Sting’s newest title in the Dept. Heaven series, Knights in the Nightmare (ナイツ・イン・ザ・ナイトメア) is about an ancient castle Avenheim (アーヴェンヘイム) which is built on an island in Saint Celestina lake. This castle is home to a great king who united the peoples of the world some ages ago. Suddenly a mysterious force summoned a demon named Zolgonac (ゾルゴナーク) from the realm of the dead inside the castle walls. The king’s knights tried to defeat Zolgonac, but in the process the demon releases darkness, or Nightmare, upon the world. This Nightmare transforms all the knights of the king into wandering spirits who roam the castle.

Far to the east in a silent forest, a wisp is awoken by a mysterious girl named Mary inside of a decaying church. The wisp has no memory of the events that brought the earth to it’s current state. For the sake of learning what truly happened inside Avenheim the wisp and Mary, make their way to the ancient castle. The wisp soon realizes that he has the ability to temporarily revive the spirits of the knights who wander the castle grounds.

Quite a unique story, but Sting’s forté is creating unique battle systems. In Knights in the Nightmare, the main character, or the wisp fights with allies, but his allies are wandering spirits that he effectively controls. This is reminiscent of NIS’s Phantom Brave, in which the main character Marona summoned spirits into inanimate objects to fight for her.As with Phantom Brave, these captured souls are not permanent. They have a limited amount of VIT (vitality), which is breathed into them by Wisp. Battles expel VIT, and if a captured soul’s VIT is reduced to nothing, they dissipate. So what’s the point right? Well luckily through the Tran-Soul system you can transfer VT from unit to unit between battles. Doing so forces the soul which is donating it’s VIT to dissipate.

Information on this title is still sparse, as more becomes available I will update. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, you should take a look at the other titles in Sting’s Dept. Heaven series:

Episode 1–Riviera the Promised Land GBA and PSP
Episode 2–Yggdra Union
*NOTE* Knights in the Nightmare is episode 4 in the series, but episode 3 has not yet been revealed.

Knights in the Nightmare is scheduled to be released on July 17, 2008 in Japan. The game’s official website can be found here. Since both the other Dept. Heaven titles were brought over, it’s almost guaranteed that we well get a localization of the next installment.

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