Complete Devastation: Knights in the Nightmare Ending Analysis

Zolgonark: an evil zombie dragon from Hell. Credit: Square Faction

I finally finished Knights in the Nightmare, and boy, the ending's a doozy. (SPOILERS, obviously.)

The whole game had been building up to Wilmgard's (the Wisp's) final confrontation with Lord Zolgonark, the King of the Underworld, who had been summoned to Earth (or whatever the realm between Asgard and the Underworld is called). The battle's pretty epic, with three heads to defeat and a demonic soul that continues to live on after the body's destruction. Just before the player reduces Zolgonark to skin and bones, however, they can use a key item on him, and he will say:

"Order is nothing but an empty world. You know this."

Keep those words in mind.

Next, Wilmgard must fight Melad Margus, the angel Melissa's form upon absorbing Zolgonark's corpse. If Wilmgard loses, the narrator declares that Margus will devastate the universe, rending it asunder with the forces of chaos. There is something hopeful about this outcome, however, for after destruction comes rebirth.

The ending the player receives upon Wilmgard's victory is much bleaker.

When Wilmgard defeats Melad Margus, has he saved the universe from destruction
or stamped out its only hope for renewal? Credit: Lacrima Castle Message Boards

Zolgonark's monsters have killed EVERYONE in the world. Seriously. There are no more knights, no more commoners, no more Tiamats, and no more Westkin. Wilmgard's soul and the angel Maria are left to wander aimlessly in the desolated land for eternity, just as Zolgonark predicted. This isn't even an Adam and Eve scenario, as Wilmgard doesn't have a body with which to repopulate the world, and Maria's a different kind of being altogether.

There is hope in the fact that Asgard (read: Heaven) still exists, but little affection can be had for its angel inhabitants, considering their lack of compassion for the suffering Tiamats and Westkin, as well as their indifference to the whole Zolgonark affair.

The finale is the culmination of all the uncertainty the player has felt the whole game; uncertainty about what's happened, why it happened, who the Wisp is, what the Wisp is doing, and most of all, if it should be doing what it is doing. Wilmgard cut down anything and anyone who stood in his way, and now he is left with nothing - a powerful conclusion to an excellent story.

Knights in the Nightmare Analysis 2: Destined for Brutality

An adorable witch's last words.

Wisp, you are a heartless b*****d.

As peachy as restoring the kingdom sounds (see my last post on Knights in the Nightmare), ultimately, the Wisp is a floating ball of light devoid of any apparent personality. Yes, the game later reveals that the Wisp (spoiler alert!) is in fact King Wilmgard's soul, but this is not reflected in the dialogue. The Wisp blankly listens to things being said, offering no opinion. It can hear the souls of the kingdom's dead knights, prepare them for battle, and even sacrifice them to strengthen others, but it cannot hold a conversation with them.

The Wisp's lack of thought translates into a total lack of agency for the player. Oh, there's plenty of choice - different items to use, and knights to train - but these actions are all done for the purpose of killing. Knights takes a step back from the moral choices of Mass Effect and Bioshock, deliberately placing the player in a situation where their only power is to destroy, perhaps akin to Hotline Miami. While his subjects lauded him with praise, Wilmgard is seen as a tyrant by the Mehse and Tiamat peoples, and this aspect of his personality becomes his defining characteristic as the brutal Wisp.

Mass Effect: Terribly difficult moral choices.

Knights: See a general? KILL.

The player has two duties as the Wisp: restoring order to the kingdom as its former king, and maintaining dimensional boundaries as the divinely-appointed Arbitrator. I remember feeling this sense of purpose while playing, which added to the visceral thrill of butchering traitors and sending demons back to where they came from.

But then, the game takes a different direction: it sends the player off to the western lands in search of Wilmgard's body. Here, you encounter the disheveled, sometimes-undead Mehse people, whose lives have become defined by their oppression by Wilmgard's kingdom. The game offers no chance to make amends - instead, you must plough through every Mehse who stands in your way. During one instance in particular, the happy victory music seemed unsettlingly out-of-place as I watched a little Mehse witch I had just defeated take her final breaths. Suddenly, I didn't feel so good about my senseless slaughter of the aforementioned traitors.

The fate of the Tiamats doesn't look good either, considering they're keeping Wilmgard's own body away from him (and thus sealing their doom).

The game even taunts the player, posing scathing questions about how far they will go to take back their kingdom. These are made all the more meaningful by the fact that even in-game, the Wisp can offer no reply.

Knights in the Nightmare Analysis 1: Decay and Restoration

(From Destructoid)

 Often cited as an under-appreciated gem, Knights in the Nightmare turned heads with its daring combination of bullet-hell and strategy elements. Often glossed over, however, are its impeccable atmosphere and themes, which perfectly complement the gameplay. (I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm on Scene 40 of approximately 46, so I think I can give a justified opinion.) (Also, spoilers ahead.)

Richard Terrell notes the prevalence of decay in his somewhat harsh, but well-written analysis of Knights' game design. Specifically, he mentions features like weapon degradation and the gradual loss of "Time" by attacking and getting hit by enemy attacks.

Decay is also an important aspect of Knights' story. Images of King Wilmgard in all his glory are presented after certain battles, showing the king speaking with all the grace of a just ruler, and insisting to his advisers that he must see the people, and put their needs first. It is this idealized version of the past which slowly decays both as the story progresses, and as the player learns more about Wilmgard.

As Cardinal Capehorn and his allies unfurl their claws, people mysteriously disappear. Monsters attack seemingly at random. The king and his retinue are regularly sent from the castle to deal with rumours of unrest. Ultimately, Law becomes Chaos (as reflected by the phase changes in the battle system), and by the time the murdered Wilmgard reawakens as the Wisp, Aventheim Castle has been taken over by the freaking King of the Underworld, and it seems like nearly everyone is dead.

Enter: King Wilmgard, Restorer of Aventheim

This is where the theme of restoration comes into play. Every scene, the player clears another area of monsters, or kills one of the bigger baddies. Each recruitment of a knight's soul is treated as a special moment, with some truly uplifting music to mark the occasion. Slowly, with the divine power of the Arbitrator, the Wisp is restoring the kingdom to its previous state, pushing away the darkness and filling it with light...

...but only up to a point. A pretty important point, I might add. While the state of the kingdom starts at rock-bottom and only improves, the player's opinion of Wilmgard starts pretty high and only decreases. This man may have been a great warrior and leader, but he was easily duped by Capehorn, and his parenting skills of Nordich leave much to be desired (spoiled brat!). Worst of all, however, is how he deals with other races, and his extremely narrow approach to diplomacy (read: violence).

More on that in my next post...