|
|
Published : February 05, 2008 |
Author : JASON MAHONY | |||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
GAMEGUIDEDOG.COM IS PROUD to be able to provide the most complete and best online walkthrough strategy game guide for NIGHTS: JOURNEY OF DREAMS. This precise WALKTHROUGH GAME STRATEGY GUIDE is/will be available for you right in your members area and compatable for the Nintendo Wii Platform. Evidently something rather momentous happened in 1996, because despite starring a Ribena-suited flying jester of indiscernible gender orientation on a console struggling by that stage to hold the majority's attention, NiGHTS into Dreams won enough people over that its rebirth on a Nintendo console over a decade later wasn't just greeted with interest but outright jubilation. Even you lot got excited - one reader revealing he'd actually bought the original twice, and another threatening to boycott the medium entirely if SEGA cocked it up. Well, Journey of Dreams certainly isn't a cock-up, and while it's still a bit 1996 in places where it really shouldn't be, it's much too likeable to be cast aside completely. The premise remains simple, despite the attempts of a garrulous owl and a few dozen unremittingly dull cut-scenes to persuade you otherwise: playing as either of a pair of children sucked into a dream world and given the chance to "dualise" with the titular jester for a bit of flying around, you float along a predetermined two-dimensional path through bright, colourful 3D worlds, navigating hoops suspended in the air, hoovering up blue orbs to boost your score and chasing down birds with keys, circling various nightmaren creatures to expel them to a friendly dream garden you can visit from the level hub, and outwitting a series of boss characters who seem to be channelling a mixture of Tim Burton and CBeebies. How nice to be playing something bright and friendly. Whatever your preference, the game quickly establishes a routine of sending you through a three-stage chase sequence around the current dream world with a boss fight tacked on the end, following this up with other stages that involve circling imperilled friendly characters, rounding them up by riding NiGHTS like a boat down a river, or something similarly pattern-breaking, and then a final boss face-off against an enhanced version of the enemy from earlier. Each stage is timed, and ranks you at the end from A to E based on a mixture of speed and collectibles, while cut-scenes that elaborate on NiGHTS' origins, the back-stories of the kiddies and the machinations of the evil nightmaren intersperse the gameplay to give the experience some heft. NiGHTS seems to get himself caught in these cages quite a lot. Dimwit. There are dull moments, including some ill-judged third-person platform puzzling with Will and Helen, and the frame-rate is noticeably inconsistent in our review code, but there's a lovable innocence and purity of vision about the game's configuration that echoes SEGA's best arcade experiences. It's similarly slight, though, lasting only several hours for each character, although it does present myriad opportunities to repeat yourself for actual gain - or for the sheer fun of playing. Multiplayer is a bit bland - racing and hurling things at each other - but the inclusion of a dream garden where your circled conquests trot around happily, which integrates (rather cursorily) with the Wii Weather Channel, is another example of the game's warmth and personality. Whether by design or accident, it's hopelessly friendly. Man? Woman? Who cares? (Although actually, I'll take a woman.) Providing you can overlook a few of the aforementioned quirks, and providing you're not so cynical that a big-hearted game can't win you over, there's a lot to like here. A short run-time and some middling levels used to pad out each of Nightopia's dream environments probably did the most to wear down my goodwill toward it, but there was nothing fatally dispiriting about the experience and ultimately it has more to fuel the player's affection than not, like skyscrapers bursting into balloons. More of that, game developers. Indeed, if SEGA can adopt the principles employed here to reinvigorate a few of its other declining character-driven properties, it won't just be the publisher's increasingly savvy acquisitions and collaborations that drive strength back into its portfolio, it will be the very things that made it such a celebrated name in the first place. A good game, and definitely worth considering.
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Visitor's Comments !
| It's quiet in here. Can you hear the ECHO? |
