Knights in Nightmare

Rating Teen Genre role-playing Publisher Atlus External Links

When an industry relies so much on existing IP’s and proven concepts it’s refreshing to see some new ideas. But when the new ideas don’t work as well as they probably should its extra frustrating.  That’s what Knights in the Nightmare offers; some fresh gameplay mechanics that can be frustrating at times.

Knights has you take control of the soul of a fallen king (the Wisp) which you use to control fallen knights to battle enemies.  The Wisp and the knight that recovers it, Maria, travel through the kingdom to conquer the evil that has taken over the land. The story of how the kingdom became overtaken by baddies is told through present time and flashbacks; this makes the story fairly confusing. Also confusing is why you control the faceless Wisp that controls disposable characters some of which are actually named “Nameless Knight”.

One of the best things about RPGs is getting attached to a group of characters that are on a seeming less impossible mission. Controlling a “character” without a personality makes it hard to care about the mission. Add that apathy with a confusing story and all there is to save the game is the gameplay but unfortunately it doesn’t. It could have but it doesn’t.

I say “could” because the controls do add a fresh approach to the strategy RPG but there is too much going on at times and some of the implications don’t work. You control the Wisp in real time dragging attacks to different classes of knights while trying to avoid constant attacks from enemies.  When you are using four different attacks for three different knights against four different enemies the screen/board can get crowded.  And your attacks have a light/dark characteristic which you have to switch during the turn to match the weapons.

For example; your axe is dark but you’re currently attacking in light mode you have to draw a counter-clockwise circle around the symbol to turn your attacks dark. It seems pointless and only adds to the chaotic battles.

At times the chaotic battles can be fun but mostly are either frustrating or tedious, especially the boss battles. More than once a boss had me continually replaying them for three hours because they were so difficult. I prefer a difficult game to an easy game any day but some of the bosses were way too difficult.

And if the gameplay seems confusing that’s because it is. If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe the numerous tutorials that game heavily suggests you partake in before you play the game. If you don’t go through them at the start you will come back to them when you lose your first battle because you have no idea how to play.

The real-time battles that have you avoiding numerous attacks while trying to pull off attacks of your own in is sometimes fun but it is ultimately too chaotic. The confusing storytelling about uninteresting characters doesn’t make the unique strategy RPG worth playing unless you’re a hardcore RPG fan looking for a twist on a genre.