Nights into PS2

If my excitement leading up to the failed Wiiboot, it’s own fanart section in my gallery, and the existence of the infamous Parody into Dreams didn’t clue you into the fact I’m somewhat of a rabid NiGHTS into Dreams… fangirl well, I don’t know what the hell could. Now, I never import games. Mainly because I can’t read Japanese and America gets games well before all the PAL regions anyway. However, when I first heard the original NiGHTS into Dreams was being remade on the Playstation 2 (which probably should have just been done in the first place instead of Sega USA, fresh off their landmark title Shadow the Hedgehog, deciding to strain out NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams like a bad kidney stone) I was excited to say the least.

Then it turned out it was going to be Japanland-only. Bastards.

But I would not be deterred from a fresh, re-rendered version of my favorite childhood game where I could actually see what was going on and the baddies and goodies in the various levels weren’t scrambled 2D sprites. I got myself a shiny import, I got myself a Swap Magic, I spent two days trying to find the right screwdriver with which to mutilate my 7 year old Playstation 2, and in the end was out more money than I’d like to admit just to facilitate my shameless fangirlism. But damnit it was worth it!

Nights into Dreams on the Playstation 2 is actually a pretty good deal. All on one disc you get the game with remade graphics, the original Saturn version, the “Christmas Nights” demo which is a fine mini game unto itself with lots of calendar-based surprises, an image gallery, and a quick selector of all the cutscenes (if you’ve unlocked them.) You don’t have to worry much about not being able to read menus or HUD elements either, because the original game was planned as a highly international title most everything is in English. The only time I had a problem was when I was met with a wall of Japanese text that was either asking me if I wanted to create new save data or informing me my save card was full. I… I couldn’t really tell which, but I solved that problem in the end. The premise of the story may be explained in the instruction booklet but chances are if you’re looking to play this game you probably already know it, and it can easily be found on the internets anyway. You get a pretty good idea from the visuals alone, at any rate, which is how the game was designed.

The graphical difference between the new remake and the original Saturn version is, to say the least, noticeable. I personally could play this game in my sleep, so zooming around the levels as I normally do I didn’t notice just how stark it was… until I loaded up the original Saturn game on the disc for comparison. I actually laughed. And now I never want to go back to the old way. Of course my crappy analog capture device may not be able to do the difference enough justice. At any rate, the remade version and the Saturn version share the same save data, so there’s no need to go all the way through them both.

But I do always feel obligated to explain the premise of a game I’m talking about so here it goes. You have two teenagers, Claris and Elliot, who live in the city of Twin Seeds. They both have aspirations, Claris to be a singer and Elliot to be a great basketball player. However they’re having nightmares due to recent failures, Claris having gotten stage fright during an audition and Elliot having his pride bruised by some older boys displaying greater skill on the court. In the dream world they meet NiGHTS, a creature who is rebelling against the wicked master of nightmares and the Nightmaren who are trying to destroy Nightopia, the realm of good dreams. NiGHTS merges with the children and using the power of their “ideya”, manifestations of the different aspects of the human heart (Bravery, the rarest, Wisdom, Intelligence, Purity and Hope), combats the Nightmaren and helps Claris and Elliot to overcome their own nightmares.

It’s all a pretty sweet story, and it has very high replay value. At the beginning of each level, or “dream”, the child you’re currently playing as has their ideya stolen by Nightmaren but they’re always able to hang onto their “Bravery” (sybolism! Ha HA!) They use their remaining ideya to free and merge with Nights who you then guide through four set courses to retrieve the other ideya. The courses may be on rails but you have a surprising amount of freedom in your control of Nights and if you get going at a high speed the fluidity is very energizing. Once you have all five ideya you’re off to fight a Nightmaren boss. Repeat in a series of vastly different and imaginative levels until you battle the master of Nightmares himself. The object really is to retrieve the ideya as quickly as possible by collecting enough blue orbs to break the cage it’s held in and then you’re launched into a bonus time where you can continue around and around the level until your time runs out racking up your points, but you have to insure you return to the starting point before time is up or you’ll turn back into the child and lose all of your points. Killing Nightmaren gets you points, certain items give you a certain number of points, you can increase these by doing acrobatics as you collect orbs and stars or fly through rings, and by “linking” items by rapidly hitting them in succession without missing you can increase your points even further. Based on your score you’re given a letter grade for the level. The replay value comes from the quick and easy level play and trying to best your own scores or the scores of anyone else with save data.

