Ninety-Nine Nights
Added September 18th, 2006 by Dakota Grabowski
Introduction:
What a wonderful day in the neighborhood for Microsoft...receiving the Japanese support they have always lusted for. Keiji Inafune, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Tomonobu Itagaki. Jun Takeuchi, Takuya Matsumoto, and Manabu Kusonki have all been reported to be working on several Xbox 360 titles to cater to Japan. If these developers don’t leap out from the page and strike you as interesting, while as a group, they have worked on titles such as Panzer Dragoon, NIGHTs, Tecmo Bowl, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Space Channel 5, and even Mega Man.
This leads me to Ninety-Nine Nights, which was developed under the care of Tetsuya Mizuguchi. N3 was planned to be one of the first games to capture the interests of Japanese gamers. When it released in Japan, it sparked interest, but not nearly enough to sell like Microsoft anticipated. After debating, Microsoft decided to bring N3 over to the American shores for everyone to get their dirty hands on. Is the first taste of Microsoft’s first-party Japanese titles worthy of a little dibble dabble?
Gameplay:
N3 loosely resembles Kingdom Under Fire and Dynasty Warriors, without any strategy involved. Phantagram, responsible for Kingdom Under Fire, are the respective developers for N3, but it doesn’t shine all the way through. Ninety-Nine Nights doesn’t hold a candle to KUF or DW in terms of strategy or your control of your troops. Before I get too deep into what went wrong, let’s cover the basic storyline for N3.
Anyone could predict the storyline for N3 just by looking at the back of the box or one screenshot, it’s easy to identify that there’s a war waging between humans and goblins. The plot outline is simple and is told from several different viewpoints. There are seven individual characters to play with, each with about three to four hours of gameplay from start to finish. The game will begin with Inphyy, who from the outset should be everyone’s favorite character when paired up with her annoying brother, Aspharr. Aspharr is the next to be unlocked after a few goals are met, and believe me when I say this - he is among the most annoying characters in any video game I have came across. He may be a tree-hugger and could be playing for the other team - he is always protecting those rotten goblins. Each story is retold through a different perspective, basically within the same levels that you’ll continuously play over and over again.
Setting myself back on track, Ninety-Nine Nights doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means. This is your standard hack-n-slash that is more ‘hack’ than slash. Hoards of enemies will be thrown in front of you for slaughter, often with the same generic enemy model for each goon you kill. You’ll be able to connect together a string of combos to slice through your adversaries easily. The higher you level up (lvl. 9 is the max), the more moves you’ll earn for your character’s use on the battlefield. If you search the battlefield, you will be able to find new weapons to upgrade and items to add to your inventory.
The limited control of your troops comes in two forms – telling them to attack and letting them know that they should retreat from battle. Dismissing them from the battle guarantees their lives since they barely fight. Keeping them in the battle will assist you in the heat of things when too many guys surround you. Having your troops around will occupy the enemy’s attention, so you can string your moves together to earn high combos. The troop control is messy and utterly useless; just watch, they’ll be standing there doing nothing for the longest time.
Graphics:
Microsoft and Phantagram have been building up the release of N3 with the hype circling around the graphics. From first glance, the graphics look decent and can easily compare to other Xbox 360 titles. The attribute Phantagram focused on was how many characters they could fit onto the screen. While initially it looks like they have pulled off an impressive feat, cramming the characters onto the screen creates some difficulties – N3 slows down in frame rates with hundreds of characters on the screen. Even worse is that the detailing and definition of the characters aren’t high enough to praise the character art. The goblins look as if they missed the last portion of their completion process to provide them any diversity. The boss battles are wasted with no build up or suspense – often they’ll be introduced and then you’ll have the task of killing them. The introductions are usually with the in-game cinematics that don’t feature any audio to go along with it.
Audio:
Annoying voice actors? Check. Boring soundtrack? Check. Generic sound effects? Check. Even though I hate to say it, Ninety-Nine Nights is your stereotypical imported game that didn’t receive enough time in localization. I often found myself putting the game on mute to avoid listening to Aspharr complain about why I am killing another goblin. The soundtrack is typical and follows the guidelines for every other fantasy game on the market. The sound effects are comical with forced emotions on behalf of the main characters. The audio has to be the worst part of N3 – I was easily able to adapt to the hack-n-slash aspect of the game, but the audio left me wanting to turn off the game.
