Edit: Was playing the DS version
Never have I played a game that has asked so much from the player.
So, little bit of background, I tend to dislike most turn-based JRPGs. Pure turn-based (ala DQ) bores me, and the min-maxing of active time battle system (ala FF or CT) make me rush and I end up screwing up my menu selections or something. Knights in the Nightmare manages to have a battle system that is both exciting but doesn't require you to rush. They've got a unique and extremely strong blend of real-time and turn-based elements here. Once you've got everything figured out and you're doing your thing, it's some of the most fun I've ever had in any RPG's battle system.
But oh boy oh boy, this game is daunting. The tutorial is an HOUR long and that still really only tells you enough to get by. There's about a gazillion subsystems and numbers at work here. I didn't feel like I really understood how to properly play this game until I was halfway through it, and by then I realized I had actually skipped my opportunity to get the good ending. The fact that I always want the good ending combined with the realization that I was playing the game wrong made me restart the game from the very beginning. Did I mention that I hated that the game only gives you one save slot?
So I ran through the first half of the game again, fulfilled the requirements to get the good ending (which are COMPLETE BULLSHIT btw), and then finished it all up and got the good ending. The whole process took me about 40-60 hours of gameplay. Oh, and now there's a whole new mode to play through! It honestly feels like the developers intended for you to invest hundreds of hours in the game and do like four playthroughs. Very demanding game. It can be a lot of fun, but the game was already starting to wear thin around the last 10 scenes or so. I can't imagine playing this game 3-4 times.
If you guys want to hear the full, unholy glory that is the true ending requirements, here they are, spoiler free. First, in Scene 23, you have to stick a Warrior in one particular square so that he can hit a seemingly unremarkable blank square with his weapon. There's an INVISIBLE breakable object on that square. And not only do you have to break it once, you have to break it TWICE. The game doesn't give hints for any of this. Once you've finally broken that square, you go to hidden Scene 23.5. In this hidden Scene, you find yourself face to face with a secret boss surrounded by 6 chests. A key item you need is randomly hidden in one of the chests. The way chests work in this game, you have to do enough damage to open the chest but not enough to break the chest and the item inside. In most of the game, that means doing something like 60-99% damage to the chests. These particular chests are much more strict, and you have to do at least 80 or 85% damage to them. That's a tricky task, since a single attack can take off 25-50% damage based on how much you charge. So it's a bit of a guessing game to find that sweet spot. So if you break the chest, you may have broken the key item you need. To add FURTHER insult to injury, the boss himself will randomly go about breaking chests. I basically had to retry this scene about 8-10 times before I finally got the item I needed.
Never have I played a game that has asked so much from the player.
So, little bit of background, I tend to dislike most turn-based JRPGs. Pure turn-based (ala DQ) bores me, and the min-maxing of active time battle system (ala FF or CT) make me rush and I end up screwing up my menu selections or something. Knights in the Nightmare manages to have a battle system that is both exciting but doesn't require you to rush. They've got a unique and extremely strong blend of real-time and turn-based elements here. Once you've got everything figured out and you're doing your thing, it's some of the most fun I've ever had in any RPG's battle system.
But oh boy oh boy, this game is daunting. The tutorial is an HOUR long and that still really only tells you enough to get by. There's about a gazillion subsystems and numbers at work here. I didn't feel like I really understood how to properly play this game until I was halfway through it, and by then I realized I had actually skipped my opportunity to get the good ending. The fact that I always want the good ending combined with the realization that I was playing the game wrong made me restart the game from the very beginning. Did I mention that I hated that the game only gives you one save slot?
So I ran through the first half of the game again, fulfilled the requirements to get the good ending (which are COMPLETE BULLSHIT btw), and then finished it all up and got the good ending. The whole process took me about 40-60 hours of gameplay. Oh, and now there's a whole new mode to play through! It honestly feels like the developers intended for you to invest hundreds of hours in the game and do like four playthroughs. Very demanding game. It can be a lot of fun, but the game was already starting to wear thin around the last 10 scenes or so. I can't imagine playing this game 3-4 times.
If you guys want to hear the full, unholy glory that is the true ending requirements, here they are, spoiler free. First, in Scene 23, you have to stick a Warrior in one particular square so that he can hit a seemingly unremarkable blank square with his weapon. There's an INVISIBLE breakable object on that square. And not only do you have to break it once, you have to break it TWICE. The game doesn't give hints for any of this. Once you've finally broken that square, you go to hidden Scene 23.5. In this hidden Scene, you find yourself face to face with a secret boss surrounded by 6 chests. A key item you need is randomly hidden in one of the chests. The way chests work in this game, you have to do enough damage to open the chest but not enough to break the chest and the item inside. In most of the game, that means doing something like 60-99% damage to the chests. These particular chests are much more strict, and you have to do at least 80 or 85% damage to them. That's a tricky task, since a single attack can take off 25-50% damage based on how much you charge. So it's a bit of a guessing game to find that sweet spot. So if you break the chest, you may have broken the key item you need. To add FURTHER insult to injury, the boss himself will randomly go about breaking chests. I basically had to retry this scene about 8-10 times before I finally got the item I needed.
