Knights in the Nightmare - Nightmares have never been this fun

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Hello everyone! Are you having fun with Phantom Breaker, the versus fighting from the last entry and it´s "small brother"? Pure “Made in Japan”, huh? In this new entry I´m going to talk about a game that is one of a kind. Those of us who have been playing games for a quite a while now know that Japanese games (although it could easily be applied also to the rest) are full of stereotypes and clichés that repeat themselves again and again in and almost endless spiral of which Japanese never seem to get enough, and a good example of that could be precisely the game from the last entry. However, it cannot be denied that from time to time, among its many bizarre creations (at least from a western point of view), a gem rises to dazzle the whole gamer community, one of those games that when you see it you instantly think “this must be Japanese”, games that have that Japan only flavor, games like Vagrant Story and the recent and brilliant Catherine, games that remind us that when Japan wants, they are capable of delivering games that only the Land of the Rising Sun can deliver, and the game I´m about to talk about is one of them. It´s a game of which I wanted to talk for a long time, but always hesitated since I think it´s difficult to explain its unique nature with words, however, I think it´s a game that deserves to be known, therefore I´ll try my very best to explain it the best I can. There is just one thing I can guarantee you, well actually two: one is that I´m sure you´ve never played anything quite like it before, and two and most important is that, like it or not, one just cannot deny the quality the title displays in each of its aspects, especially if you like Tactic JRPG games. Dear readers (if there are any), I introduce you to Knights in the Nightmare.

Knights in the Nightmare was originally developed exclusively for the Nintendo DS back in 2008 by Japanese developer Sting, a developer specialized in the JRPG genre, although the game was later on ported to the PSP with some extras. As I was saying at the beginning, due to the different genres it mixes up in a single product, Knights in the Nightmare is a game that is difficult to put in words, although basically we could say we are talking about a Tactic JRPG with elements from other genres such as the Tower Defense or the arcade Maniac Shooters. Yes, yes, you read well, those games with the screen filled up with hundreds of shiny color bullets that you have to dodge using Jedi-style reflexes, and soon you will understand why, or at least I hope so. The story of Knights in the Nightmare is almost as complex at it´s gameplay. The story will narrate us the events that took and are taking place in the castle of Aventheim and its surrounding lands. We will take the role of a lost should known as the Wisp, who lacks any memories of the past or purpose, although soon we will meet a mysterious woman called Maria that will help us. With her help we will gradually recover our memory and we will discover who we were in our past life and how we died, as well as learning about all the happenings that took place in the kingdom since our death. The story will be narrated to us in a nonlinear style, mixing events from the past and the present that we will only be able to understand and put in order as the story unfolds, making up like this a story worthy of the best scripts of Christopher Nolan and the Wachowski brothers... together.

And now let´s get to the meat of it. Let´s see how I explain this without making it longer than the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars trilogies all together... As I was saying before, basically we could say that we have a Tactic JRPG, although that would be a too simplistic way of describing Knights in the Nightmare that would barely scratch but the surface of what the game has to really offer. The playing scheme is as follows: story scene, battle configuration menu and the battles themselves, and then repeat. No world map, no towns, no nothing, Knights in the Nightmare simply doesn´t need them. The story scenes is where obviously, as its own name indicates, the events of the story will be narrated trough conversations between the characters. Once in the battle screen, a map divided in a grid will be displayed in an isometric view just like we can see in many other Tactic JRPG games, however, opposite to what we see in most Tactic JRPG games, where the characters move taking turns, in Knights in the Nightmare enemies will move constantly in real time, while our characters... well, they won´t move at all, with some exceptions. How is that? Well, before starting a battle, there will be several points marked in the map where we will be able to place our troops, and this is where the Tower Defense parts comes to play. Each character will have a specific class, and depending on this class, the equipment, skills and directions of their attacks will vary. Yup, in Knights in the Nightmare each type of troop can only attack in an specific direction, therefore it will be extremely important to place the troops in the right place from the very beginning so later on they will be as efficient as possible during the battles, but fear not, as if we commit a mistake, we will also be given the option to switch them during the actual battles. Before we start the battles, we will be able to see the map in which these will take place, as well as the enemies that will appear in them so that we can plan well our strategy beforehand. Once the battle has started, we will take control of our Wisp. Opposite to what we see in most Tactic JRPG, where we control our characters one by one, in Knights in the Nightmare we will only control our Wisp, which we will use to give all the necessary orders to our troops. To give the order to attack to our characters, once the enemies are inside the attack range of one of our characters, we will have to place our Wisp over the desired character. The more we stay over them, the wider the attack range will be. Once we move away the Wisp from our character, this will attack the enemy. When we defeat our enemies, these will drop gems that we will be able to gather with our Wisp to refill our mana gauge, which we will need in order to use the special powers of some items. And that´s it. Well, that´s it when it comes to attacking, because there is more to it than just attacking. Now we move into the Maniac Shooter part. As I said before, in Knights in the Nightmare we will only control our Wisp, which we will be able to move freely across the map by either, dragging the touch pen in the DS version or using the analog stick in the PSP version, although moving around won´t be that simple. Again, opposite to what we see in most Tactic JRPG games out there, in Knights in the Nightmare our characters don´t have the typical Hit Points. Instead, the game uses a time based system. In each turn we will have a limited amount of time in order to carry away our actions, as well as a limited amount of turns to eliminate all our enemies, other ways we will lose the battle. As I was saying, our characters don´t have Hit Points. For this reason, all the enemies´ attacks will always target our Wisp. Every time our Wisp is hit by one of the enemy attacks, we will lose a bit of time of our turn. If we get hit too many times, our turn could end before we barely carried away any actions, and if this happens in several turns, it will be impossible for us to eliminate all our enemies before we run out of turns to do so, and so we will lose the battle. The enemy attacks will take the shape of colorful projectiles just like the ones we can see in many arcade Maniac Shooters such as Cave´s classics DoDonPachi, Mushihime-Sama o Ibara among others, and each type of enemy will have their own attack patterns. This unique gameplay will force us to adapt ourselves constantly, having to using our reflexes to dodge the storm of bullets that will flood the screen like we would do in any Maniac Shooter, while at the same time we plan our strategy like we would do in any Tactic JRPG game, obtaining like this a unique mixture of game styles that really works, and what is most important, it´s really addictive. Last, but not least, regarding gameplay mechanics, and just in case all the previous stuff was still not enough, we have also the “law and chaos” mechanic, and perhaps the easiest way to explain this will be by saying “Ikaruga”. Do you remember the “black and white” mechanics of Treasure´s iconic shooter? Well then, this would be something similar. With the touch of one button we will be able to switch between two different planes, one called law, and the other called chaos. Depending on which plane we are, the items and skills we will be able to use will vary, forcing us like this to switch planes constantly in order to be able to use the items most convenient for each situation depending on the items we equipped our characters with. The longer we stay in one plane, the less effective the attacks will be come, so learning to switch planes at the right moment will be crucial for our success. As you can see, the title didn´t lie, these knights are really in a nightmare... but this time is a good one. Well, kinda...


