Here's the Story of a Lovely Lady…
Long ago, the world was kept in peace through the power of a big honkin' orb. Unfortunately, the orb shattered and split the world into light and dark. The different races panicked and waged wars against each other. Into this violence and confusion a demon emerged and threw the world into absolute chaos. The demon was defeated, however, exactly 100 days following his revival. That, my friends and neighbors, is why they named that demon the King of Ninety-Nine Nights. Years later, in fear of a second long darkness, another confrontation arose, this time between the humans and the goblins, which brings us to now and the War with No Name.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, there's this girl named Inphyy. She's pretty crazy. She's a Temple Knight of Varrfarrinn fighting in the war. Then there's her step-brother Aspharr. He's pretty nice. He's also a Temple Knight. Inphyy wants an immature and vigilante sort of justice in this war, but Aspharr only wants the safety of his loved ones. These are the first of seven playable characters in Ninety-Nine Nights. Playing each of them gives you different and conflicting perspectives of the same war. Characters you choose, and decisions that you make for them, can alter the outcome significantly.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
Swinging around at enemies that are surrounding you by the hundreds and beating them away a handful per slash, is positively thrilling. Commanding your army to defend or attack, or, better yet, using them as fodder when you're trying to avoid a boss that would surely be the death of you were it not for the distraction of those poor archers, makes you feel like a little couch potato god. I must warn you however, it gets old pretty quickly. Level after level, the same gangs of enemies attack you the same way. The developers tried to spice it up a little by adding a level up system, so that when you level up you learn more attacks. The problem I have with this: using these special attacks seems to make yourmore susceptible to enemy attacks. No thank you.

The orb system though, is a beautiful thing. Every enemy you kill with a regular attack yields a little red orb. These orbs fill a meter, and when that meter fills you can use what I'll call a super attack. This super attack causes extreme damage to groups of enemies; any enemy to perish from this super attack yields a blue orb, which fills another meter. When that meter is full you can use what I'll call a super duper attack, which causes insane amounts of damage to, well, just about everybody.

I could see the developer's attempts to include some environmental interaction, like sending boulders down a hill to crush hundreds of enemies, but those elements are too few to upset the tedium of the battle system. One last point, if I may, and this is for developers everywhere. There are no saves or checkpoints anywhere within the levels of Ninety-Nine Nights. You could have five objectives, some of them boss-related, in a two hour level, only to arrive at the end to die from one well-placed sword thrust or frog butt (play, you'll understand), and have to start again. It's enough to make a sane person want to kill a puppy. Or not.

Hot, Hot, Hot
Be prepared to be overwhelmed. At many points in your experience there will be hundreds of highly detailed characters flooding a fluid and picturesque landscape, which spans as far as the horizon, with absolutely no framerate slowdown. It's hard not to stop mid-fight just to take everything in. Some clunky character animation keeps it from being otherworldly, and the oh-so-beautiful environment surrounding you is, at times, absolutely oblivious to whatever damage you're trying to inflict upon it, and when it does decide to pay attention, it's unrealistic and choppy.

And then…
If you're looking for an intense and good lookin' experience to kill a couple of hours, look no further; your introduction to Ninety-Nine Nights will be a memorable and exciting one. However, delve deeper into this title and you'll find repetition and frustration are soon to follow. It's unfortunate really, considering that above all, Ninety-Nine Nights is a superb example of the capabilities of the Xbox 360.

- Saria