Special Features: This game features GBA-to-DS connectivity with a few bonuses. If you put Yggdra Union in your GBA slot, you’ll get a few little nifty things, such as a cameo by the titular Princess Yggdra giving you a slightly different tutorial than the default one and a few other minor benefits. While not essential, it is spiffy. Also, first edition copies of this game should come with a soundtrack CD and a nice artbook; both are highly recommended.

Describing this game is hard. It’s primarily a Tactical RPG, but most of that genre’s conventions don’t apply here. For example, you not only have to worry about your troops... you have to keep yourself safe. Knights in the Nightmare is set in a typical fantasy world, but rather than being an all-seeing eye from above, you control a ’wisp’ (a spiritual ball of light) that can possess your troops and make them fight. In turn, enemies can fill the screen with tons of projectiles and you have to dodge them while simultaneously giving orders, resulting in a very neat mix of ’bullet hell’ (think Ikaruga, Touhou series, etc.) and the likes of Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics.

This makes Knights in the Nightmare a game that rewards a sharp mind and good twitch reflexes. It’s also a very complex game, and you really should play the tutorial; explaining all the intricate aspects would make this review far too long. But the basic flow of play is that each round is divided by time; you have only a certain window of opportunity in which to give orders to your troops, and stronger attacks require more time to set up. Letting your wisp get hit also deducts time, and the round is over once you run out of time. Thus, you will alternate between making sure characters have the weapons they need, dodging projectiles, and managing the Law and Chaos phases to change which attacks your troops can do. That last one is particularly important, because most characters will not move in the conventional sense; some skills and attacks might move them, but they are otherwise generally immobile and must wait until an enemy’s path brings them into attack range.