How is it going so far, good? Your brains are still not cooked? I hope so, because if you thought we were finished, you thought wrong, although what comes next is much more simple and standard when compared to all the “nightmare” I just talked about. As if the combat system of Knights in the Nightmare wasn´t complex enough already, the game has an almost endless customization system that will please even the most demanding strategists out there. Once more, as opposite as seen in most Tactic JRPG games, where the characters we “recruit” will instantly join our ranks, since in Knights in the Nightmare we control a Wisp, the characters that will be joining us will be actually the ghosts of knights fallen in combat wandering the battlefields, thus the knights that will fight by our side will vary depending on which battlefield we fight in. In order to actually “recruit” a character, we will need to find certain special items hidden in the maps during the battles. These items will allow us to resurrect our characters so that they can join our army of fallen warriors on an indefinite basis, and this will be extremely important, as only those warriors that join our army this way will actually level up, being able also to equip them with new items, with the rest disappearing once the battle is over. And talking about customization, the level up system is also rather unique when compared to most Tactic JRPG games, as instead of leveling up automatically individually, once the battles finish, we will be able to assign the experience points obtained during the battle to the characters we desire in order to improve the specific stats we desire. On top of this, the game will also give us the option to sacrifice our characters to fuse their souls with the souls of our characters and increase their power, although we will have to be careful with this option, as once we perform a sacrifice, we won´t be able to go back. The game will also allow us to fuse weapons in order to create more powerful weapons, although again we will have to be careful, as the more powerful a weapon is, the higher the required level to use it will be, therefore we have that, if we improve our weapons faster than we improve our characters, we run the risk of not being able to use those weapons at all. In addition to this, weapons will also have durability. As we use the weapons, its durability will deplete, and once it completely depletes, the weapon will break and we won´t be able to use it anymore. As you can see, the game is demanding in all and each of its aspects.


Finally we have the graphics of the game, which are a total eye candy for all the pixel art lovers out there. Both characters and enemies have been sculpted pixel by pixel with extreme attention to detail, and the same goes for the maps where the maps will take place. The palette of colors used by the game really helps to give the impression of being in the middle of some weird dream. Also, during the conversations between the characters and in some menus, we will be able to see beautiful illustrations of the characters.

Ok, so I think that´s all. I mean, I could go on, but I think it doesn´t matter how hard I try to describe the game, I really doubt it´s possible to describe Knights in the Nightmare properly due to its complex design, in fact, even the developing team seem to had problems describing all the mechanics of their own game, and a prove of this is the almost one hour that could take us to complete all the tutorials that the game includes, and which is probably the reason why many will never make it that far with Knights in the Nightmare. However, I can only but recommend to be patient, as once you get used to it, the chaos of information and colors that floods screen soon becomes fluent and intuitive, to the point where sometimes the thrilling rhythm of the combats will give us the feeling to be playing one of those classic arcade games we used to plays in the 80s and 90s rather than a Tactic JRPG game. Knights in the Nightmare will probably not be remembered by the mass public, and probably it never intended so. Its complex and demanding mechanics in a time where dozens of clones of famous mainstream titles with all kind of help for the players are on demand might not be acceptable for many, but I´m completely convinced that those that give a chance to Knights in the Nightmare won´t be able to stop playing after they try it, and it will surely become a game that they will remember for many years to come as you will rarely come across such a unique title again. As it happens many times with this kind of titles, the release was rather limited and just in the US (other than Japan), so the game can get a bit pricy. Both versions are almost identical, but the graphics look definitely sharper in Sony´s portable machine due to its screen, on top of having some other extras, so perhaps this is the best version to go for if possible. So remember patience, and get ready to enjoy something like you´ve never seen before! And that unfortunately you might never see again...


GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJf8ZQQgJS8