Review by: Pascal "Saturnman" Vellet

Rating: 8 (out of 10)

Summary:

32-bit gaming has finally arrived! Instead of just delivering great graphics and sound, Nights brings along the innovation and extra fun the 32-bit generation had promised.

The review:

In some ways, I don't envy video-game developers. Although making sequels of popular games is usually a shoe-in for success, from a creative standpoint, it seems like an impossible job. Sequels always seem to be criticized for being either too similar or conversely, too dissimilar to their prequels. Ultimately, popular video-game series always wane over time and never seem to rekindle the magic the originals had. Take Mega Man, Street Fighter or Space Quest, it's the same story. And many would agree the same thing happened to the Sonic series on Genesis. So when Sega released their Saturn system, the big question was how the Sonic Team would go about to reinvent Sonic.

Enter Nights; Sonic Team's first Saturn title which actually has nothing to do with Sonic himself. It seems that to break free from making unoriginal sequels is simply to stop making them all together. Nights is radically different from Sonic yet is very much as fresh and innovative.

The game tells the story of Nightopia which humans visit each time they dream. The evil Wizeman tired of the constant flow of humans decide to take control with the help of his nightmaren minions. The key for the control of Nightopia is the dream energy (called "ideya") which humans bring. Two young kids, Claris and Elliot, happen to visit Nightopia this faithful night and Wizeman will attempt to steal their dream energy. But a renegade nightmaren, Nights, won't let that happen and by combining (literally!) forces, they fight back.

The obvious (but superficial) quality of Nights are the graphics. This game is oozing power. Tons of polygons are used to create undulated, unblocky landscapes. Actually, make that double the landscapes as Nights' dream world is all topsy-turvy with mountains, trees or waterfalls at both the right place and upside down. Everything is incredibly fast-paced, very much like Sonic. Most of all special effects in existence are used in Nights like Gouraud shading, light-sourcing, depth shading and depth cueing (the latter is used to avoid nasty polygon folding). But this level of graphical intensity has its price both in terms of power and video memory which causes some noticeable pop-up, slowdowns and clipping problems (clipping problems refers to close-up polygons disappearing). The bitmap backgrounds are also interesting with various transparency effects with clouds and rainbows, the subtle glare of the sun and other neat effects impossible to describe with any sense. But besides any technical prowess, what really makes this game stand out is the entire design and artwork of the game. Nights uses an incredible amount of surreal colors coupled with some truly weird level design which breaks any previous benchmark of zanyness. I guess Nights really wanted to convey the image of dreams which is the game's main theme. The Nights character himself is brilliant. His flying is astonishingly smooth, totally convincing and has an impressive amount of different moves. And I have to mention the bosses as they almost steal the show. A wonderful series spooky creatures in even more outlandish and colorful surroundings than the main game itself! So not only does Nights look better than any Saturn title but challenges the very best games on any rival system which includes both the Playstation and the Nintendo 64.

But as soon as you take control, you soon realize the graphics are secondary. The level of control in Nights is near perfect. It's all very tight, precise and easy to pick up. It really doesn't take long before you're flying like a pro. You know you've got something special with Nights when just flying around is enjoyable in itself. There's absolutely no hassle control-wise. Of course, all of this is enhanced by Sega's new analog control pad packaged with the game but even without this new peripheral, the game controls very well with the regular Saturn pad (you can buy Nights without the analog control pad) although it is somewhat less precise. Another amazing thing about the control is the simplicity of it all. With the directional pad and the use of only three buttons, Nights does more than other games with 8 buttons! This simplicity, inherited from Sonic, allows you to concentrate on the game rather than continuously wondering which button you should press next.

Many have been too quick to call Nights "revolutionary (an over-used label much like "arcade-perfect")" but it is rather highly innovative. However, one of most asked questions about Nights is what are you supposed to do! Well, the game starts off with either Claris and Elliot "mugged" for all of their dream energy (aka ideyas) except for the ideya of courage that you use to first merge with Nights. As Nights, you need to collect blue orbs and bring them to the orb collector. With 20 orbs, the orb collector will release one of the stolen ideya that you need to bring back to the starting point. By effectively recollecting the four missing ideyas, Nights can go to the boss level. But there is a timer when playing with Nights and when time runs out, you turn back into one of the kid. If you already have an ideya, you can go back to the starting point to merge with Nights again. But if you don't then you have to get a missing ideya as one of the kid to then merge with Nights. It is important to note though Nights doesn't allow you to freely fly everywhere. You're flying in a pre-set path in which you have some freedom. This might seem restrictive but it's quite understandable. When walking, you're free to roam where ever you want but if it weren't for the helping arrow guiding you, it would be easy to get lost. And when flying, the game moves at such a fast pace that it would seem almost impossible to control this madness with complete freedom! And the horrid camera angles that plague the upcoming Super Mario 64 is no problem in Nights (what a relief!). The camera angles are strategically placed and intelligently adjust to where you are. The manual override for camera angles is effective and easy to use. This is basically how the game works but there is so much more!

Throughout each level, you have a series of hoops (similar to Pilotwings) that you can go through. By going through many hoops in a row, you perform what is called "links". Links can also be made by collecting many orbs and stars in a row. Also, by going through a special hoops, acrobatic time begins where you have to perform the maximum numbers of stunts (known as "tricks") using the two shoulder buttons of the Saturn pad in a limited amount of time. Tricks and links are the best way to score points and are also what the long-term replay value of Nights is based on. So in fact, Nights becomes much more a game a precise flying manoeuvres than anything else.

And what is possibly Nights' most original touch is the "A-life". Considering you're playing in the friendly world of Nightopia (but overrun by nightmarens), many of its cheerful inhabitants, the nightopians, still live there. While playing the game, you can actually influence their lives. Nightopians comes from eggs. If one of them is hatched by you, it will become friendly to you. Conversely, if you dash by a Nightopian, you will surprise it and it will become less friendly to you. You can actually lead two nightopians to meet each other so that they will lay an egg and the offspring will inherit the occupation of its parents (whisle, sing...). Making a loop around a nightopian sends it into a para-loop dimension. You can even throw a nightmaren towards a nightopian so that it can become a mutant in later games. All of this is worth no point nor does it even help you to win the game. It is like a completely separate game inside the game itself and you often only see results in future games.

The music is also worthy of mention. It's a good mix of CD tracks (boss levels and replays) with PCM music (normal levels) using a broad variety of musical styles. I love it! The A-life gradually changes (a little or a lot) the music tracks in the game effectively giving a level of musical diversity rarely seen in most video-games. Sound effects are, for the most part, clever and fit the game perfectly. It's also interesting how the 3D positional sound thing works, when the alarm clock follows you, you know where it is!

Of course, no game is perfect and Nights certainly has its share of flaws. First of all, with only 7 seven levels and 7 boss levels, the game is rather short. Another problem is the walking sequences, although they are not in any way the bulk of the game, they feel a little awkward and it would have been nice if there was more you could do when walking (especially in the light of Super Mario 64 but then again, Mario's flying parts pale in comparison to Nights' so it kind of evens out!). My last complaint would be the last boss. The level and the boss himself are substandard compared to the rest of the game.

So in the end, Nights is one of the best games I've played in a while (make that years). However, I don't think Nights is for everybody, the gameplay might be too unfamiliar to many and the kiddie undertones is more for the young at heart. But anyone who has enjoyed Sonic titles before will find some pleasing similarities while those burnt out by hordes of clones and sequels have a chance to try something fresh with Nights.