Customer Reviews

Knights in the Nightmare

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Knights in the Nightmare is quite possibly the most complicated console/hand-held game I've ever played. I've poured hours into this game and I have yet to feel like I've done more than scratch the surface. This game is pretty massive and has a steep learning curve, but I think that it is worth it for anyone willing to get past that learning curve.

GAMEPLAY: The basic premise of Knights in the Nightmare (KitN) is that you play a wisp, which floats around battlefields and issues commands to statically placed units on a battlefield map. Your units, the spirits of dead knights and soldiers, are invincible and do not take damage, but the wisp can be attacked by enemies. Before battles you are given the chance to station your units on the battlefield and assign equipment to be used. The battlefields remind me of Riviera or Ogre Battle, but the gameplay is almost like an action-arcade-puzzler mixed with a little bit of bullet-hell shooter and Ikaruga style elements tossed in as well. I really have a hard time describing the gameplay because it is so unique and there is literally nothing like it that I can closely compare it to. I recommend looking up some gameplay videos to get an idea of how it moves because seeing it in motion was really the only way I started to understand the game. And if you do decide to purchase this game, by all means, work through the tutorials! I can't emphasize that enough. Just jumping into this game without completing the tutorials and actually paying attention to them will result in a lot of frustration and failed attempts.

GRAPHICS: Beautiful art style with lush colors. While all of the art appears to be 2d sprites, these are some of the best done sprites on the system.

STORY: I'm several hours into the game and the story is deep and involved. My only complaint is that it doesn't seem like my actions have a lot of impact on the story progression.

REPLAY VALUE: KitN allows you to replay any battle that you've completed, near as I can tell. There are a massive amount of items and levels. You can level up your characters both within and outside the storyline, but I have been sticking to the storyline personally.

SOUND: Great music in a classic fantasy RPG style. I was lucky enough to get a copy of KitN that included the soundtrack, which is nice if you can get it. With or without the CD pack-in, my review of this game would still remain the same.

Despite the super steep learning curve, KitN has very few shortcomings. Some people will see the learning curve and complexity as a good thing and others will hate it. The biggest shortcoming that I see that almost anyone would agree upon is the limited number of save slots. With one and only one save slot, the game pretty much can't be enjoyed or shared by more than one player. Considering the immense number of items and characters in the game, I understand why this limitation is in place because the save files are probably quite large, but it is still a let down.

I will say that this game isn't for everyone. I am personally having a lot of fun with the title, even after I had a few false starts and decided to start the game over from scratch. Fans of puzzle games and classic RPGs will likely be the best target audience for this game, but the difficulty and game concept are probably going to drive a lot of people into the love-it-or-hate-it zone. If you are considering buying this title, I highly recommend watching some online gameplay videos just so you know what you're getting into.

I will have to say that hands down this game is both one of the most visually appealing games as well as challenging. It is a mix of action/puzzling/Bullet dodging game play.

Gameplay:If you do not take the time to watch and play through the tutorial this may result in utter confusion and uneeded stress. The gameplay takes place in zone type battles where the player controls a wisp. You float around possessing your allied knights (whom can not be hurt) and issue them commands using items on the side. Fights take place in rounds in which you have to eliminate enemies of certian types to fill in a grid clearing the stage.

Story:Bit convaluted at first but you slowly come to relize your the spirit of a king whose been freed by a young female knight. More is slowly coming as inbetween each stage is usually about 2-3 minutes of story time.

Pros: Very beautiful art style, Great soundtrack, Amazing ingame battle animations as effects. Litteraly over 100 allies to recruit and hundreds of weapons to collect. Good replay ability letting you play all the levels you beat with different characters.

Cons: Navigating the menus sometimes is a bit difficult to find the character or items you need. Even with the tabs on the sides they don't clearly label which character is where, requiring you to remember up to over 100 characters locations. Only one save makes it so you can not really let someone else experince this.

Overall I would have to say this is one of the games that makes me enjoy owning a DS to its full extent. For any person who calls them a true gamer should pick this up.

There are a ton of DS RPGs out there, I mean ALOT, but this game stands out from all of them. This is the first RPG I've ever played that your cursor (your Wisp in this game) is actually part of the action, and the only real danger of the battles is running out of time, rather than losing HP. Knights in the Nightmare introduces a world of a doomed kingdom, and it's dying king. This is NOT the best RPG start gaming with, it's definitely for those that have played RPGs before, and is rather difficult to explain.

