Nights: Journey of Dreams Review
There's nothing sweeter than the anticipation of a sequel. First-generation "Star Wars" fans should know that feeling very well; to the squealing surprise of fans (cough), the re-release of the original film showcased a teaser trailer for the next installment, "The Empire Strikes Back." It seemed like forever until the film finally smashed into the box office, only to really torture fans even more by offering fans a cliffhanger ending: Will Luke and Leia leave Han chilled and run off into the sunset to make their incestuous offspring? Will Luke's new bionic appendage cause him any damage during his one-handed Web browsing?
You get the picture. And while Nights Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn wasn't the "Star Wars" of the video game industry, it certainly left a lasting impression on gamers in the 1990s (nearly 12 years ago in fact). In fact, it found a place amongst the greatest games of all time, according to a number of gaming publications and Websites ("Next Generation Magazine," for example, ranked the title #25 in their top 100 of all time). Needless to say, Yuji Naka, Naoto Oshima and the rest of Sonic Team created something spectacular, a true gaming gem.
Strangely enough, Sega's hit hadn't returned until now. There was talk that a sequel would never be made simply because the game couldn't live up to the original. Unfortunately, those words may ring true with the release of Nights: Journey of Dreams. One would think that after 11 years a sequel would be better than the original, especially when new hardware comes to play. Alas, it just didn't happen, although gamers shouldn't dismiss the game entirely.
Nights, the mischievous main character, returns in Journey of Dreams.
Nights is a mixed bag of tricks. On one hand, many strong gameplay moments will bring gamers back for more. After all, each stage is graded accordingly to your performance, thus inciting gamers to return and achieve a higher score. On the other hand, Nights offers some truly horrible gaming moments, plagued by terrible camera angles and bad gameplay design, enough so to grant Nights the "Tom Turkey Award." Additionally, while the game features two stories merged into one, it's incredibly short and is broken down to 15 or so stages per dreamer (Will and Helen).
Are you lost yet? Here's the game's basic premise: Will and Helen both suffer from a guilty conscious. Will ignores his family (Dad in particular), playing soccer all day with his friends; Helen ignores her family (Mom specifically) by shopping with her friends. As a result, both children find themselves thrust into nightmares one night, chased by Scooby-Doo phantoms that might actually spook younger gamers viewing the CGI clips. Luckily, a warm, bright light pulls the dreamers into Nightopia, a realm where all dreamers visit, where they help Nights defeat the evil Wizeman the Wicked.
As you might have guessed, the game consists of two dreams, both vaguely different and intertwined at the same time. In the end, both characters combine dreams and take on the antagonist. However, the journey from beginning to end is odd at best, throwing in different stages of gameplay but refusing to show any major variation. Gamers can count on the following behind each door: chase down three birds and defeat the boss, follow Octopaw and retrieve the required links; chase three additional birds and defeat a meatier version of the current realm's boss. The two additional missions - rounding out the five stages - vary per realm.
Honestly, many missions that gamers must conquer seem like a waste of time. The Octopaw missions (Link Challenge) do not propel the story whatsoever and only serve as an intermission of sorts. Fluffy Catch, while deemed (in this review) one of the worst gameplay stages ever conceived, feels utterly pointless. The stages Sky Concert and Jewel Fever also seem to feel unnecessary, serving no point in the main story. On that same note, both Chase missions in each realm involve the capturing of Nights (this jester of unknown gender just can't seem to stay uncaged for some reason). The player climbs into the cage, merges with Nights, and then chases down the three previously mentioned birds. "Repetitive" is a rather kind word for this game... although a handful of stages might actually bring a smile to your face.
Indeed, the "on foot" stages proved most fun, especially the Palace of Glass (aka house of mirrors); the Forest Adventure where Helen journeys through a forest maze; Broadway Guide, a bright neon city stamped with Sonic Team's flare for glitz; River Rescue, an exciting boat chase in the same class as Coaster Chase and a crazy ride on a roller coaster. With that said, the game offers great gaming moments, especially for fans of the original game, but it also offers the same amount of duds. Even still, the boss battles are equally mixed in the good and the bad.
For instance, boss battles dealing with Magician Chamelan were not only uninteresting, but seemed to offer no sense of strategy. It felt as if luck were the only option in beating this foe. A few hard-core gamers observing this battle (during this review process) said nothing positive, commenting that this game would already be in the trash. With an "E" rating, how could Nights "be fun for the younger gamers?" commented one observer. The other gamer agreed. Both were 14 years old. They offered that perhaps the ESRB rating system should not only deal with a game's content, but also deal with the gameplay itself. Everyone agreed that Nights is not a title for the younger gamer.
And that's too bad, as it seems that Nights would appeal to the younger gamer the most. After all, the two main characters are young children, 12 years old in age at the least, and the main protagonist - genderless jester Nights - looks like it could sit on the shelf amongst Shrek, Mickey Mouse and Barney. Moreover, while the main characters are certainly appealing, the graphics engine running behind the scenes is sketchy at best, rendering in-game cut scenes horribly and at low frame-rates while sporting fluid animation and good-looking scenery during each stage. The intro CGI movies looked flawless, giving gamers a false hope that the game would look almost as good. Alas, it did not.
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