Buy "NiGHTS, Journey of Dreams" (Wii) from Amazon.com
(US):
Buy "NiGHTS, Journey of Dreams" (Wii) from Amazon.co.uk
(UK)
NiGHTS into Dreams, a retrospective
NiGHTS into Dreams & NiGHTS, Journey of
Dreams
by Joker Wylde
Buy "NiGHTS Into Dreams..."
(Sega) from Amazon.com:
Buy "Christmas NiGHTS Into
Dreams..." (Sega) from Amazon.com:
I recently finished NiGHTS, Journey of Dreams, after owning it for
about 18 months. Since I was such a fan of the original, I thought I
would review them both together.
NiGHTS into Dreams...
This game, although listed as a 3D platformer, is actually nearer a
"flight sim" or more accurately a time trial racing game. You can play
as either of two characters, a boy called Elliot, or a girl called
Claris. If you watch the intro, both young teenagers are having
confidence problems. The girl wants to try out as a singer for school,
or something, and the boy gets thrashed on the basketball court. Both
children re-live their events as nightmares that night, and find
themselves in a dream world, looking at the trapped NiGHTS. The point
of the game is to free nights every level, and rescue your Idea, or
small coloured gems. They all represent some emotion I forget what. You
can play the games as the children, and at this point the game is a 3D
platformer. Each child can roam freely about the world, although they
cannot fly without releasing and playing as NiGHTS. As either child,
you can collect the blue gem chips, but this is much easier as NiGHTS.
After a while, the clock starts to chase you, and if it catches you
twice, you wake up. I heard somewhere that you can beat it by jumping
on it, but I never managed. If you play as NiGHTS, you can fly around
the world in one of 4 preset routes, although there is some variation
in how you go about them, the basic route order and premise is always
the same. you must collect a certain number of chips to break the cage.
If you avoid the cage and continue to fly around the levels, going
through hoops and collecting gold chips, you will rack up a huge amount
of points, and get much better score. At the end of each timed level,
there is a timed boss, and for each one there is a very quick but
difficult to execute trick that gives you a maximum score multiplier.
The level design for this game was amazing, and despite the fact I got
the Saturn quite late on (I had a PS2 at the time) I thought the
graphics were great. I was told at the time that the analogue
controller was one of the first made (although they were beaten by the
N64, apparently it had been in production before this). This has only
been partially backed up by Wikipedia. Lots of people criticised this
game for being too short, and truly, it could be completed in an
afternoon, but in doing so, many people missed out on the true genius
of the game. It wasn't the innovative and well executed game play, or
the fact that the story had been mostly unvoiced and left to your
imagination, but the fact that the music was entirely generated by your
performance on the previous level, as was, I believe, your choice of
boss fight. And it wasn't just the overall level music that changed
depending on your performance, it changed for every route inside the
level. So if you had beaten the boss quickly, the next level you played
would have good music. The better you did on the first circuit, the
better the second circuit's music. And all 5 parts of the level had 5
seamlessly interlocking pieces written for them (one for each grade),
thats 25 tracks per level! This was for all 6 levels for both
characters (I don't think the Twin Seed level did,). There was nothing
in the manual about this, so the mood remained subtly linked to the
change in music. It was made apparent on the release of Christmas
NiGHTS, as the music editor that you could unlock had all the pieces of
music strung together. Another seemingly superfluous feature of NiGHTS,
was the acrobatics. It gave you points, and apparently could make you
take corners better, but wasn't necessary to finish the game at all.
And it was such a joy! It made the flying seem a lot less restricted
too.
Despite my childish nostalgia for this game,there were an awful lot of
bad points. The game was very short, although the difficulty curve
going from C to A grades was steep, and some of the bosses were
fiendish enough to drag game play out for a few more hours. The
graphics haven't aged well by todays standards, but I think they were
great at the time. The tone of the game was horribly sugary, and all
this nonsense about Idea and chasing your dreams is wholly unpalatable
for me, although the lack of space or speed on this console forced
there to be major cut backs on voice acting and story development,
which I feel was a blessing. The major let down of this game was the
ending theme. One of the earliest games to have an actual song at the
end, and it was rubbish! I was shocked! The song lyrics are the usual
soppy nonsense of friendship and finding someone, but it is sung by two
children. Firstly I feel the theme of the song was a little mature for
them to sing, and secondly: Oh my God, they are completely a-tonal!