Graphics: As the character sprites go, their pretty simplistic, but it's the effects in this game that keep it brewing with intensity. You'll always see this fog in your battles when switching between LAW and CHAOS (the two fighting dimensions in the game) because the fog affects the battles. Each attack is covered in lighting and spark effects. The character mugshots aren't anything I've never seen before, but the mystery in the game kinda makes you not notice. The nightmare theme and graphics fits extremely well with the game *9/10*

Game-play: I have yet to beat the game, but I haven't yet found it uninteresting. When you start the game, I highly suggest going through at-least the first tutorial section, though because I only did one I had to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. Your Wisp (cursor) is what takes damage in this game, and, like I said above, time is the only disadvantage in this game. Your wisp is what has to avoid enemy attacks, your wisp is what makes your knight units attack, and your wisp is what gives characters weapon's to fend off enemies. You also switch between two dimensions (CHAOS and LAW mentioned earlier) for certain items or if the fog in one dimension is not giving you enough MP. Though it sounds VERY confusing, it's a blast to play, and is always a learning experience. *10/10*

Story: I don't usually judge this one, but if your me, story will sometimes hold a game dead in it's tracks. The story in this game is, like the game-play, hard to explain. I find it hard to keep up with this game's story-line, because it's all in the NPC's (non-playable character's) perspective. Before a battle it introduces cut-scenes of the present, and after the battle, it shows cut-scenes from the past that lead up to the battle you just had, basically explaining your battle. The story is engaging, just hard to pay attention to. *6/10*

Sound: The music sits extremely well with me, a kingdom style surrounded by shadow and horror. Even though the music is a bit goth for me (organ style music in some places) it blends well. Your introduction to battles makes you feel eerie with the enemies before you, while the battle music itself is very action filled. You'll notice some of the cut-scenes will have no music, only to signify lonesomeness in the story. Voice acting surrounds the fighting, attacking, switching from LAW to CHAOS, and whether or not your out of time. But unfortunately the voices are restricted to battles, the cut-scenes rely on text boxes and text entering sounds, so you'll do more reading than listening. Anyway it's a nice game to hear, though a little unoriginal. *7/10*


Knights in the Nightmare provides you with an RPG like no other, in fact it feels a bit like a shoot'em-up game with RPG elements tied in, but overall it's a satisfying package that can rival many of the top RPG's for the hand-held, and pretty lengthy too so far (I have yet to beat it!). But, as I said previously, it's a bit restricted to those familiar with role-playing games already. Final Review: 8/10

The actual game mechanics are novel and are fun to learn but then it gets down to a game of smash every crate(at least twice if it respawns)and kill enemies until you complete a tic tac toe like grid, all within a limited number of turns. The story line is not particularly compelling, in part because they try to build things up by being overly mysterious. Still it is an interesting way to fight so if you aren't looking for a final fantasy style storyline and want something a little more like a dungeon crawl this may be the game for you.

Knights in the Nightmare is an incredibly well made title that is also really unique amongst strategy games. To get it out of the way ASAP, if you're expecting something in the mold of Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics, you can just close the page now. Knights is far more unique, harder to grasp, and ultimately far more compelling to play - IF you don't mind being very, very patient with it. Even after you learn how to play the game (the "First time" section of the tutorial - which is mandatory - is something like 15 lessons long off the top of my head), you'll still have to put up with some lengthy decisions pre- and post-battle. Setting up each round in particular is something that can take you 5-10 minutes.

That being said, there is nothing out there like Knights in the Nightmare. Blending a tactical, chess-like experience with the arcadey thrills of a "bullet hell" shooter is refreshing. The art and music is beautiful (if you appreciate killer sprite work, which in 2009 may be a tough sell for those gamers who grew up playing Halo), and the story is dark and compelling. Basically, everything except the learning curve is excellent.

If you think you have the patience to attack a dense strategy game like this, and you're looking for something a little different, than by all means give KitN a shot. Just remember, it's definitely one of those games where what you get out of it depends on how much you want to put into it.

(it is my first english review, so please do not be to harsh with typos and grammar)

"Nights in the Knightmare" is the newest and fourth game within the Riviera-titles and in certain points very unique.

The most unique point about the game is the gameplay itself - a mixture of slotmachine, "four in a row", active time battle, shooter and SRPG. You are being forced to some tactical thinking too by not being able to move a lot of your allies during battle.

Sounds confusing, right? Well it is, at least in the first place. The makers seemed to know this, so they put a load of tutorials into the game and trust me, you have to read 'em to know what`s going on. The single steps are being presented in tiny bits of information you can select via a menu at any time. So you got no big tutorial, but a load of small ones and in case you don't get something you just select it once more. However, as good as the tutorials are you will not get used to the gameplay till you played the maingame for some time, but you need the information you gained there to know at least what`s going on.

The gameplay is real hard to review since it is so unique and got a lot to describe and due to my "not so perfect" skills in english I would never try to explain in detail I guess. But trust me, even tough it may look confusing and weird you get used to it pretty quickly after reading the tutorials and trying some battles in the story. It is fresh and does make a lot of fun.

