Sega Nerds

NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams - preview

Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, Nintendo Wii, Preview. Tagged with Exclusive, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.

OK, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that you all read my TGS preview, for the game. Well, of course you did, what a silly question!

Bearing in mind, that you have read my TGS impressions, I shall skim over what has remained the same and tell you what is new, improved and what I felt about the final version.

An essential update to point out, however, would be the use of the Dream World (not My Dream); it is a hub, where the player will find Dream Gates, which lead to the levels. Imagine the castle in Mario 64 or the station in Mario Galaxy, where you go to enter levels; it’s basically the same thing.

One thing the TGS game never revealed was any of the story. I have mentioned a brief segment to do with how/why the children appear in Nightopia (NiGHTS world), but part of the story in Journey of Dreams, is that Reala, under Wizeman’s order, locks up NiGHTS in a round cage.

This leads to the start of the level. Rather than the child being attacked by Marens, the child is free to run to NiGHTS in his prison, and climbs into the cage to join with NiGHTS. By doing so, NiGHTS then takes chase of a little dude, riding on the back of a big bird, who is holding an oversized novelty key.

By defeating the bird-man, NiGHTS obtains the key, and then flies back to the cage, where he/she (non-gender specific remember?), breaks the cage. By breaking the cage, NiGHTS then follows a new route/course to catch up to another birdman, and another cage…

That may sound samey, but remember the original NiGHTS had you collecting 20 Blue Orbs, and destroying a large Maren, holding an emotion, and then doing the same over and over. So you should realise, that this does not, necessarily, mean the game will be bad, I certainly never got bored of the game play in the original.

One big issue I had with the TGS demo, was that the Wiimote controls were not that great. It was not very sensitive, and awkward to control. Well the general method of Wiimote controls is the same. You still have the red/orange spot on screen, which shows the players direction, and you also still have to hold down A, to make NiGHTS fly in the desired direction.

However, I am happy to say that it is now easier to control. But it’s not perfect. Iizuka-san admits that not all gamers will not be able to control the game using this method, at least not at first. Experienced gamers will find it easier, but they will still need to get used to it.

I found the control method a lot smoother, more accurate and generally better than at TGS. In fact, you do really start to feel, ‘free’ as you fly using this method. You are no longer stuck with your thumb twirling on a stick. Once you get used to the controls, it becomes a natural feeling, and just the slight movement of your wrist can allow you to fly through rings with ease.

But, as I say it’s not perfect. Even when you find yourself flying with speed and grace, you can easily come a cropper by trying to perform an, essential, Para-loop, (somersault/attack). The Para-loop is the best way to rack up a high score, and kill enemies with ease (and style!), but you do have to get used to the way you perform this with the Wiimote. It is possible, I was pulling off Para-loops 9 times out of 10, by the end, but it is annoying, and I can see final reviews marking the game down for this.

Though there is a training scheme, which allows players to get used to the various cotrol methods.

One other thing about the TGS game, was the issue of lag. Now, I personally did not experience lag, though many other previewers say they did. I did however feel the game was slow, not that it was suffering, but that the programmers had intentionally made it so that NiGHTS flew slower than the Saturn game.

Whatever the case, lag or no, the final build definitely did not suffer, and the game play was faster and smoother all round.

So it plays fine? How is it looking?

Graphically I am really torn with the game; there is a mix of fantastic visuals, and some pretty dreadful visuals. So I’ll start with the bad.

Surprisingly, it is the cut scenes that I think look the worst. The game uses in-game graphics for the cut scenes, so no CG, which really would have been a better idea. Make no mistake, not all the cut scenes look bad, in fact a couple I saw were pretty good. But one of the first we see in the game, you have a close-up of the children, some of the Marens, NiGHTS and Reala, plus some scenery.

The close up, of the children, looked poor, you saw no real use of detail or textures, they looked pretty bland, as did the scenery, which was a mess of low-quality textures, up close. NiGHTS and Reala looked ok, not great, but better than the children for sure.

