Ninety-Nine Nights
If you heard that Tetsuya Miziguchi and Phantagram were making a new Xbox 360 game, you'd probably assume that it was some kind of strategy/puzzle title. Miziguchi's Q Entertainment were the makers for Lumines and Meteos, after all. Ninety-Nine Nights, though, bears more of a loose resemblance to Phantagram's Kingdom Under Fire with a little Golden Axe thrown in, making this action title is a bit of a departure from what these developers are known for doin'.
As of late, the orb has been shining…
The Ninety-Nine Nights demo tells a story of Aspharr, one of the Temple Nights of Varrfarrinn (sounds like something from one of those prescription drug commercials). His queen tells him of a story about a magical orb that was split in half, with humans keeping one piece while the goblins have ownership of the other. Something is awry as the pieces of the orb are now glowing. This is causing the goblins to be restless and they are coming after the other half of the orb. Aspharr, along with his sister and fellow knight Inphyy, must fight off the goblins and stop them from obtaining their goal.
The game starts with Aspharr and Inphyy's soldiers attacking the goblin army, when a landslide separates you from Inphyy's troops. The goal is to get back to your sister, taking out any goblins that stand in your way using your spear and magic powers. Along the journey, you'll find items, such as healing wood, and better weapons to aid you in your quest.
La-land slide! At first glace, you'd think that N3 was just a simple hack and slash game. I can pretty much bet that when you try it out you'll play it as such, too, and you'll die. N3 requires quite a bit of thinking in order to win. There are hundreds of creatures attacking you at any given moment. You'll have to equip the right items, decide on whether the troops need to attack or defend, and learn to conserve both your own and your army's energy. The graphics are really amazing at times, though there's a huge amount of fog, which feels like a throwback to the N64 days. The music score is great and adds to the excitement of mowing down 500+ goblins.
N3 does have its share of problems. The camera will drive you batty! You'll find yourself taking your thumb off the attack button in order to readjust the camera just so you can see what's going on, of course once you do that you'll probably take a few critical blows. I've run into some weird hit detection, environmental damage, and programming laziness.For example, you can be hacking away at a tower with no sign of wear or anything to let you know that you're doing something. If you swing at it long enough, though, the tower will collapse and fall. This is a bit of a disappointment coming from a next gen title. I'd be more forgiving if chopping down the towers wasn't a crucial part to completing the level. Enemies don't always react to getting hit with your weapon, as well. Some slowdown, sloppy dialog/translation/voice acting, dumb friendly A.I., and the lack of multiplayer are also on the list of annoyances.
Just needs a little Varrfarrinn
Issues aside, Ninety-Nine Nights is a lot of fun. The adrenaline rush you get from taking out hordes and hordes of enemies is astounding! It does get repetitious at times. Even with more characters and different storylines, I can't help to think that N3 may get old rather quickly. As for now, the N3 demo is an Xbox Live must-have download. Check back here in a couple of weeks for the full review of the game to see if the finished version holds up.
- NakedBoB
