NiGHTSReview by: Vance Palodichuk NiGHTS is one of Sega's premier games for the Saturn this fall/winter. One thing you must understand, is that NiGHTS is not a platformer, nor is it a flight-sim, or even a racer. NiGHTS is one of the most original games to come along in a long time. The gameplay may remind you of Ecco the Dolphin, and the level design may remind you of Sonic as well, but the end product is something you've never seen before. For the past month, the rec.games.video.* newsgroups have been flooded with messages comparing NiGHTS, Crash Bandicoot, and Super Mario 64. This review is not a comparison of those games, but an objective review of the game alone. One of NiGHTS' strong points is it's storyline. The two main characters are Claris Sinclair, and Elliot Edwards. Claris has a beautiful voice and is singing in a talent show; but she has stage fright and can't bare to be in front of the spotlight, so she runs away in fear. That night, she dreams of the event, and has a terrible nightmare. This is where she meats NiGHTS, a rebel Nightmaren trying to stop the evil Wizeman from taking over Nightopia, and the real world. Elliot is a great basket ball player, and one day when he's playing some hoops with some friends, the other team steals the ball away from him to win the game. Elliot, too, has a nightmare of the game, and like Claris, he meets NiGHTS in the dream. NiGHTS came to Claris and Elliot, because they have the Red Ideya...the Ideya of Courage. There are four other types of Ideyas: White (purity), Green (wisdom), Yellow (hope), and Blue (intelligence). NiGHTS is attracted to the Red Ideya, because it is the rarest Ideya and the only one that Wizeman's henchmen can't steal, and that is why he asks for Claris and Elliot's help, and they accept. The goal of the game sounds simple enough: collect 20 blue-chips and return them to the Ideya capture to receive an Ideya, after collecting all the Ideyas return to the starting point. But when I first played NiGHTS, I totally sucked. When the stage begins, you are either Claris or Elliot and you have all the Ideyas. But right away, you are attacked and all of the Ideyas (except for Red) are stolen from you and put in the Ideya Captures. You are placed right in front of NiGHTS, and when you go into the little area where NiGHTS is, you can become him and start flying. But first you should walk around and collect 20 blue-chips, so you can have lots of bonus time on the first Mare (A Mare is a course, each level has several Mares. And you can get more points during bonus time.) and get a good grade (A, B, C, D, E, or F, depending on your score). But an alarm clock is constantly chasing you, and if you're caught you're game is over. You can put the clock on snooze by jumping on the clock, if you knock the clock into "The Endless Red Void" (out-of-bounds), then the clock disapears for a longer period of time. Press A, B, or C to jump, and press a button just before you land to jump even higher. Walking is also a good chance to scope out the level to see what you're up against. But when you're walking, NiGHTS' biggest graphical flaw is painfully obvious, it's clipping. When the camera is taking the space of a polygon, that polygon disappears, but you can get rid of the clipping by changing the camera angles (L and R). After you're comfortable with the level, and you've collected 20 blue-chips, it's time to have some real fun--flying! When I first flew, I was totally confused. I knew the flying part was basically 2D, but I'd see some rings in the background, and I thought there would be some way of me getting there. But after a few minutes, I started getting the hang of NiGHTS. Yes, it's true, NiGHTS is basically 2D when it comes to flying. But that's actually a good thing! If flying was 3D in NiGHTS, it would be way too complicated. You'd get lost, and you'd never be able to find the right Ideya Capture. You could add a radar, but then NiGHTS would be more of a flight simulator. The fluid control when you're flying is amazing, it's so smooth and perfect it's breath-taking. I definitely recommend the analog controller, my paraloops (a full loop) weren't as tight with the normal digital pad. Control is pretty simple in flight, use A, B, or C to do a drill-attack; and L and R to do tricks. But getting 20-chips and retrieving the Ideya isn't enough for even a C grade. You need to get a high score in order to do good in NiGHTS, and you can't even play the last stage without a C average. Your first priority is to get the chips, and at the beginning of the stage you can get them with the kids, like I said earlier. You can become the kids again by running out of time, but you loose all your points and will probably get a bad grade. Once you return the chips to the Ideya Capture and get the Ideya, don't go straight to the exit. Instead, get as many gold chips (blue chips become gold, and you get 50 points, instead of 10), and make as many links as possible. A link is when you go through more than one loop, or get more than one chip in a row. At certain points, you can get as many as 100 or more links! There is also a special type of loop that will give NiGHTS a yellow streamer trailing behind him, you'll have this for a short period of time, so do as many tricks as possible. NiGHTS has over 35 different tricks he can do. What trick you do depends on which direction the controller is facing, and whether you are pressing L, R, or both buttons. Once you complete all the Mares and collect all the Ideyas, you fight a boss. Note that after you beat the boss on a particular stage, the boss is picked at random after that (this can be changed in the options). Each boss requires a different strategy to defeat him. Some bosses may require a drill-attack, while others require a paraloop. After you beat a boss, you get a replay of the stage (and some beautiful music will play in the background). If you find the scores that overlap the replay annoying, just press B to remove them, and B to bring them back. You can also change which category of scores to list by pressing the C button. Why this is overlooked in the manual, I don't know. Other than clipping, what other problems does NiGHTS have? Grahpically, there is some pop-up, but I never noticed it until I watched a friend play (too intent on the game, I guess). Another one of NiGHTS' shortcomings is the length, seven stages is not very many. But the stages are so interesting and diverse, it isn't as large a problem as it could have been. And the difficulty is somewhat debatable too. You get the full ending if you beat it on Cs, you do get a better ending if you have all As, but this may not be enough motivation for some people. But it does require plenty of practice until you can get Cs and higher. And some people "Just don't get it," the whole fun of NiGHTS just eludes some people. Because of this, I recommend you rent NiGHTS first, to make sure you "Get it." Another big question with NiGHTS is the analog controller (officially called the "3D Control Pad"). Some people are just fine with using NiGHTS with the normal digital pad, but not me. My thumb got sore, and I just didn't get the feel I did with the analog controller. Too bad you can't rent this, too. But it's obvious that Sega is really pushing the analog pad, even Outrun (part of the new Sega Ages series) uses the analog controller! Other games that will work in analog mode include Panzer Dragoon Zwei (or any Mission Stick games), Sega Rally (or any Arcade Racer games), Daytona USA CCE, Dark Savior, and more are on the way. Buying NiGHTS with the analog pad is a great deal, and I recommend people to take advantage of it. But Sega of America made a lot of mistakes with NiGHTS. First they said they'd improve the clipping and pop-up, but they didn't. And the NiGHTS box says it's only 1-player, but after you beat Reala, you can play 2-player Vs. mode in NiGHTS. And there's a number of omissions in the manual. But that's Sega of America for you! Here's how I rate NiGHTS in the following categories:
Concept/Originality: 10 -=- Vance -- Vance Palodichuk - vpalodich@usinternet.com http://www.usinternet.com/users/vpalodich/ |