Imagine if you went to your local 5-star steakhouse, the Sting Entertainment. You walk in, sit down, and get right to the chase. You pick up the menu, skim through, and find your meal for tonight. The Knights in the Nightmare.

You haven't heard very much about this steakhouse, as most people have never heard of it, but the ones that have told you about it have sung its praises to high heavens. And you've also heard that it serves the most unique steaks and sides in the world. There is one steak in particular that everyone who has gone to the restaurant talks about. The Knights in the Nightmare. This steak won't be your average piece of meat. This steak is juicy and savory in ways the world has never seen. The food will flood your palate with an overwhelming taste. And when they say overwhelming, they MEAN overwhelming. There have been so many stories of ignorant, uncultured customers taking one bite, and bolting out of the eatery; a fight-or-flight response violently triggered by the absolutely incomprehensible food they were tasting. But you know you won't be filtered. You know your taste is much more refined than any casual.

Time passes as you wait anxiously in anticipation of the allegedly world-shattering meal you're about to eat. And then it finally arrives. The Knights in the Nightmare. A huge plate of the most beautiful potatoes you have ever seen, along with a gorgeous slice of steak. The stories are looking to be true. It smells great, and the food is presented so well that it almost makes you sad that you're gonna have to eat it. There seems to be a ton of potatoes, but you don't mind, it looks delicious after all. And then you take your first bite. It nearly knocks you out of your seat. All these different flavors are almost too much for you. But as you chew, you're slowly able to understand every single component, as they mix together to create one, single, unified, exquisite taste. These may be the greatest potatoes you have ever eaten. You just keep eating and eating. Then you try some of the steak too. The same sequence of events occurs, but at the end, it tastes even better. You conclude that this is one of the best meals you've ever had in your life. But you still have to finish eating.

As you eat the potatoes, something odd begins to happen. You're no longer blown away with eat bite of the potatoes. You eat a little faster and faster, taking less time to really savor the taste. You start getting... bored. But the huge mound of potatoes laid before you isn't even close to finished. Every now and then, you take a sip of your wine, and it's good. You take a bite out of your steak, and it's still wonderful. In fact, you begin wishing that your plate was comprised of nothing but this steak, or at least a lot less potatoes. You hold out hope that the potatoes will give you something close to the feeling that you felt when you started eating them, but they continue to taste worse and worse in your mouth, until finally, you've had your fill. You pay your bill, get up, and leave the plate; at this point, you can't even stand the sight of the potatoes. And yet, you can't help but feel very disappointed as you exit the restaurant, thinking about what could've been.

Now apply this feeling to a single game, and you get Sting's Knights in the Nightmare. I was really excited to play this game; a hybrid of strategy, JRPG, RTS, and bullet hell elements. And when I first started playing it, I loved it. The gameplay was fun like nothing I had ever seen before, the music was good, the story was a little sparse but still told in an interesting format. Great spritework too. But man, it's so easy to get burnt out. Normal random encounters are fun at first, but there is such a small variety of normal enemies that it gets repetitive very quickly. And yet, due to the nature of the game, they still require a fair pit of preparation and thought on your part to win. You still need to pick the right elements for your Knights, you still need to pick the right Knights, and you still need to dodge their bullets, and break obstacles. Speaking of obstacles and Knights, the recruitment process is also tedious. In order to recruit new playable characters, you need to find their corresponding item in a previous stage, and deliver it to them in their stage. Do so, and you unlock them permanently. This is well and all, but getting these items is annoying. You need to have one Knight weaken the obstacle carefully, because if you do too much damage to it in one hit, you may skip the HP ranges that give you items. Then, to get the next item, you need to break it with a Warrior Knight's attack. The worst part, however, is that some of these items respawn after some turns in battle, and they'll drop new key items required to recruit Knights. This results in you having to stall out the game in order to recruit everyone. It's boring, and it only serves to drag out the game. Although I'm fairly sure this isn't required at all to beat the game, you won't get a complete understanding of the story if you skip knights, and you'll have less to Transoul. I just wish the game put a lot more emphasis on the boss fights. Those were the best part of the game, by far.

Can't believe treasure looked at sin and punishment 1 and said "what if we made it better".

EVERYTHING is better. The game looks better, though that is a given, as the original was an N64 game and this is a Wii game. But both games have a stellar art style. The game PLAYS better, which more intuitive controls, better stages and even cooler bosses (the last stage 6 boss and the entirety of stage 7 especially dude holy shit). Surprisingly, the game even sounds better; I did not think they would be able to top Yamanaka's work on S&P1's soundtrack. DEFINITELY play this, if you enjoy rail shooters or good games in general.

One of the most unique JRPGs I have EVER played. The game starts fun, stays fun through it's ~20 hour runtime (besides THAT Week 3 mission), and continues to be fun through the end of the POST-game. It's that good. The story is absolutely solid as well, getting even better in the post-game when you're collecting secret reports. I love all of the QoL and features the game has, most notably the selectable difficulty and the chapter select for NG+ (the latter is especially great, as it's rare for an RPG to have a worthwhile NG+ system). Would definitely recommend to anyone.

Pretty good game. The metroidvania structure really doesn't work, and it's compounded by that wack ass map. Otherwise, the game is pretty fun, and I love the OST. Biometal transformations are a cool concept, but you'll likely just end up using model ZX and model H (and model L in the water) all the time. As usual, Inti-creates' bosses continued their steady increase in quality, and at this point, you have some of the best bosses in the Mega Man franchise (though that's not a very high bar when it comes to classic MM and MMX). Story isn't as cool as it was in the Zero series, though.

Oh, and Model Ox is the coolest armor/upgrade in the entire franchise. Bar fucking none.