Imperial Knights review

Imperial Knights is Circle Poison’s 2025–2026 Slave’s Sword spin-off with Diana Ashley in the lead, localized into English by Kagura Games and launched on Steam on 28 August 2026. The store pitch is clean: restore a fallen knight house, join the Adventurers’ Guild, become an Ether Knight. The actual game is a long RPG Maker campaign that splits into three stories before you have a real weapon. This review is for people deciding whether that is a feature or a chore.

It is not a score out of 100. Steam’s first-week English reviews were a small Positive sample; the Japanese original had a year of charts, DLC, and “play it three times” marketing behind it. We will talk about structure, combat, writing, and the 18+ layer as systems. Scene transcripts belong in the in-game gallery, not here.

What works

The split is real. Route 1 is a church-and-empire knight story. Routes 2 and 3 are not palette swaps with extra dialogue. You get different towns, different bosses (Bio Worm’s timed wipe, elf-woods Ariel, Fortress Eraser), and different hires (Lysithea versus Tania versus Ellis). Kagura’s line about seeing “all of the empire’s many faces” is accurate if you actually finish three files. See the route guide.

Combat has a readable identity. Visible encounters, four slots, elemental tables, and an armor-break resource you can plan around with Repair Kits. Bosses telegraph: Mud Poison’s poison cycle, the cardinal’s Sanctuary, the final boss’s seven-turn script. The combat guide exists because those tells are learnable, not random adult pop-ups.

Mercenary recycling is smarter than it looks. Allies leave, then sit on a guild board. You are not stuck with a dead skill tree when Tear walks out before the Ether Knight ritual. The party tier list is short because the roster is small, not because the game lacks builds.

It does not require the previous games. Slave’s Sword cameos on cards and in jokes. Diana’s opening narration is enough. That was a design goal the Japanese page stated out loud, and the English prologue keeps it.

The Ether Knight fantasy lands. You do not start as the strongest order on the continent. You grind guild ranks, clear a poison cave, and only then take the ritual. How to become an Ether Knight is a mid-game ceremony, which is the right weight for the trailer.

Long-form playthrough commentary on Imperial Knights

What grinds

RPG Maker MV is still RPG Maker MV. Menu hitching is documented on the Steam requirements. Maps are functional, not spectacular. If you bounce off Kagura’s other MV ports, this will not convert you. Controls will at least stop you from running it at a weird stretch.

Routes 2 and 3 punish a first file. Butts, facility stealth, and timed scripted losses are tuned for New Game+. The game allows you to wander in at level 1. It does not want you to. Players who feel “the game cheated” usually skipped Route 1.

Economy is a second job. Night work, gacha cards, and Poison Rings are how bosses become fair. If you refuse every optional gold sink, Mud Poison will look over-tuned. That is a Circle Poison habit, not a Steam translation bug.

Galleries are per-route, not a global unlock. Japanese Q&A: clearing a route unlocks that route’s main scenes; guild-quest scenes stay manual. Completionists need the checklist, not a single “unlock all” button.

The 18+ layer is not a toggle. Armor-break, binds, optional night jobs, defeat scenes. You can skip chasing them and still finish the plot. You cannot install a “teen combat only” mode. Buy it knowing that, or do not buy it.

Who should play it

• You like turn-based JRPG loops and do not mind MV presentation.
• You want a female knight origin story with a real mid-game class change.
• You are willing to play three campaigns or at least accept that one file is only a third of the script.
• You already tolerate Circle Poison / Kagura adult systems as flags on top of a real RPG.

Skip it if you need action combat, shared sessions, a huge open world, or a game that stays storefront-safe in every screenshot. Skip it if you wanted Warhammer 40k Imperial Knights — wrong franchise, same search term.

Length and price

Steam launched at $14.99 with an introductory discount. Kagura’s store listed the same street price. One route is a full RPG Maker campaign (towns, two-digit boss list, a finale). Three routes plus DLC jobs is a long week if you read everything. New Game+ is expected, not optional DLC.

Compared with Slave’s Sword 1 and 2, this one gives Diana a permanent-feeling party more often (commenters on the trailer called that out: earlier games left you solo or with temps who fell off). That is the combat upgrade. The writing is still “fallen house, rotten court, choose your poison.”

English build caveats

• Languages on Steam: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese. This wiki covers English and Japanese.
• Kagura’s patch is separate from Steam’s storefront zip.
• First-week Steam reviews were a handful of takes, not a meta. Japanese DLsite reviewers already spent a year mapping walkthrough rooms; English players are catching up.
• DLC packaging on Steam may lag the Japanese date. Watch updates.

Verdict

Imperial Knights is a complete, branching guild RPG with a mid-game knight ascension and three maps that earn the “play it again” slogan. It is also an 18+ Circle Poison title on an aging engine. If those two sentences both sound fine, buy it, open the beginner guide, and do not borrow the guild fee on file one. If either sentence sounds like a deal-breaker, the trailer already showed you enough.

For a mechanical deep dive instead of an opinion, stay in Guides. For “is Tear worth the slot,” use the tier list.