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| Ninety-Nine Nights |
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| Action |
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| Q-Entertainment |
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| Microsoft |
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25th August 06 |
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15th August 06 |
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12+ |
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(M) - Mature |
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At last years Tokyo Game Show I was able to play some of Ninety Nine Nights or N3 and meet the team behind the game which sees a collaboration between Rez, creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Phantagram’s Sangyoun Lee. The partnership is one of Japan and Korea as the two got together to bring their first Xbox 360 title to the masses. N3 tells the tale of an magical Orb of great power and world peace which when broken causes ninety nine days of darkness. On the 100th day light returns and it is here where the restorer of the Orb is granted ultimate power. Obviously this situation causes all manner of characters wishing to harness the orb’s power or to restore the lands to their former glory of peaceful days.
In N3 players take on the roles of various characters from different factions and play their own storyline through the game. The demo features the blonde haired European looking Aspharr who is an officer of the Temple Nights. The demo doesn’t really touch on the overall story behind the characters but does show some of their traits especially as Aspharr is a tough fighter for honour and justice and his mission shows his compassion towards those in need.
Not beating around the bush, N3 fits neatly into the hack and slash genre of games which if any of you are familiar with titles such as Dynasty Warriors or Kingdom Under Fire then you will be right at home. N3 actually plays pretty much identical to the fighting sections of Kingdom Under Fire which isn’t surprising considering Phantagram’s involvement in N3. I think what works great and is most instantly noticeable is the option to move the camera freely around the character. Now you might scoff and think that this is standard fare, well I have to correct you as it is not always the case as some games don’t allow for a dynamic camera and resort to using a centred camera approach; which is something you get used to but isn’t particularly helpful or fluid. So from the offset N3 does something correctly which is a positive sign for me. I guess the next primary thing that players are going to notice from the offset are the numbers of troops on screen at any given time and with some close up shots being seen during the cut scenes shows off some impressively detailed looking characters, even if most of them are clones of each other.
The real crux of any hack and slash game is the combat itself and N3 doesn’t deviate from the successful formula seen in Kingdom Under Fire. Players can perform normal attacks with the X button and power attacks with the Y button; the left trigger being a block button. The B button being reserved for special orb power moves which are performed when enough orbs are collected from the fallen (which fills a bar). With a combination of the shoulder buttons and d-pad, players are able to issue simple defend or attack formations to their small army of soldiers they have at their disposal as well as wait and proceed commands; well it might not offer the same tactics as Kingdom Under Fire but it certainly adds an extra layer to the game play if you wish to position forces for the best attack possibilities. Whilst it’s probably very easy to sit and tap the X button over and over again to some success I really feel that by doing this you miss the essence of the combat and the style it brings. Ok, there are not hundreds of moves but there are variations and combos to make combat far more engaging. I think players would do better if they practiced moves first before unleashing there true potential onto the computer controlled opponents. For me anyways, it makes for a far more rewarding experience, because lets face it 30 minutes of aimlessly tapping the X or Y button is asking for trouble or more specifically boredom to set in.
One thing of note is the inclusion of super special moves which are indicated by filling a blue meter. Once full this enables the player to perform moves that can literally wipe out hundreds of opponents in a single blast. These move look spectacular and are incredibly effective as you can imagine; however don’t expect to pull these moves off too many times during the course of the long levels. The demo level is quite long and depending on whether you aim to kill everyone and explore a little to find numerous items such as weapons and stat boosting items which can be equipped during battle rather than between rounds; means that the demo level at least can last anything up to and beyond 30 minutes. During this time players cannot save mid game or hit any checkpoints, so it’s kill or be killed and a restart should you happen to take one too many blows. This may annoy beginner players but I’m sure there will probably be an easy difficulty and a number of training missions in the full game. With random attacking of the repetitive nature as mentioned earlier then the chances of dying are more probable. Players really need to focus on who they are attacking and in some cases, as highlighted in the demo focus on distant archers who constantly rain down volleys of arrows amongst the carnage. It’s quite easy to over look this fact until you realise that you are taking more damage than necessary.
Graphically N3 looks rather impressive and from the high quality pre rendered intro movie to the cut scenes using the game engine N3 certainly has some great looking characters with intricate design. The in game character models animate well and look convincing especially during the cut scenes which occur at various intervals. During the actual game play there are some impressive depth of field effects present which gives the game a foggy, blurry look on distant objects. Fog has been used to mask distance in many games in the past but with the new hardware offering developers more power, the depth of field effect is a much better looking option. When looking at hack and slash games which offer open environments and plenty of on screen characters, players have to be aware that background detail cannot be as high as in other titles that offer small playing spaces and have plenty of loading. With this in mind N3 does a good job of providing a decent looking landscape to do battle on; however the battlegrounds are secondary to the main focus of the game which is the combat. The full game should offer some variety in terms of battle locales and of course with several playable characters, each with their own storyline and move sets means that variety shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
One thing I did notice was the lack of electric guitars featured in the music. Now the demo features only one level, so we might be in for some in the finished game. This is good news for me as one of my gripes from similar games is the use of inappropriate music; mostly cheesy rock. N3 features a more suitable soundtrack that is part electronic and part orchestral. This works well for the type of game that it is and hopefully the full soundtrack continues this theme.
On a negative note, and again one has to consider that this is a demo and not the finished product; I did notice some glitches. For example when attacking enemy towers which litter the levels, there was no hit detection or sound when striking these, making it feel like you were attacking air. I’m sure this problem should be fixed for the final game. Then there were moments of slowdown or frame rate dips at times during the more hectic moments. This didn’t pose too much of a problem however it was noticeable, especially when trying to beat up a massive troll and its minions. I think a game of this scale is going to encounter these problems at times simply because of the ambition the developers have by including as many soldiers on screen as possible. Either way I enjoyed the ambience of having that many soldiers on screen and could easily bare any frame rate dips as a trade off.
There’s a recurring problem with hack and slash games of this nature and that is of the enemy AI. A lot of the time you will see enemies standing around doing nothing, with only a few attacking you at any given time. You would think that with the huge numbers of characters on screen at once that more would try and attack however this is not normally the case. I think its probably safe to say that if it really was you versus 10,20 or more attacking characters that you would quickly become overwhelmed and defeated quite easily. I suspect that developers are fully aware of this fact and so to keep things balanced have opted to use a system where only nearby opponents attack directly alongside any ranged attackers. Whilst it might, in theory, sound interesting to fancy your chances against a huge number of attacking foes, at the end of the day if it loses its fun factor then it’s no good for anyone.
The demo offers an insight into what can be expected from the full game and whilst hack and slash games might not be everyone’s cup of tea it certainly has much appeal for gamers looking for brawn instead of brain. I don’t think N3 will reinvent the genre but it will offer an interesting story mixed with some intriguing characters. After speaking with Mitzuguchi and Sangyoun Lee its clear that the epic nature of their project is something they are both proud of and as a first foray into Xbox 360 game development is a great introduction for the team. I found the demo to be highly engaging, enjoyable and most importantly fun. Ninety-Nine Nights is already available in Japan (as it has been for a while now) and will be released during early August in the US and Europe.
Preview By: Robert Cram
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