Were they related to the design team or something!? I have never heard
such bad singing in all my life, its atrocious. Half way through, the
adults have to take over its so bad... And this has become one of the
most prominent reoccurring themes throughout all three games! It
spoiled a really brilliant game, and since it was before sound
compression was widely used took up so much room you could have made a
whole new level... anyway, as rubbish as it was, it didn't put me off
buying the eagerly and long awaited sequel...
NiGHTS, Journey of Dreams
I am in two minds about this one. While it is essentially exactly the
same as the original, its also not. Its missing the carefree flying,
and the brilliant music improvisation of its predecessor, but overall,
its more of a remake than a sequel. This time the two children are
called Will and Helen, and sadly by this point the Wii contains enough
space and processing speed to have voices, and good lord, they like to
talk. As far as I know, there is no way to implement my favourite trick
of changing the voices to Japanese so I can't tell how bad the voice
acting is. And its bad! I can't tell if they are supposed to be English
or American, but they can't hold an accent down at all. And NiGHTS is
so annoying . i know he's supposed to be androgynous, but that doesn't
equate to mind blowingly irritating.
Fortunately the controls are an absolute joy. There are several control
methods, but the only one I used lots was the nunchuck method. Like the
analogue controller, the nunchuck directs movement, and the remote
makes you spin etc. It can also be waved in different directions to
perform the acrobatics. Its so nice to finally have a game that uses
the Wiimote to full effect. Even if you hate this game, its almost
worth getting just to see how all the other Wii games should be
controlled.
The Level design is fairly typical Sega, with many levels being similar
to NiGHTS and other Sonic games. The game play principle is almost the
same, the levels are timed, and you have to fly round a track to break
the cage, but this time you are chasing a bird with a key, and your
score seems to be based solely on how quickly you complete the level. I
think thats a shame, its not the same as perfecting your route round
the level and leaving it to the last second to complete the it. Still,
the bosses are very good, and most are reminiscent of the one s in the
last game. I liked the chameleon best, although his battle was hard.
Some of the "fun" levels weren't at all, Helen has to regain her
confidence to play an instrument, and you basically circle a concert
stage playing the abhorrent Dreams Dreams. Its unbelievably difficult,
you have to fly at a constant speed, and if you miss 5 notes thats it!
Night over, start again... thats not how you encourage a child to
practice! Bad NiGHTS, be more supportive.
The level variety has improved, and you range from circuit levels, to
3D maze levels, and the A life section seems to be much more
interactive. I didn't buy into it much last time. I liked the Chaos,
but the Nightopians were a bit freaky for me. Bald little singing
babies, they looked a bit like coneheads and screamed if you paralooped
too close to them. In this game, thats how you get them into your
sandbox world, although after that I don't know what you do with them.
There is also a teardrop collection game, but again its purpose passes
me by somewhat.
The story I could take or leave in this game. Constraints in the last
one meant they avoided lengthy storyline expansions, but they have
totally gone to town over this one. It reminds me of a review of Sonic
Adventure years ago, "we spent 10 years waiting for him to speak, now
we can't make him shut up fast enough". I was also mildly amused to see
that they got the girl back to sing the song from the original over the
credits, although by now she must be a woman, and hopefully has
actually learned to sing. I see they didn't get the boy back... For
some inexplicable reason they thought it was complicated enough to need
a tutor character, and to my horror they chose an owl! Noooooo. Owls
ruined Bagpuss, Ocarina of Time, and now you've come to take NiGHTS! He
pops up all the time, and is rarely helpful. He has more excruciating
dialog than any of the others, and provides moral judgment on these
poor children when they find out NiGHTs is a Nightmaren. Was he one in
the last game? Does it even matter? And all that b****x about the Idea,
and their quest to get on with their parents...Its not like they
wouldn't have put it in the last game if they'd have been able to.
I haven't delved into any of the online or multiplayer aspects of this
game, and I suspect there is a lot more to it that I am aware of. They
have taken away some of the charm of the original, but overall I think
the game is a better one in terms of playability, variety and
difficulty. The stories intertwine more, even if I have grown more
cynical in my appreciation of them. There aren't as many interesting
quirks, but then they rarely make for a critical success, so I
understand when these things are axed in favour of attempted mainstream
success. They struck gold on the controls, and if you can put up with
what feels like hours of tedious badly voiced dialog you'll love it as
much as the first, if only because you get to play it for longer. It
will never be a collectors item like the first, but I think its got a
lot more going for it, even if sadly it has a lot less at the same
time.
(I have been corrected by an external source. Apparently Prof. Yaffle
is a woodpecker... Still, birds ugh.)