There was also a system in place with the Nightopians who “live” in the levels known as “A-life” that was very much a precursor to the Chao in Sonic games. You can ball up Nightmaren instead of killing them and send them bouncing around the level. It doesn’t get you any points but if it smacks into a Nightopian a hybrid creature known as a “Mepian” will be born. This can be very amusing to play around with and ends up in some pretty cool combinations. Since the remake and the Saturn version share the same save data they also share how many ‘Pians are in a level at any given time (they also periodically lay eggs producing more of them). I discovered a brand new screen in the options menu that lets you view how many ‘Pians, Mepians and eggs you have in each level, how much the general ‘Pian population likes NiGHTS (which will change depending on whether you’re nice to them or terrorize them), and lets you have a good view of what they all look like. For old time players who liked exploring this rather mysterious aspect of the game it’s a pretty awesome new feature.

Christmas Nights, which you unlock by completing all the levels in the main game, is only available in slick remake vision but… really who the hell cares!? It looks great! The story of Christmas Nights is told in a series of adorable illustrations with a voice over, even if you can’t understand Japanese you can get the gist of what’s going on. Oddly enough for being a demo it takes place after the events of the main game, so it’s perfectly suited to be unlockable content. And there’s no better way to get yourself into a jolly, secular Christmas spirit than with this, it’s jam packed with holiday cheer, so much so it will horrendously confuse old-time players. The ideya shrine is now a cake, the ideya captures are trees, the stars are bells, the rings are wreathes, it’s crazy I tell you! To make matters worse the only level is Spring Valley, the first level of the main game, and Elliot’s run through is a series of very unfamiliar courses.

Fans of the original game will often swear by the control scheme given to us by the Sega Saturn 3D Controller, the Saturn’s analog controller which was packaged with Nights when it was released in 1996. True, the sunk-in, rubbery joystick gave us the feeling of free flight in the original, and some fans think it can’t be matched. Well get that looney idea out of your head right now, the controls on Nights PS2 are tight. They were so tight that I, a person who’s been through this game at least 100 times over the last ten years, was overshooting items at first. I feel it’s fantastic, then again I’ve always liked the feel of the Playstation 2 controller.

That isn’t to say the game wasn’t reinvented without a few glitches. There’s some sound issues here and there, specifically when you battle Spring Valley’s boss Nightmare Gillwing. His iconic thundering roar is more like a tiny peep in both the remake and original, somehow his sound effects were mixed very oddly with the sound of his big dumb head growing back louder than his screech. Other sound effects seem inappropriately loud or quiet throughout. Nightopians practically scream out their cute little songs as you pass to the point where you just want to kill them out of spite rather than out of accident. The cinematic cutscenes have also come out oddly, where they have gone through noise reduction and look alot smoother the improved frame rate has put them a bit out of synch with the sound, they’re somewhat washed out and they sometimes awkwardly transition between shots. But those petty grievances aside there isn’t much else that’s so problematic.

I always hear people say how they wish they could play Nights and I’d say this is a good way to go about getting it. Playstation 2s are certainly more common than Saturns, the game is fairly priced by your friendly neighborhood importer, and with something like a Swap Magic or a Gameshark 2 V3 you could easily override the region on your system (which is not illegal in any way.) You get a pretty solid package deal with this release, you don’t have to worry about losing save data every few years to a dying watch battery nestled deep in your Saturn (*cough*) and you don’t have to worry about being vexed by badly aging graphics if you’re picky so I’d highly recommend it for old time fans and anyone who has ever had their interest piqued by the somewhat reverent legend surrounding this game.

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