Don't expect a gothic horror setting. The "vampires" are fantasy super-soldiers fighting a war against monsters.

This review is for the Nintendo Switch version. Console versions of Knights of Grayfang let the player grind Shop currency from regular battle and daily missions. Shop currency can buy gacha rolls, which give random equipment (nothing memorable or connected to other Exe-Create games) and generally isn’t worth the effort. The most convenient Shop purchase is an item that automatically refills magic after each battle, as a quality of life feature; other helpful Shop purchases will increase physical or magical damage, or award permanent stat boosters.

The abilities to turn off random encounters or force encounters with every step are thankfully not gated behind paid DLC. Turning off random encounters is gated behind an endgame damage-dealing challenge, and forcing encounters is gated behind a postgame Secret Arena match. Monster-encounter pillars in dungeons are a fine workaround for the other 95% of the game.

Knights of Grayfang is another of developer’s Exe-Create’s “shoujo” RPGs, and has several features in common with Ghost Sync and Jinshin: protagonists designed especially to appeal to female players; a gentler difficulty curve where the maximum setting of Hard isn’t very challenging (unless the player tries the Arena at lower-than-recommended levels); and almost no side content other than sidequests, the Arena, and the postgame-intended Secret Arena.

Three of the playable characters are young female “vampires”; the fourth playable character is a young male “blooder”, a human who supplies the “vampires” with blood as needed. “Vampires” in Knights of Grayfang have nothing in common with literary or pop culture vampires like Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

“Vampires” in Grayfang are just fantasy super-soldiers invested with extra power to battle monsters. “Vampires” are not undead, do not drink blood (they magicially teleport it out of the blooders’ veins), and have no more aversion to sunlight than any other living person.

Atypical “vampires” do not necessarily make a bad story. Unfortunately, the plot of Knights of Grayfang is only a slight variant of a save-the-world fantasy plot. While a few minor twists here and there keep the story from being 100% predictable, the major twists are so obvious they’re like an oncoming train honking its horn and flashing its lights.

There is almost no character development to enhance the story. The playable characters skip from “we just met” to “we are comrades-in-arms who will die for each other” very soon after the beginning, and that’s it. The “main character” spotlight doesn’t focus too heavily on any one member, for what it’s worth. Vampire soldier Lise is presented as the main heroine, but she doesn’t necessarily lead the team any more than the vampire princess Leticia does.

The gameplay is mostly Exe-Create’s bog-standard turn-based combat. There is a very simple skill tree for physical skills; elemental magic skills are learned by equipping bats that teach them (except for the blooder Thoma, who learns all elemental magic at an equal rate).

Thoma has some unique mechanics in that he can’t be healed or revived by spells or potions; instead, his health gauge is his Blood Gauge. His blood fuels both his own abilities and the strongest spells the “vampires” can wield. This is a double-edged sword, since if Thoma’s BG goes to 0 then he is KO’d. Thoma automatically revives after three turns, but if the rest of the party falls while he’s down then it’s Game Over. Thoma’s BG regenerates a little bit each turn; it can also be restored by using specific consumable items with strictly limited restoration power, or equipment that enhances BG regeneration.

Since the story is mostly a wash, the battle system is mostly bog-standard, the setting is mostly generic fantasy, and the entire game is mostly short and easy, then why play Knights of Grayfang at all?

Well, Knights of Grayfang is a serviceable helping of JRPG comfort food, with Exe-Create’s usual player-friendly polish. It’s cheap if you can pick it up on sale. Beyond that… no, there’s not much reason to play it over any other game.

Knights of Grayfang is a nicely presented, with many features that will be familiar to Kemco regulars.

The main protaganists are vampires & a human, who band together to avert the destruction of mankind, traversing open-world terrain and battling their way through dungeons. So pretty much standard rpg fare. Kemco regulars will be familiar with the daily Roulette, Daily Missions, Battle arena, Subquests, Awards board, Catalogue awards & Ticket/stones for use in-game shop.

The combat is fluid & you have a decent range of skills & abilities; there is a good selection of weapons, armour etc, and colourful Bats, which you equip (like fairies, etc in other Kemco games). I enjoyed the exploring, combat and grinding (made easy by the battle statue things), it was also easy to get stones for the in-game shop / Aid Room.

All that being said, Knights of Grayfang is far too easy & far too short.

I played on hardest difficulty for the majority of the game and could auto-battle throughout, with bosses they were easily taken out with one skill for the majority of the time – very un-satisfying. The Bats, which enable certain skills, were pretty much surplus to requirements.

I am a completionist by nature and generally spend much longer than many playing a game, yet finished this game in
22 hours game time & i finished on level 999. (I played Fernz Gate for 99hrs (as eg)). As such, its not good value for money – though if you want a quick platinum, this game provides.

I have bought most of the Kemco games available on ps4, some are grea. Some are disappointing, some suffer from lazy development and quality suffers. Grayfang falls into the latter.