I don’t know how they do it, but somehow, Atlus manages to publish about 18,000 games a month. Not only that, but almost all of those games are 40+ hour strategy RPGs. Knights in the Nightmare fits in to that group, but whereas most Atlus RPGs are nearly indistinguishable from one another in terms of gameplay, Knights in the Nightmare does things very differently.

Knights in the Nightmare is, strangely enough, something of a cross between between Spectral Force and Big Bang Mini. You control a small ball of light that moves about the game board selecting units and items, and targeting, attacking and evading enemies. There are fighting units on the top screen, but you are unable to move them or control them directly. Instead, you use the stylus to control ball of light to decide who they’ll attack. You’ll also choose your weapons, break items, gather jewels released by damaged enemies, and, most importantly, dodge enemy fire. When enemy creatures attack, the projectiles they spray about the screen don’t endanger your fighters, but instead cause you to lose time if they hit your ball of light. 

In theory, these mechanics sound great, but the addition of too many combat elements, clumsy controls and a crowded play screen turn the experience into an exercise in frustration. There’s a seemingly unnecessary “day/night” mechanic in use that forces you to switch phases in order to use the game's phase-specific weapons and keep all-important jewels flowing. Activating it requires you to draw a counter-clockwise circle around a small icon on the left side of the screen. This icon rarely picks up on your command, leading to aggravating moments where players waste valuable time furiously spinning their stylus tip around it to no avail. While doing that, players are likely to accidentally grab items, activate warriors, or do any number of things they didn’t mean to because the play-field is simply too crowded with icons and information and the controls aren’t accurate enough to navigate the congested screen. It feels like the developer should have stopped developing halfway through the cycle, instead of piling on more and more gameplay facets that rather than enhance the game, turn it into a confusing mess.

While there isn’t much to see on the screen, due to the overabundance of menus and selectable items, what is there is decent-looking. Character sprites are small and don’t feature much animation, but they’re well-designed in that Atlus kind of way. It’s so difficult to focus on any single thing on the screen longer than a few seconds, though, that much of the game’s aesthetic qualities go unnoticed. There’s a skeleton of a plot in play as well, but the game is really all about the combat; the often baffling, sometimes exhilarating combat. 

I applaud Atlus for trying something new and extremely different with the repetitive strategy RPG genre. There’s no doubt that Knights in the Nightmare is a truly one-of-a-kind experience, and a concept that has some potential. There are times when the gameplay is fun and frantic, and avoiding enemies’ shots while strategizing your own attacks can be a blast, but more often than not, it’s just chaotic and confusing. Despite a tutorial that takes about an hour and a half to complete, the controls never feel comfortable. Moreover, the story never draws you in, battles take forever, diminishing the game’s allure as a portable experience, and the fact that you play as a ball of light introduces a layer of separation from the game’s characters that ensures your disinterest in their fates. It’s not a failure by any means, but to call Knights in the Nightmare a success would be overstating it. Instead, it’s a fascinating but flawed attempt to throw an all-new twist into an established genre. I can’t recommend the game as it is, but I am looking forward to a more polished, streamlined sequel.