Controls:
If I were asked for advice on how to play Ninety-Nine Nights effectively, I would tell the individual to continue to press the X button and Y button repeatedly. N3 is a simple button masher with not too much strategy in the waiting. Granted, you can jump with the B button to get some air time and then come down with a gigantic attack, but N3 doesn’t offer any variation of gameplay. The only variation of attacks happens when you collect the red orbs and build up a super-attack. The super-attacks occur over a small time frame in which you are able to slice through the goblins with ease. After you run out of time in this mode, you’ll be able to collect blue orbs to build up your ‘ultimate’ attack that can be used to clear the screen of enemies. N3 is straightforward and anyone can easily understand how to play it.
Replay:
Ninety-Nine Nights offers a few different campaigns to play through, but essentially they are all the same tale retold over again. The game’s first campaign took about 4 hours to finish and there are six other campaigns to traverse through. While the campaign has some meat to it, there’s no multiplayer included in Ninety-Nine Nights. The multiplayer addition could have affirmed longevity and a reason to replay N3. With no co-op, no online deathmatch, and no download content in sight, N3 is a barren wasteland of monotonous hack-n-slash. For all you achievement point aficionados, N3’s hardest achievement tasks include leveling all your characters up and finishing each mission with an A ranking. Not too hard to achieve all the points to boost your GamerScore.
Summary:
Quality over quantity is the best advice I can provide for Phantagram. Sure, they were able to cram hundreds of enemies onto the screen at one time. Yes, the ability to kill goblins with incredible attacks is fun. But alas, I don’t find it entertaining to keep playing the same clichéd storyline that contains no innovation. If you want a great weekend project, pick up Ninety-Nine Nights as a rental to earn all the Achievement Points. There’s no guaranteed purchase stamped on the front of N3 – just a warning to rent before you buy.
What a wonderful day in the neighborhood for Microsoft...receiving the Japanese support they have always lusted for. Keiji Inafune, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Tomonobu Itagaki. Jun Takeuchi, Takuya Matsumoto, and Manabu Kusonki have all been reported to be working on several Xbox 360 titles to cater to Japan. If these developers don’t leap out from the page and strike you as interesting, while as a group, they have worked on titles such as Panzer Dragoon, NIGHTs, Tecmo Bowl, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Space Channel 5, and even Mega Man.
This leads me to Ninety-Nine Nights, which was developed under the care of Tetsuya Mizuguchi. N3 was planned to be one of the first games to capture the interests of Japanese gamers. When it released in Japan, it sparked interest, but not nearly enough to sell like Microsoft anticipated. After debating, Microsoft decided to bring N3 over to the American shores for everyone to get their dirty hands on. Is the first taste of Microsoft’s first-party Japanese titles worthy of a little dibble dabble?
Gameplay:
N3 loosely resembles Kingdom Under Fire and Dynasty Warriors, without any strategy involved. Phantagram, responsible for Kingdom Under Fire, are the respective developers for N3, but it doesn’t shine all the way through. Ninety-Nine Nights doesn’t hold a candle to KUF or DW in terms of strategy or your control of your troops. Before I get too deep into what went wrong, let’s cover the basic storyline for N3.
Anyone could predict the storyline for N3 just by looking at the back of the box or one screenshot, it’s easy to identify that there’s a war waging between humans and goblins. The plot outline is simple and is told from several different viewpoints. There are seven individual characters to play with, each with about three to four hours of gameplay from start to finish. The game will begin with Inphyy, who from the outset should be everyone’s favorite character when paired up with her annoying brother, Aspharr. Aspharr is the next to be unlocked after a few goals are met, and believe me when I say this - he is among the most annoying characters in any video game I have came across. He may be a tree-hugger and could be playing for the other team - he is always protecting those rotten goblins. Each story is retold through a different perspective, basically within the same levels that you’ll continuously play over and over again.
