Sega Nerds

TGS07: NiGHTS hands-on, with motion control impressions

by Graham on September 25th, 2007

While most other journalists and sites have been complaining about not getting the full NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams experience by only playing the game via the analog nunchuck attachment, I did the unthinkable and simply asked the assistant if I could see what the game’s motion controls were like.

After she paused the game and disconnected the nunchuck attachment, I was thrust into a new world - a world without the need for analog sticks.

I was playing NiGHTS with beautiful, full-on motion control.

Unfortunately, that’s where the fairy tale ended. After about three minutes of playing with the remote, I wanted to change back to the nunchuck.

When using the motion controls, you see a coloured ball on screen, which represents the direction NiGHTS flies. However, the dot doesn’t move across the screen, but it stays within an invisible circle around our jester friend, and the direction corresponds to where you point the remote.

To actually get NiGHTS moving in this form, you have to hold down the A button, and B now acts as your speed boost or attack button. Actually, flying along this way is quite nice. It’s easy and smooth, but it’s when you have to quickly turn or perform an often-used somersault that you fall into trouble. Pulling off these fast movements is nearly impossible to do right or smoothly. You can get used to it in time, but as I said, I had to change back to to using the stick because it’s so much easier.

What made the nunchuck setup work better is the familiarity I already had with using an analog stick. This control system works very well, and long-time NiGHTS fans will be instantly at home.

I have heard that Sega is thinking of incorporating a number of control schemes, but whether they will is yet to be seen. As of right now, the only control style that really works effectively is the one that can be done on any console.

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While Sega still has some work to left to get the control scheme ironed out, the game’s graphics are already pleasing. Graphically speaking, the game is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was a few months ago. The levels, graphics and textures have really come a long way.

At ground level, the game looked pretty solid. I can’t really say much more, because I only really ever played as a child for about 10 seconds in total. You have a “helper” character standing next to you, encouraging you to run forward and climb up a chain into a globe-like cage, which is where you find NiGHTS.

It is very similar to the original game, although you don’t get hit at the start of every level by the baddies. Instead, you just run forward to the cage and merge with NiGHTS, and then start flying.

Once in the air, you really get to see most of the level around you, and it looks good. The colours are incredibly bright, and the worlds are just as crazy as the original game. I got to play on the two different levels the TGS demo offered.

The camera angle is a little different than the original game, which is something I noticed straight away. The camera is positioned at an angle instead of from a side perspective. It’s from a side angle, true, but a little more back, so you can see a little more ahead of NiGHTS than you could in “into Dreams.” At least, that is what it felt like, as I could definitely see more of what was coming at me as I played. Whether this is a good idea or not, time can only tell, but for me it was a little weird and made the game feel slightly easier I think, as I could quite easily avoid oncoming enemies and dodge any obstructions.

But as I said, the worlds look wonderful, although perhaps a little sparse. One thing I loved about the original was the amount of objects and crazy things happening in the levels, that made them feel full of life, and love. The game did have more in the levels than many screenshots have shown. I saw a couple of Nightopians (cherubs) and many more Nightmarens (baddies). Some of them were familiar, like the weird ram’s heads with yellow balls around them (I don’t know the names, sorry).

One thing that really did impress me graphically was some of the lighting effects. It could have been the jet-lag in my eyes, but the water and lights looked pretty damn great. Much better than anything we’ve seen on the Wii so far (though many of you will say that’s not hard). And the boss levels were particularly cool, too.

The bosses I played against were similar to the ones that are in “Dreams.” The big round one you throw through walls, and the fish. But they both played out a little differently, which I shall explain in a bit. Their bits were full of lighting effects and eye candy, and the fish boss had a pretty damn big level to fight in.

Visually, the game is looking good, but I do feel that the levels could do with some more random items and objects to help fill it up, plus maybe some more baddies and Nightopians.

Gameplay-wise, the game is smooth. I didn’t really notice any jerkiness or frame-rate drops. However, the game felt a little slow. Not that it was running slow, but NiGHTS himself seems to fly and move slower than he did in the much-coveted Saturn original.

I think that could be partly blamed on the camera angle. As I said before, the camera angle is a little different and you can see dangers much sooner, so perhaps because of this I was able to time my movements and avoid collisions easier. In the original, you would have only a second or two to dodge something, but the new camera angle this makes that unnecessary. Maybe it felt slower because you don’t have to rely on reaction speeds so much.

