Honestly? This game is kicking my ass.
I want to do a thorough, played-through-most-if-not-all-of-it type of game review, but I really can’t. This may well be the most complex game I’ve played, handheld or not. I get the same sort of feeling I used to when discovering the library of complex rules for Dungeons and Dragons; I still haven’t quite grasped the full richness of that paper-based game. I’m just starting to understand Knights in the Nightmare. Let me say this: if you love hardcore, old-school JRPGs, you will love Knights in the Nightmare. If you love a storyline stretched out across all 40 hours of a game, and you don’t mind doing that on a handheld, you should go buy this game right now. If you want to try a battle system that challenges your twitch reflexes AND your strategy skills along with your penchant for equipment and character management, you need Knights In The Nightmare.
Wikipedia calls this game “a strategy-shooter role-playing game hybrid from Sting Entertainment, and the fourth episode in the Dept. Heaven saga. It was released by Atlus in North America on June 2, 2009.” Feel free to research the Dept. Heaven link; it’s fascinating, and parallels can be drawn between Knights and Atlus’ other upcoming remake of Persona for this kind of franchise resuscitation. I think it works.
A hybrid indeed, Knights in the Nightmare combines the rush of an action game, the strategy of a, well, strategy game, and the joy of character upgrading found typically in an RPG. Add to that a bizarre storyline that unfolds across MANY hours of battling gameplay, and you’ve got a purists’ dream.
The story itself involves a mysterious female warrior and her current activities along with quite a few flashbacks to events of the past which inform, slowly, the current state of affairs. From what I’ve seen so far, the kingdom is missing it’s king, there are monsters EVERYWHERE, and the wisp, your character, is trying to figure out what’s going on as well as fight these monsters with the help of a bunch of dead warriors.
These warriors are the Knights from the title of the game, and they each are of different classes and have different abilities. They can be equipped during each battle with 
a variety of weaponry, which has affinity for the specific warrior classes, as well as for the two energy states: Chaos and Law. The beginning tutorial is almost an hour long and is ESSENTIAL for understanding what the hell is going on in battle. As I mentioned in my review of Class of Heroes, take your time to learn how to play this game, both in the required tutorial and in the non-required ones. It will help you understand what’s going on and that will be essential to your enjoyment of the game.
Battle itself is an initially confusing but ultimately rewarding experience. It’s also kicking my ass. The stylus controls the wisp. The stylus is held on a grid on the bottom touchscreen while the wisp itself is shown on the top screen, which is an isometric real-time representation of the battle. The monsters are on the grid, and move about during battle. They also shoot at you, with geometry-wars looking vector graphics. These symbols and squiggly neon lines fly out in all directions and sometimes even move toward you. If hit, your wisp loses time, and the battle ends quickly. You may take the wisp over to the 5 item equipment bar, and choose a weapon, provided it matches the warrior unit you want to attach it to, and the energy state currently in play. Dragging the weapon icon over the target warrior gives that warrior serious firepower, which can be upgraded at the end of each battle. When the enemies are hit by this or other, less powerful attacks, they will shed crystals, which you then drag the wisp over to collect and get more power to equip more weapons. It’s a violent, chaotic, bewildering, mess of a soup of game playing, and I have to say it’s quite addicting. Oh, wait. One more thing. Each battle has turns. On each turn you need to defeat a monster, which fills in a specific color on your battle tally. Each monster is a different color. Your task at the beginning of each turn is to make sure you add the right colored monsters to the tally, in the correct column, so that you can fill up a column, which means you win the battle. Whew.
The best way to show this battle system is perhaps to just show it. Check out this video below:
I find myself skipping the story scenes, told with pictures and text overlaying the isometric view the battles have, just to get to the next battle scene. Thankfully, Atlus has seen fit to allow players to speed through the story parts by holding the shoulder buttons down, putting things on a kind of fast forward. There are also Skip buttons on the touchscreen that can be pressed to just move past these areas as well. Honestly, as a westerner with many games to play, I didn’t find the longer, more drawn out story telling to be that compelling. I’m interested in who the mysterious female warrior is, and ultimately would like to figure out how the dead king/wisp works out in the scheme of things, but it’s not necessary to my enjoyment of the game. I do feel a little bit cheap that I’m doing so, but your mileage may vary.
If you are a fan of cinematic video game music, you will enjoy the CD that comes bundled with the game. It contains all 39 tracks from the game itself, allowing you to set the Nightmare mood even while not in-game. It’s a quality, if not brilliant, soundtrack, and I enjoyed adding it to my collection, as will you.
I’m going to recommend this game with only a couple of reservations. If you don’t want to be taken out of your comfort zone, or challenged to play in a way you are not comfortable with, this game may not be for you. If, however, you are someone who enjoys unique, interesting games with your breakfast cereal, you really owe it to yourself to pick this one up. Atlus proves once again that not all games need be built from the same formula to be interesting, challenging, and ultimately rewarding to the modern gamer. Thank whatever gods you may pray to that this publisher exists. Yes, it takes some time to learn how to play a game like this, and yes, it’s worth every moment. Despite, or perhaps because of, the complexity, I’m compelled to play this game. And isn’t that what gaming is about?
Popularity: unranked [?]
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