Sting / Atlus
Anthony: All right Sting, you win. I thought Riviera: The Promised Land was pretty creative, but apparently that wasn’t enough. Now I’ve just had my gaming mind violated by arguably one of the most unique ideas to get successful implementation in years. Tackling Knights in the Nightmare is bound to be a daunting experience in one way or another. Maybe bad, maybe mind-blowingly awesome, but somewhere along the road, you feel like Knights might be more complex than functional games are allowed to be.
What’s good:
- Incredible artwork is found all throughout the game. Designs for each type of knight, the characters, the monsters, the environments... they all have extremely impressive artwork. It may very well be the best and most intricate work on a portable system to date.
- Despite the vast amount of information crammed into the item and unit screens in the game, they did a surprisingly good job of keeping it all manageable. A great deal of item/unit information appears on the top screen with instant loading, and all item/units can be instantly sorted by several categories. Aside from just scrolling through the sheer amount of them, I was impressed by how overall simple it was to work with.
What’s neutral:
- The narrative is bound to get some mixed reactions among players. At its core, there’s a decent story here that’s rather sad, mainly because death, both literal and metaphorical, is arguably the most present theme throughout. However, there’s bound to be some confusion and head-scratching throughout, as after each scene, Knights plays story scenes that jump all over various timelines. Typically each scene is only prefaced with “x nights before/after y event,” so reconciling that in your mind to events z, a, and b, when you just spent 20 minutes frenetically piloting a wisp is tricky. It’s brought together more and more as the end comes, but with a whopping 47 scenes, there very well may be players that give up and start skipping scenes before that happens. Further, though they give the intriguing option to get snippets of back-story on the dozens of knights in the game, being only able to see it by pausing during battle is an odd inclusion. Battles are hectic and require a lot of focus, so many players will ignore this feature in favor of trying to carefully beat the level.
- Repetition is a doubtlessly a factor in the game. Like a strategy RPG, the story plays out the same through each scene... chapter intro, scene leading to battle, pre-battle dialog, battle, post-battle dialog, flashback scene, unit organization time, final chapter scene, next chapter intro... thing is, this exact formula happens 47 times. And unlike a strategy RPG, battles are often hectic, rarely unique, always time-based, and every single level has specific items that can only be obtained during the story battle. That’s a whole lot of being a Knight in the Nightmare. It’s worthy of note that you also fight a certain boss three or four times, and consider it’s basically the same fight each time, that’s kind of disappointing.
- Whether intentional or not, luck will undoubtedly play a factor in how each person plays the game. Because there are no shops or item creation, you are, in many ways, a complete slave to the weapon drops you get in game. In my own case, I had serious trouble getting weapons for the highly useful Lance Knight class, which led to me not using a valuable class often, and subsequently missing early key items as a result. The same can happen with having an overabundance or dearth of certain elemental weapons, or just not having enough of the right item to unleash the powerful and important Hi-skills. The leveling option and trying to kill as many enemies as possible can help, but neither removes the randomness.
- Boss fights will either be epic or a sticking point for gamers depending on how they see the issue. Normal fights have enemies whose attacks are small and might only take away 2-4 seconds of your time if hit. Bosses typically have enormous attacks that nearly fill the screen and require lots of practice to effectively dodge... and those attacks often take away anywhere from 9-20 seconds when you’re hit. It’s a pretty huge spike in difficulty, and it may either be fun or infuriating depending on the circumstance.
What’s bad:
- There are a couple minor concerns with using the all-touch-screen interface for battles. Early going, one frustration that may pop up is that the battle screen gets so “busy” with enemies and their attacks, that in attempting to dodge everything, you’ll inevitably activate knights and not realize it, often causing you to lose precious time unintentionally. That problem can eventually be rectified with practice, but what doesn’t change is that the fixed position on the right side of the screen for switching Law/Chaos modes, grabbing weapons/key items, and activating skill holding, rather than being mapped to any buttons, means that depending on enemy attack patterns, you can effectively be “trapped” on the left side of the screen from utilizing several functions that are necessary to win. Also, even practice won’t rectify how difficult it is to grab the correct weapon when a Knight is positioned right next to the item list.
- Surprisingly, there are a few odd oversights within. Before beginning a battle turn, you can tap an enemy to see its movement path - a practice that’s absolutely vital for selecting the right knight and weaponry to deal with it. However, if an enemy happens to be placed on a space with a knight, tapping the area will only bring up knight selection. Additionally, attacks can be rendered useless from changes in the height of the map...so it’s somewhat cruel that in previewing a knight’s range, they often show the maximum range, despite that activating a weapon actually reduces that potential range due to height changes. Weapons list a height range, but this is unclear in practice, as some attacks seem to hit outside of it or miss inside of the specified range.
- Maybe I’m just complaining, but I found the chest mimic situation a bit on the “jerk” side. Chests often have key items and need to be attacked a few times to open. Sometimes though, attacking the chest reveals it’s a mimic, which will bounce around an undetermined area and either escape the stage during the turn, or completely disappear when the turn ends. That means to appropriately deal with chests, you need to specifically try to open them at the beginning of a turn to allow time for a mimic, figure out a mimic’s pattern so you can try to attack it multiple times, and just hope that this is all doable within one turn (while enemies are attacking you) before it escapes. Kind of cruel.