The storytelling is also kinda unique. Before every battle you get storyelements of the present, after each battle of the past. It makes the story a bit confusing at times, but that way of storytelling keeps everything interesting. Not to mention the story is deep and also rather mature.

The graphics are real good. Sure, it`s just 2D, but the sprites are real well done and the handmade backgrounds and character artworks are outstanding. While the whole game may be a bit colorfull to it never turns out to be cheesy due to dark colors and a lot of black. Specialattacks are being prerendered and look just awesome.

The sound is not bad either. Sounds may get a bit monotonous and repeat a lot but the music can keep up with the best RPGs out there.

The only real problem I see is the fact "Knights" got only one slot for saving. So if you are thinking about sharing the game with you friends, husband, wife, brother, sister or whatever you better forget that right away.

"Knights in the Knightmare" sure is a piece of art - a very special one. It may not be for the usual SRPG-fan out there, but if you are willing to learn something new and to spend some time for learning it you are rewarded with one of the best portable strategie games of this year.

Like my title suggests, this game feels a lot like playing Trauma Center. You'll be doing all your attacks basically by clicking on one of your units then dragging it across the screen to attack.

It's definitely a steep learning curve for an RPG but if your like me and have played previous games made by STING (Yggdra Union and Riviera) , you'll find that it's worth learning how to play it. Oh and don't worry for you newcomers the game comes with an optional and very extensive tutorial.

I wouldn't recommend this game to everyone though, if you can't stand a wildly different styled game....this just isn't for you, go back and play your traditional RPG. If your longing for something new and fresh, this is a must buy.

First off, I have to mention that this game is the first that I've come across that uses the touch screen in a way that is not cliched and gimmicky. While most games I've seen on the DS that use the touch screen technology allow to play the game using the touch screen OR the D pad and buttons, KitN is a game that could not exist without the touch screen. So my hat is off immediately to this game for that alone.

As far as gameplay goes, it is very intimidating game to jump into, with there being TONS of tutorial stuff to go through and a lot of information to absorb, most of which must be understood in order to do well in the game and simply to know how to play, but once you start to get into it, it becomes less confusing, but there are still a lot of things to consider.

The story is very interesting and it is really cool how they present it to you in both flashbacks and what is going on now as you play. My only complaint about the story is that it isn't really integrated into the gameplay that much. I feel like they could both exist on their own. But, the pause talks are supposed to be that link between the two, but I always forget to do that because I'm so into the gameplay.

I played through on easy and it WAS very easy. I only died on one level and it was only about halfway through the game. This difficulty is definitely good for beginners though because I just started playing on the normal difficulty and the difference is IMMEDIATELY recognized. Harder monsters earlier in the game, your weapons don't do as much damage, you actually have to worry about collect gems because your magic depletes rapidly and I'm sure there's more things too.

The bonus audio CD and AMAZING art book, packed with not just art but comments from artists and game designers and a lot of information on the backstory of the many many knights featured in the game. It really makes you appreciate all that the game team has brought to the table with this grand piece of video gaming.

I always point out my perspective first: a relative newcomer to gaming. I got into it because my kids love it. My two favorite categories are RPG and Puzzle. I originally downloaded a demo of this from my Wii and after trying to figure it out basically just decided it was not for me--seemed too complicated and ornate. I did pick up a copy for my daughter (teen) who is a very good gamer. It came with a soundtrack and my fate was sealed when she asked to play the soundtrack in the car. The music is haunting and dramatic, rich and resonating--I was transfixed by it and decided I must play the game.

Well I've since started and finished this game. I consider it one of the most rewarding games I've ever played on my DSi. It took a while to figure out what I was doing and there was a definite trial and error period but the tutorials are superb and you can go back to them at any time. I do not like first person shooters or action games and had never played a bullet type game previously -- so for those who are afraid because these terms are used don't be. If you can handle a complex challenge and have perseverance and patience you will become very emotionally invested in this world. I cannot emphasize enough how amazing the story is -- and the way it unfolds is masterful. I could, literally, not stop playing this and even called out sick one day to finish the game.

I'm not going to describe the gameplay because, frankly, until you experience it or watch it you're not going to understand much anyway. I didn't. The bottom line is that if you love a good story, amazing art and music in your RPG you owe it to yourself to spend a few hours with this title. Don't give up in the beginning. You'll get the hang of it as the best way is to immerse yourself in the game. I even cried at one point (I never cry). Most enthusiastically recommended!

The game itself is a bullet hell shooter, and as a first-timer in the hell shooter genre using a stylus, it was frustrating. Don't give up though because the game is a amazing once you get used to it. The only real con I can say about the game is that although it teaches the basics, it doesn't fully explain everything without personally going through a list of subjects.

About the package itself, it came a day earlier than I expected it to arrive which is a great plus, and everything was in great condition.