Setting myself back on track, Ninety-Nine Nights doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means. This is your standard hack-n-slash that is more ‘hack’ than slash. Hoards of enemies will be thrown in front of you for slaughter, often with the same generic enemy model for each goon you kill. You’ll be able to connect together a string of combos to slice through your adversaries easily. The higher you level up (lvl. 9 is the max), the more moves you’ll earn for your character’s use on the battlefield. If you search the battlefield, you will be able to find new weapons to upgrade and items to add to your inventory.
The limited control of your troops comes in two forms – telling them to attack and letting them know that they should retreat from battle. Dismissing them from the battle guarantees their lives since they barely fight. Keeping them in the battle will assist you in the heat of things when too many guys surround you. Having your troops around will occupy the enemy’s attention, so you can string your moves together to earn high combos. The troop control is messy and utterly useless; just watch, they’ll be standing there doing nothing for the longest time.
Graphics:
Microsoft and Phantagram have been building up the release of N3 with the hype circling around the graphics. From first glance, the graphics look decent and can easily compare to other Xbox 360 titles. The attribute Phantagram focused on was how many characters they could fit onto the screen. While initially it looks like they have pulled off an impressive feat, cramming the characters onto the screen creates some difficulties – N3 slows down in frame rates with hundreds of characters on the screen. Even worse is that the detailing and definition of the characters aren’t high enough to praise the character art. The goblins look as if they missed the last portion of their completion process to provide them any diversity. The boss battles are wasted with no build up or suspense – often they’ll be introduced and then you’ll have the task of killing them. The introductions are usually with the in-game cinematics that don’t feature any audio to go along with it.
Audio:
Annoying voice actors? Check. Boring soundtrack? Check. Generic sound effects? Check. Even though I hate to say it, Ninety-Nine Nights is your stereotypical imported game that didn’t receive enough time in localization. I often found myself putting the game on mute to avoid listening to Aspharr complain about why I am killing another goblin. The soundtrack is typical and follows the guidelines for every other fantasy game on the market. The sound effects are comical with forced emotions on behalf of the main characters. The audio has to be the worst part of N3 – I was easily able to adapt to the hack-n-slash aspect of the game, but the audio left me wanting to turn off the game.
Controls:
If I were asked for advice on how to play Ninety-Nine Nights effectively, I would tell the individual to continue to press the X button and Y button repeatedly. N3 is a simple button masher with not too much strategy in the waiting. Granted, you can jump with the B button to get some air time and then come down with a gigantic attack, but N3 doesn’t offer any variation of gameplay. The only variation of attacks happens when you collect the red orbs and build up a super-attack. The super-attacks occur over a small time frame in which you are able to slice through the goblins with ease. After you run out of time in this mode, you’ll be able to collect blue orbs to build up your ‘ultimate’ attack that can be used to clear the screen of enemies. N3 is straightforward and anyone can easily understand how to play it.
Replay:
Ninety-Nine Nights offers a few different campaigns to play through, but essentially they are all the same tale retold over again. The game’s first campaign took about 4 hours to finish and there are six other campaigns to traverse through. While the campaign has some meat to it, there’s no multiplayer included in Ninety-Nine Nights. The multiplayer addition could have affirmed longevity and a reason to replay N3. With no co-op, no online deathmatch, and no download content in sight, N3 is a barren wasteland of monotonous hack-n-slash. For all you achievement point aficionados, N3’s hardest achievement tasks include leveling all your characters up and finishing each mission with an A ranking. Not too hard to achieve all the points to boost your GamerScore.
Summary:
Quality over quantity is the best advice I can provide for Phantagram. Sure, they were able to cram hundreds of enemies onto the screen at one time. Yes, the ability to kill goblins with incredible attacks is fun. But alas, I don’t find it entertaining to keep playing the same clichéd storyline that contains no innovation. If you want a great weekend project, pick up Ninety-Nine Nights as a rental to earn all the Achievement Points. There’s no guaranteed purchase stamped on the front of N3 – just a warning to rent before you buy.
