The Gospel According To Rhys - Colwyn Bay North Wales Web blog About Sport Technology Web 2.0 Internet Life and Making Money Online

I’ve had a lot of jokes from one person in particular since buying NiGHTS: Journey Into Dreams. I guess it was justified, to the untrained eye, the NiGHTS series of games is horrendously childlike, with a purple jester, fairytale appearance and a distinct lack of violence. However to those who played the first game, it was a magical experience with beautiful graphics, a horrendously hummable soundtrack, and a unique gameplay experience of flying freely through a dream world.

First thoughts was that, oh my goodness, NiGHTS is a girl. Or is she a boy? He’s/She’s a bit asexual, but nevertheless, whilst my first thoughts of “Wahey, English scrumpet doing the voice acting, this’ll be good!”, it actually grates after a bit. The over pronounciation of any word with an “o” in it at times makes me want to throw my Wii Remote at the television.

As we’re on bad points about the game, let me continue with them. The storyline is horrendously cheesy and apple pie that it makes me nausiate. Will, one of the main protagonists, is friendless and feels as though his dad’s abandoning him, but – spoiler warning – he founds out that he’s an untrusting little shit who pushes people away by not trusting them, has a huge awakening, and saves the day with NiGHTS. This awakening happens in the second to last level, which is in the area you have been told to avoid all game because it’s dark and moody. The place is still dark and moody, but the music that plays over this “awakening” level is Dreams Dreams, which is NiGHTS’s happy go lucky tune. It just doesn’t fit.

Final bad point is the fact that the exclusive Wii Control system is completely impossible to use. In it, you point the Wiimote at where you want NiGHTS to go, and he flies there. It’d work in point and click, but not in this game, as the action is so fast that you cannot react or over react. So stick to the Wiimote + Nunchuck, or the Classic Controller (which I did).

You may think I hate this game, with 3 paragraphs of pure vitriol like that, you couldn’t be further from the truth, this is a very very good game. The actual gameplay involves you taking control of NiGHTS and – in a dream world – flying around creating combos for points and defeating rather impressive bosses. That part of the game is directly taken from the original – as the Sega Saturn game had you defeat similar bosses to this game. There are extra sub missions which take the game in slightly different directions. But they’re still relatively similar – get the biggest score you can on each level and you may unlock Ideya’s.

In fact, the sub missions actually make this game a lot more longer than the rather short first game. The submissions are hugely varied, and rarely the same (some you even don’t get to control NiGHTS), and really extend the game from a weekend to a good couple of weeks.

Of course, when you complete the game, then what? Well there’s multiple endings to keep you interested, which really don’t give you more than an alternative ending, but there’s a fun race mode online also.

Finally, on completition unlocks the game’s music. I don’t usually talk about the game’s presentation, but except for the dodgy voice acting, the presentation is spot on. “Dreams Dreams” – the game’s main song – wouldn’t sound out of place in any Disney movie.

If you’ve never played it, I would urge you to get this game, it’s a bit tricky to get into, but the music and graphics are fantastic and is a fairly unique experience in a game. Fairly because there’s not really too much that separates it from the original. However, as one of only 3 people to have played it, I can safely assume you haven’t.

Click here to Buy Nights: Journey of Dreams from Amazon

Click here to read the Nights: Into Dreams Review on Retro Garden