m a thief that can light up caves without torches and shoot fire. A magi-thief, if you will.

My point is that you are not locked into the class you initially pick. You get three points to sink into any of your stats when you level up, and levelling up is a breeze for a while. You start the game super squishy, regardless of the class you pick. But every time you save, Verho respawns every bad guy in the world. This allows you to run a little circuit, kill a bunch of dudes, and level up. Rinse and repeat. Once you figure out the basics of combat, I recommend spending about an hour just grinding the opening areas, which will allow you to equip the better gear you’ll be finding shortly.

Even so, you’ll need to learn to use the gear you find. Every weapon plays differently. The rapier, for example, has the player character thrust forward, taking a step or two towards enemies, which can result in some unexpected collisions and damage. Heavy weapons are more “stand there and whack away.” And pushing into new areas consistently reveals new baddies and attack patterns that must be learned and avoided. And the right weapon can make all the difference. I was dying a lot, as expected, but once I was able to get my hands on a bow, my survivability went up exponentially.

That little slightly lighter purple thing in the poison lake is absolutely a treasure, and yes, you can jump out there and get it.

But the game wasn’t explaining that. In fact, Verho – Curse of Faces is modeled after early PS1 games, so the game wasn’t explaining anything—though when I finally settled down enough to read the in-game manual, it was pretty helpful. There is no game map, so it is up to you to memorize your path through the world, which can be satisfying in its own way. There is also no Journal to track your current quests, so you actually have to pay attention when the clearly-voiced-by-a-single-actor characters tell you where to go and what to do and then try to navigate there using your own intuition and a compass.

My advice is to take things slowly. Break barrels and build up your stash of gold. Spend enough time in each area to get super comfortable with how to beat every enemy in it. Explore thoroughly. Read the description of every item that ends up in your inventory—it turns out that I was carrying around the solutions to several puzzles in my bag and had no idea until I slowed down to explore what I had actually picked up. There is a lot going on here, and it is frequently up to the player to put the pieces together to figure it all out. But when you do, it is insanely satisfying. 

I absolutely understand that Verho – Curse of Faces will not be for everyone, and there is an extremely generous demo available to see if Verho resonates with you or not. The old school 32-bit graphics might put off some players. Others will find the game’s lack of direction to be overly obtuse and antiquated. But there is a subset of gamers out there that have been waiting ages for a game to hit this precise vibe and nothing before Verho has ever come this close. It's not just a King's Field-style game, it's a really good King's Field-style game. 

Over the last 10 years or so, it feels like everybody else has gotten retro shooters and retro RPGs and retro platformers, etc., and I’ve been floating out here on an island thinking “What about me?” And out of nowhere, along comes Kasur Games plunking down Verho – Curse of Faces and saying, “Here ya go, kid. Have fun.” You might take it or leave it, but to gamers like me, Verho – Curse of Faces feels like coming home.