There have been a couple of changes to gameplay that are truly notable, one of which is how you progress through the levels.

As we all should know (being great Nerds of Sega), in the original you would have to collect 20 blue orbs scattered around the level, and use the “power” of the orbs to smash/destroy the big bubble-like creatures holding the Ideyas (orbs which represent a certain aspect of the child’s emotions, like fear). This is no longer the case.

You still have collect blue orbs, but you no longer smash the bubble things. Instead, you have to chase a creature (I really have no idea what it was) that is riding on the back of a colourful bird-type thing. This creature is holding a key… I think it was a key to the next area of the level. That’s what my attractive helper-lady said it was for.

Once you grab the creature, you spin it or just hit/push it by tapping the A button and it spins off, leaving you the key. One thing I’m not sure about is if the blue orbs actually do anything anymore. I collected random amounts of orbs each time I played, and I’m sure on one section I only got about five in total, but still managed to kill the bird thing.

Once you get the key, you then race to the end of the area, to the globe-cage thing (where you originally find NiGHTS) and use the key to break the chains around the cage, which starts the next area/course.

There are only three courses per level, unlike the original, which had four courses and then the boss. In Journey of Dreams, you defeat the creature on the bird thing three times and then head off to the boss stage.

Along these lines, the game still ranks you on how well you perform during the courses, giving you an overall score at the end. I found the levels remarkably easy overall. In NiGHTS into Dreams, I found myself going crazy getting constant ranks of Cs and Bs, and with many Ds and Es in between. I found it pretty hard to get an A or even an S, which is something I could only seem to do on Christmas NiGHTS. However, when I played the TGS version of Journey of Dreams I managed to get two As, a C and an A for the boss. That equaled an overall score of an A, all on my very first go!

As I mentioned earlier, I shall talk a bit about the bosses I faced. First, you have a big round jack-in-the-box type boss. This is similar to the first boss in the original NiGHTS (sorry, I have forgotten all bosses names - sue me): the big opera singer lady. The two play very similarly, as you grab the boss and spin him around and throw him up the level until you eventually throw him into what looks like a giant mouth of some sort, where he dies.

The next boss is the fish boss. I remember the fish boss in the original to be the easiest; I would keep tapping speed boost and just hit it all the time. But now it’s different. You are in a really large circular room, and the boss swims around going underground and popping back up, and you have to do a somersault just at the right time to hit its head. I’m not going to lie, I actually ran out of time on this boss, as I couldn’t quite get the somersaults right. I knew what I was doing, I just wasn’t doing it well enough.

So for gameplay, the game is smooth, but NiGHTS (the character) could be faster, and the game seems a little easier than before.

I have one last area to speak of, which is the sound. Unfortunately, due to being in such a crowded environment, the noise levels were greater than that of the game. Sega decided not to turn the volume up on the NiGHTS display, so I could hardly hear what was going on.What I could hear sounded much like the original game, which really is a very good thing, as the original still has some of the best music and most memorable sound effects of any game I have played to date.

Actually, not all the TV sets were turned down. The ones playing the advertisement just outside the playing area had additional speakers, which blasted out the advert at quite an impressive volume. At one point I was standing right below the speaker in the queue, and it was actually giving me a headache. The point being that the music played in the advert was much like the original game too, and I can only hope it was a direct sample of music for the full game. If it is, it shall be great.

Summary
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams is definitely shaping up to be a good game. However, I feel it does need some tweaking to match the original title. Making the gameplay a little bit faster and giving the worlds a few more objects and random items will certainly help make it a better game. The good news is Sega’s still not finished, and should they keep up the hard work, I think they’ll pull it off.

The only thing really dragging it down is the awful Wii motion controls. This is something that shouldn’t be too hard to do right. I have played other Wii titles which can pull off similar ideas, but with a much greater and more natural effect. Come on, Sega!

Fingers crossed, this could be the sequel we have all been waiting for.

• Display Impression: 9
• Graphics: 8
• Sound: 8 (going on what I could hear, and the music from the demo tape)
• Controls: 7 (let down by motion controls)
• Overall: 8

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POSTED IN: G, Japan, News, Nintendo Wii, Video