In fact, I think the children, all round, looked pretty shoddy. The animation was perfectly fine, but there wasn’t enough detail in them for me, especially seeing as they are shown in the majority of cut scenes, and they are controlled by the player on many occasions. If they were only in the game for a moment, then I wouldn’t care, but they are main characters.

This is really shown in the My Dream section. The graphics here just look bland and drab. Although it is implied that the world will change as you play, so it is possible that your My Dream world will start to look prettier, with time. But still, the children look like crap.

On the flip side, the overall level detail is fantastic. As you fly through the air, you see beautiful backdrops, great water-effects, and even better lighting.

One thing I could not get over was just how damn, funking fantastic the boss battles looked.

The boss levels all looked great, (from what I saw), and the bosses themselves, feature close-up shots, and still look the business. The boss levels were an orgy of brilliant colours, textures and lighting.

It’s just a shame that the game has some areas of poor visuals, because they drag down the overall impression, and I can see reviewers will probably slate the game for this.

Now, sound.

One thing I couldn’t really rate at TGS was the sound, I heard clips (from the trailers), and marked on that basis. But playing in a quieter environment gave me the chance to listen, finally, to the soundtrack.

It’s not good.

It’s flipping great.

If you liked the original NiGHTS music, you will be happy. Now I didn’t get to play all the levels, but what I heard was top notch, and really brought back memories. Especially the ‘remix,’ (might actually not be a remix), of the NiGHTS into Dreams, main theme tune ‘Dreams Dreams.’

I heard a couple of other journalists humming the tunes, as they walked around the SoE offices. Mike (from SonicCageDome), said he couldn’t get the song (Dreams Dreams), out of his head, neither could I.

The one thing that was hard to get used to was the voice acting… NiGHTS was just hard to get used to. He/she may be androgynous, but it’s clearly a female voice, and you just always think of NiGHTS as a female when it speaks, even though I think NiGHTS looks like a guy.

Personally, I think Sonic Team should have gotten a girlish-man, to do the voice of NiGHTS… someone like Michael Jackson would have been perfect.

Also, some of the acting, especially the children, is a little questionable… but at the same time, it isn’t bad. As I say, it’s hard to get used to characters using full speech, in NiGHTS.

One last thing I want to bring up, is the multiplayer.

We had two Wii’s setup, for people to play separately… however; they were also linked up to a Wi-Fi connection. So myself, Mike (from SonicCageDome), and ArchangelUK (from the Blognik), decided to see just how good the multiplayer is.

Connecting is simple, you are given a choice of Local (on the same Wii), Friend (invite a friend) or Random Player (basically connects to a random player from around the world). We had to choose the random player option, fortunately, we seemed to be the only players online in the world, or perhaps the game selects someone close to you.

The multiplayer runs perfectly smooth. No lag, it was like playing the single player game… only racing against another NiGHTS. We only played the race mode, not battle.

Race had you flying a set number of laps, round a course, on a level. You collect rings and orbs, like usual, but there are no enemies on the level, just pure racing. And I’m happy to say… I kicked ass!

Ok you’ve drivelled on enough, time to finish.

I’m not going to give the game an overall score. Because this is not a proper review. I may have played the final build of the game, but sharing a game with several people, for about 45 mins, isn’t enough game time to warrant a full opinion of the game.

However, the game is showing some great promise. The graphics have some lows, but also some great highs. The music is fantastic, and the side missions are surprisingly fun. Plus the multiplayer is pretty great.

The game has some great features and little extras, which will definitely keep gamers playing for longer.

The only question would be, whether the game will live up to the expectations of so many fans. Personally, I’m still not sure. I think the game is great fun, but as I say, I will need to sit down and play for longer, before I give a final opinion.

Needless to say, I will most definitely be picking this game up at launch, no hesitation.