I brought it up once or twice before, citing one of the heroes in it sports some kickass Kamen Rider goggles, which I have found are standard issue if you’re sun-gun toting, vampire hunting, warrior of justice in the world of Lunar Knights!

I’d heard endless greatness about its predecessor, the Boktai Series, but was always turned off by its key game element of needing to find actual sunlight in order to power up your fighter to take down vampire bosses. I mean, when I have time to actually see sunlight, chances are pretty unlikely I’ll be looking into a Game Boy. Lunar Knights steps up and out of the gate does away with its original name, reboots the Boktai universe and does away with its external light sensor in favor of using the upper screen on the DS to show the changing of night and day.

I picked this up yesterday and was into it not long afterwards. While this is nothing to some, I clocked in an unprecedented 2 hours in on the game the first run through and found myself hard pressed to put it down.

In Knights you follow the stories of the dark swordsman Lucian (Sabata in Japan) and the gunslinger in training Aaron (Django in Nihon), two young vampire hunters looking to rid the world of the vampire menace that threatens to engulf the entire planet. It plays as an Action-RPG style game in the same vein as the immortal Legend of Zelda, before it went all 3D, with some customizable leveling elements to jack up your fighters in stats and to power up their weapons. Interspersed throughout the game are excellently executed anime cut-scenes that punctuate the receiving of a new weapon or get you jazzed to take on your latest vampiric foe.

There’s also a unique shooter element, where your hero reaches to the sky and with cry of, “LAPLACE!!!” a Big O looking robot will rocket out of the sky, pick you up along with the latest vamp you waxed, transform and take off into orbit so that you can finish off the fiend once and for all on a sunlight harnessing space station.

The Nintendo DS clocks in for itself yet another killer app, and has been kickin’ butts and counting over at GameRankings.Com. If you get yourself an extra 29 bucks in your pocket and or some games to trade in, hit this game up and I assure you you’ll be most pleased.

[HJU Discussion]

Posted by JaredSol