Phew. Rarely does a game elicit this kind of reaction. At the same time that I find myself wanting to talk to people about all of its intricacies and how I personally dealt with x and y obstacles in the game, I find myself wondering what absurdly small percentage of gamers out there (hardcore RPGers included) will really go for this game... and further, what percentage will see it through to the end. It’s full of creativity, ambition, and a huge pair of balls, in introducing a completely new style of RPG gameplay while simultaneously not sugar-coating a thing.
All of that said, something that really stands out to me is that despite Knights single-handedly developing a complex genre, at no point does Sting ever completely throw its players to the wolves. The huge tutorial, easy leveling mode, options to keep going after a loss, providing “free” knights if you’re missing a class, generous Easy mode, and even paragraphs of advice when you die show that they wanted you to play and enjoy the game, rather than just watch you suffer.
In short, Knights in the Nightmare is a true behemoth of a game. It’s hard, it’s crazily complex, has a ton to explore, is pretty glorious when it all comes together, and may just have the most limited gaming audience I can imagine. If you’ve enjoyed Sting’s diverse offerings or just want to try something extremely unique and challenging, I absolutely recommend it. Similarly, I wouldn’t blame anyone who decides it’s not for them, regardless of whether it takes 5 minutes or 20 hours to realize that.
Lauren: With Anthony's review in mind, I was essentially prepared to give up on Knights in the Nightmare after giving it a brief attempt. After I heard his stance on the game, I was intimidated. After I completed the tutorials, I was terrified. Character and weapon elements, attack ranges dependent on law and chaos modes, obstacles containing key items for recruitment and more weapons, knights that can't be attacked directly (except sometimes!), "effects", and so on. You have to worry about vitality running out, durability running out, and time running out. There seemed to be simply too much to bear in mind at any given time, which would be fine if it were a turn-based strategy RPG, but the action of Knights happens in real-time. I assumed that this game would not be for me after fumbling and panicking through the first battle. But, I gave it another try the next night. And the next night. And with some time and good coaching, I finally saw the appeal of Knights and excitedly saw it through to the end.
That said, it is still not for everyone. The scene-battle-scene-battle-scene formula never changes, and the dark story hops all around the timeline in a somewhat confusing manner. Even the music, while fantastic, gets repetitive due to this formula. And the voice acting was just "there", even bothering me when I realized that badass Maria has a high- pitched little girl voice.
But even so, I truly enjoyed this game. Its unique style was simply fascinating, and that allowed me to look past those flaws to happily continue the experience. And despite the odd pacing of the plot, it is a very engaging one that's made more convincing by fantastic artwork.
Let's get down to the gameplay, though. Anthony has done a great job of describing the many intricacies of how Knights works, so I will just add a few thoughts to that. Easy Mode makes things infinitely more manageable if you're concerned with learning how the game works first. As he mentioned, it gives you 26 turns for every battle, max MP at the start of each battle, warning signals when a big attack is about to hit, and apparently no Mimics. While that seems like a lot of hand-holding considering their forgiveness even with Game Overs, it's nice to know you're "safe" while learning the ropes and aiming for victory as though there's a serious turn limit anyway.
My major complaints with the gameplay are also in line with Anthony's. Accidentally activating a Knight while dodging is very easy to do, and quite frustrating because it causes a time penalty, which is the same result as letting yourself get hit. And again, when there is a knight in the top-right corner of the screen, it's always a struggle to grab the right item without activating him/her by accident. Finally, when you try to give an NPC a key item while a monster is on the same square, you'll undoubtedly have to wait until the monster decides to move.
Most battles can be very hectic, especially if you focus on obtaining key items and weapons from obstacles before fighting the enemies. As a result, activating a knight by accident or struggling to reach the right side of the screen to switch modes or grab an item can certainly mess with your strategy. It felt like the menu portions of the screen should have been kept separate from the action itself, but that's just my opinion. It took some practice to grasp the general strategy of the battles, but once I got used to the fact that time doesn't tick down unless you do something or get hit, the stress level went down. It's odd to think of a timer as not ticking down when it's right there at the top of your screen, but that's just another thing that Knights does differently.
Hellhounds and a certain boss are an exception to the "only the wisp can be hurt, and it only subtracts time" rule. These monsters can chomp away at a knight's Vitality, which is an extremely important stat. When your VIT runs out, you die. If Maria dies, it's game over. If a knight dies, the knight is permanently gone. VIT is consumed by actions in battle, and replenished with experience points or the "transoul" feature. However, the aforementioned monsters can attack a knight and rapidly deplete his or her Vitality if they spot him/her while activated. Just another intimidating feature of Knights in the Nightmare.
A slightly cruel addition was the method to obtain the "good" ending of this game. It's pretty vague, and thus far I've found absolutely no references to it within the game itself. Perhaps it will come after the completion of the alternate playthrough, but I can't confirm this yet. Regardless, the trigger to the ideal ending is on a seemingly random panel that has to be broken twice, earning it a well-deserved "Guide Dang It" tag on TVTropes. On that topic, however, a more positive note - Knights has many different endings and a completely separate playthrough with a different main character and battles, so the replay value on this one is incredible.
After feeling like I had to take a college course on Knights in the Nightmare, and then feeling like an utter failure during many boss fights just for getting hit a lot, I'm not quite sure how to recommend this game to you. I stuck it out and would now even consider playing through the alternate story, even though I'm still a bit intimidated by it. Even Anthony was still learning new minor gameplay aspects while helping me on my playthrough.
All I can say is bravo, Sting. Each game you create seems more unique, complex, and engaging than the last. While I can't recommend it to everyone, I think Knights deserves a chance for its interesting style alone.
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