Knights in the Nightmare Nintendo Channel demo impressions

We may have to wait until June 2, 2009 to actually purchase and play Atlus’ Knights in the Nightmare, but thanks to the Wii and the Nintendo Channel, we can already breeze through the tutorial and learn how to play. Knights in the Nightmare has just appeared as a DS demo download on the Nintendo Channel, and will remain there until May 17, 2009. You might want to get out your DS and briefly set up camp beside your Wii when you get home!

For those of you who don’t have the luxury of accessing the DS Download Service, Gamertell’s here to help. Yesterday, after finding out from the Atlus Faithful newsletter that the demo was waiting to be played, I hurried home to try it out.

First, a bit of background on Knights in the Nightmare. It’s a strategic RPG from Sting, who also created Riviera: The Promised Land, Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone and the Dokapon games. Knights in the Nightmare can seem confusing if you take it at face value without learning more about it. The player is a Wisp, guided by a Valkyrie named Maria, who can control knights who have fallen in battle by possessing them. At the same time, enemies are trying to attack the Wisp, so you have to quickly dodge and move around on the touch screen, hurrying to knights so you can possess them and defeat the enemies. The ultimate goal is to escape a historic castle called Aventheim, and discover what happened in the past to shape what is going to happen in the future.

Like the Avalon Code demo, the Knights in the Nightmare demo basically chops the tutorial out of the main games and makes it available as a sample for eagerly anticipating masses.