Knights In The Nightmare

Knights In The Nightmare is a jrpg thats part of the Department Heaven series of jrpgs by Sting Entertainment. 

It focuses on a group of undead warriors that fight alongside you to stop the evil forces. 

The game like many of the Department Heaven series, is strategy based in particular this game also combines bullethell elements too. 

You can recruit a huge number of characters throughout your journey. 

The music in the game was pretty good. 

The tutorial of this game, is long and i can safely say this was the longest tutorial i ever been through in a video game because of how complicated the mechanics can be.

Generally, the game is divided into three separate screens: the Setup, which consists of the player preparing for the battle, the "Tactics Screen", which shows a preview of the scenario, and the actual Battle. Except otherwise noted, the game is fully controlled by the Nintendo DS' touchscreen throughout all of these areas. At its core, the general gameplay mostly resembles a turn-based strategy role-playing game, but it also extensively uses elements from several other genres, such as real-time strategy and bullet hell. 

In this screen, the player is allowed to prepare for the upcoming battle. This screen gives several options to allow the player to look up the stats and info of the playable Knights, Equipment, and special items available. This is, however, the only screen in which the player can level up the Knights (the characters used for attacking enemies) and Equipment (the items used for damaging the enemies). 

The experience points gathered from the previous battles is accumulated into this screen and then given to the player to choose where to distribute, not to the Knights themselves as in most role-playing games. Those that do gain the extra levels are rewarded for more access to higher-level Equipment and a small amount of "Vitality". Similarly, Equipment are given items which can be used to "level up" in a special manner so that they are more powerful and have additional bonuses. However, this puts the potential of not having enough experience for other Knights, or the risk of losing the Knight/Equipment obtained, or simply having a bad level/upgrade. 

There is also an option to "Transoul" (or "transfer one's soul") a Knight to another Knight, since all of the playable Knights are considered dead excluding the central characters. Potentially, this allows for stronger Knights at the risk of losing another and/or having a bad outcome. An extremely large number of conditions exist in this system (such as the past life of the Knights themselves, their elemental affinities, the race of the Knights, etc.) and these conditions must be well regarded in order to have the best possible outcome. 

This screen is done as a final preparation before each battle "turn" is actually initiated. The player can select the Knights, Items, and Equipment in use for the battle, and also look up information on the enemies that will appear in the battle. This mostly resembles common tactical role-playing games in which the player is given time to prepare. 

Also in this screen is the option for the player to change the initial "Phase" of the battle. While this can also be changed during the actual battle, this can be done at will by a flick of the in-game switch. Resembling something like Ikaruga's black and white switch, the two phases can be changed to greatly affect the play of the battle, ranging from damage location to the Equipment used. Where each Equipment has an elemental affinity, each also has a Phase affinity, or, rarely, none at all. Also, each Knight has a point-based affinity to either Phase that can greatly affect the damage output while in battle.

The battles take place in real time on an isometric grid (see Isometric graphics in video games). The "Wisp," which resembles a small ball of light, is controlled via the touchscreen and moves around the field to give orders to allied units. When the wisp comes into contact with a unit that can be controlled, the attack must be aimed by moving around the Wisp into one of the four intermediate compass directions and then lifting the stylus off the touchscreen. However, the wisp will be under constant enemy fire, so the player must guide the Wisp to dodge the shots as well as order the allied units to attack. Normal attacks generate "Gems", which recharge the Magic Point meter. Equipment, such as swords, axes, and magical wands, can be used to generate Skill Attacks which can kill enemies and destroy objects on the field. 

Despite having a timer, "time" is only deducted for charging attacks and when the player's wisp takes "damage" from on-screen bullets. 

Thus the player has virtually unlimited "time" to plan strategies and in this manner resembles other turn-based strategy role-playing games, but this is done instead in real time. If there is any "time" left, it can be converted in the Pause Menu to either Experience Points or Magic Points and will end the battle "turn". 

To further change the pace of the battlefield, the game has a "Rush Count" system. Each time an enemy is hit, this counter ups by one and activates the condition associated with that number, as long as that number remains the same between hits and if there is one available. For example, one hit to an enemy may give a Rush Count number of replenishing to a Knight, similar to how a healing potion works in common role-playing games, while another hit may give maximum health to the enemy.

Excluding boss battles, the goal of each battle is not to defeat as many enemies as possible, but to align the enemy deaths in a tic-tac-toe style (that is, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) across the "Enemy Matrix" (which is displayed at the bottom of the screen) labeled in-game by "KILL markers". This isn't accomplished in one "turn", but over multiple, since the enemies are selected manually by the player via roulette. Since boss battles always have one central enemy to kill, this system isn't used, and is instead represented by a health bar going across the bottom of the screen, but these bosses normally have extremely large amounts of health and deploy larger amounts of bullet hell-like instances. 

However, there are a limited number of times the player can have in any of these battles. Permadeath exists as characters have a "Vitality" stat which decreases when they use skills, and the same applies to the Equipment, but is referred in-game as "Durability". Vitality is replenished through leveling up in the Setup screen, the "Transoul" system, and other special circumstances such as the "Rush Count" system, while Durability is similarly acquired from merging like Equipment. 

The graphics were pretty decent and the art too was good. 

I like how the game, gives you a chance to revisit levels to grind and not proceed to the point of danger like alot of strategy jrpgs by Sting Entertainment or the earlier Fire Emblem games. 

This game overall was pretty interesting but not flawless sadly. 

It gets 4 out of 5 stars. 

This game had alot of interesting ideas, but not exactly the best execution and with a remaster thats still in Limbo internationally its clear that it should have been polished more before releasing it. 

In alot of ways i prefer this to Undertale because I'm more so familar with ATLUS works than anything thats from Toby Fox. 

So if you really prefer a bullet hell jrpg over undertale then this would be it.