As a child Sonic the Hedgehog was my favorite video game franchise. Once I heard that Yuji Naka and his team were behind a new game called NiGHTS Into Dreams... I was puzzled and a little sad. When I decided to pick up this game for my Sega Saturn I learned a valuable lesson – Change is good.

Synopsis

The game follows two characters: Claris Sinclair and Elliot Edwards. By day these two are citizens of the town called Twin Seeds, but when asleep they find themselves in Nightoptia, a surreal dream world. The ruler of this world, Wiseman, creates Nightmaren to help him collect Ideya. Ideya happens to be little colored orbs that represent different human characteristics. Claris and Elliot possess the most rare, red “bravery” Ideya. Wiseman himself contacts a nightmaren named NiGHTS to retrieve it from Elliot. NiGHTS senses the evil intentions and refuses and soon finds (himself? herself? whatever.) imprisoned in Ideya Palaces. Fortunately, NiGHTS can use bodies (read: Claris and Elliot) as hosts to escape the Ideya Palaces for short amounts of time to destroy Ideya Captures where Wiseman stores his stolen dream energy.

Gameplay

As NiGHTS, the gameplay takes place along a 2D plane in a 3D world. Some of my friends never got over this and dropped the game immediately. This was mostly due to that fact that at the time most major franchises had made the leap into 3D, explorable worlds. The worlds are beautiful and completely explorable when assuming the role of Claris or Elliot, but as said before, only accessible to NiGHTS on a 2D plane. There are seven levels (Dreams) total; three for Claris, three for Elliot and one they share.

Claris: Spring Valley, Mysic Forest, Soft Museum, Twin Seeds
Elliot: Splash Garden, Frozen Bell, Stick Canyon, Twin Seeds

As NiGHTS, there are four rounds to a level, which is a fancy way of saying there are four separate 2D paths, each increasing in difficulty. In each round you must collect twenty blue chips and deposit them in an Ideya Capture, this overloading it and having it free the contents. Every round is graded A-E based on score. The timer restarts as you begin a new round. You can rack up a ton of points by managing your time properly. Once you complete all four rounds you must beat a boss where you receive another grade based on how long it took you to do so. NiGHTS can perform tricks and moves by using the left and right triggers in conjunction with speed and direction. You need at least a C-average grade or better in a level to access the next one.

After beating a boss named Reala, there is a multiplayer mode in the game that allows two players to duke it out. The goal is to paraloop your opponent three times, and though not a major component of the game, it's definitely there.

Graphics

There were only two instances where the system suffered from a severe drop in FPS. Other than that the engine is nice (it would have been nice if they forked it over to Sega of America so they could complete Sonic X-treme) and runs nice and clean. This game is definitely one of the better-looking Sega Saturn titles that render a 3D world.

Music

Fumie Kumatani lead the music team in this title and did very good job, especially in an era where CD quality soundtracks was a fairly new thing. I didn't care for Fumie's Sonic Adventure tracks which were done in an entirely different style. A few tracks can be heard through a stand-alone CD player, but the music that plays during the seven levels can't be heard this way. This is quite unfortunate as they're quite catchy.

Testing Waters

For those who played the Sonic Adventure series the idea of a virtual-pet is familiar in the form of Chao; small creatures you had to feed and pay attention to before you raced them on the black market to impress women. Or something like that. NiGHTS had something similar, though it can go completely unknown because it's not necessary to completing the game. The “A-Life” used in NiGHTS allows you to interact with nightopians. You can treat them various ways and they will react. If you're nice they will like you, if you're mean they'll run away from you, etc. You can mix and breed them with friends and enemies in the game – take THAT genetics! Sometimes you'll even see them doing little jobs like sweeping the dream world with a broom.

I Scrolled Down Because I Wanted A Summary

This game is exceptional. Everything about this game is amazing and still creative when compared to titles on the market in 2004. If you have a Saturn, I don't know why you don't own this game. If you don't own a Saturn but run into one someday, be sure to get this diamond in the rough. One of Yuji Naka's finest titles ever.