"I must hurry. Before the nightmare engulfs me...Before the wisp of hope is lost...I have to survive!" That's sounds mysteriously lifted from a page of my junior high girlfriend's "poetry" notebook back in '91. I haven't kept in touch. Perhaps she
is working at Atlus nowadays.
This video for
Knights in the Nightmare (still a cooler-sounding title than 98% of JRPGs out there) opens with that aforementioned bit of effete despair, then digs into the splashy effects of the Duelist, Warrior, Archer, Wizard, Priestess, Hermit (the cover girl), and Lance Knight. The soundtrack -- a thumpy mix of orchestra, chant, and dancehall -- also somehow manages to prevent me from throwing up in my size nine-and-a-halfs (another made-up 98% statistic insulting the bulk of JRPG soundtracks goes here), plus the menu system throws a layer of grit over the typified happy-shiny HUDs, which serves at least a
little in combating the hackneyed conventions of a staid genre.
(So, Randy, what you're saying is, the
less like a mill-run JRPG
Knights in the Nightmare is, the
more you like it?)
Sure. Sue me. The artwork on this DS release is mighty lush as well. That script sure won't save the game, though. See for yourself:
This second video is a corny-voiced tutorial video, part 1. I think you'll be immediately surprised by the unique, stylus-driven movement scheme going on, in real-time, during the combat rounds.
