Imperial Knights Guides

This hub is the map for every Imperial Knights tutorial on the wiki. The Steam build from Kagura Games is a long, branching RPG Maker campaign: you join the Adventurers’ Guild as Diana Ashley, pick a path that cannot be undone in that save, then spend dozens of hours clearing towns, dungeons, and optional jobs. If you only open one page after buying the game, make it the beginner guide. If you already reached the guild counter, jump to the route split before you click a fee option.

What these guides cover

Imperial Knights is not a live-service title. There are no daily login codes and no Roblox-style scripts. Players search for how to start, which route to pick first, how combat armor-break works, how to become an Ether Knight, and whether the Kagura patch is required. Each of those questions has its own page so you can skim a hub or dive into a full chart.

• Getting started — install, first rooms, selling the old dress, and the guild-fee fork.
• Route guide — exact Route 1 / 2 / 3 conditions, party lists, and who should play which path first.
• Combat — four-slot turns, elements, Repair Kits, binds, and boss patterns such as Mud Poison.
• Walkthrough — Route 1 in story order from Maldonia North Road to the castle basement.
• World map — towns, roads, and dungeons by route so you stop hunting a Machant NPC on Route 1.
• Guild quests — lighthouse hydra, arena, casino ship, and the Route 2 / 3 extras.
• Ether Knight — Spirit Cave, hair-color choice, and what the class actually changes.
• New Game+ — what a clear file keeps and why Routes 2 and 3 wait.
• Controls — keyboard layout, day/night, and Steam Deck notes.
• Patch — Kagura’s Steam/GOG extra-content patch and why the store copy differs from Steam’s storefront build.
• Review — who the game is for, length, and how it sits next to Slave’s Sword.

Use the route planner if you want a one-screen decision tree, and the completion checklist when you start New Game+. The PC nav dropdown only lists the first seven of these plus a View-all link; everything else lives here.

How the campaign is structured

Circle Poison designed Imperial Knights as three campaigns that share a premise. Diana wants to help her father Robert and understand why her sister Luna walked away from the empire. The Adventurers’ Guild is the legal way for a civilian to take requests, earn rank, and eventually stand in front of the emperor as an Ether Knight — the continent’s strongest knight order. The high road (pay the fee yourself) puts you with church healers and imperial knights. The borrowed-money road (let Sting cover the fee) dumps you into a bandit hideout; whether you escape or submit splits the remaining two stories. Kagura’s store copy spells this out as “only by exploring both routes can you see all of the empire’s many faces,” and the Japanese original sold the same idea with the line “you can play it at least three times.”

Because allies are temporary, then re-hireable as mercenaries, a guide that only lists “who joins” is incomplete. You also need to know when they leave, when to strip their gear, and which cards still work after the story party dissolves. The party overview and party tier list exist for that handoff.

Suggested reading order

1. Getting started plus controls on the first evening.
2. Routes before the guild-fee prompt. Do not improvise that click.
3. Combat as soon as you see visible enemies on Maldonia North Road.
4. Walkthrough when you want a checklist instead of a systems essay.
5. World map if you are lost on which town owns which dungeon.
6. Guild quests after junior rank, not during Protea.
7. Ether Knight after Seikuri Village, not before — the class is gated.
8. New Game+ after a clear. Review if you are still on the fence about the 18+ tag.

Updates and extras sit outside this hub: Steam launch notes, DLC, and official links. If a Steam screenshot, trailer, or store bullet disagrees with an older DLsite chart, this wiki prefers the English Kagura/Steam names (Diana Ashley, Tear Lamley, Lysithea, Ether Knights) and calls out Japanese aliases in parentheses where they help search.

How we keep pages useful

Every guide here is written from public Steam, Kagura, and long-form Japanese charts. We do not invent YouTube IDs, and we keep adult systems (armor-break, optional night work, defeat scenes) described as mechanics and flags, not scene transcripts. If you want the explicit gallery, the in-game recollection menu after a route clear is the right tool; if you want to beat Mud Poison, hire Lea, or unlock the normal ending, stay on these pages.

When a new Kagura patch or DLC quest appears, it lands on Updates first, then we fold the mechanical bits back into combat, walkthrough, and the checklist. Start anywhere — just do not skip the route split.