The old blue monolith Sega, have some fantastic games in their catalogue such as Sonic 3, Virtua Fighter 2, Shenmue and Nights. While many gamers wished for several years to have a continuation of the Nights story, Sega saw fit to refuse such requests until earlier this year where they released Nights: Journey of Dreams on the Wii. Does it have what it take to still the beating hearts of hardcore Sega fans?

You step into the shoes of a young boy, Will, or girl, Helen, on their quest to help Nights save Nightopia, A paradise under threat by the far too obviously named Nightmaren. The game starts (going from Will’s POV) with you arriving in a lobby area and quickly being greeted by a talking owl. The actual script in the game is extremely odd, if I was greeted by a talking owl one of the first things I would say is ‘OMG how the hell can you talk?’, instead Will goes on to talk about the place he’s in and how it connects to reality. At times the characters really let down the entire feel of the game making it feel cheap, even though the script is pretty bad, it’s not helped in any way by the poor in-game cut scenes themselves and voice work so bad I cringe at the sound of it.

Once you’re past the annoying welcome cut scene and tutorial which teaches you nothing useful, you go on your first mission. Have you ever played the original Nights? Oh well you’ll fit in here as nothing has changed. You control Nights as you fly around areas collecting items and unlockables trying to go through loops in a combo for points. It’s very Sonic Adventure with a ‘kill anything and do tricks for a better rank’ mentality. The gameplay as Nights is fairly enjoyable while it’s running smoothly.

Graphics in the game are not what I would expect from Sonic Team. Animation in the in game cut scenes makes the human children look like dead puppets with eyes open wide and constantly staring into space rather than the person they are talking to. The graphics being on par with the Wii’s normal crowd would usually mean the game runs smoothly throughout, this isn’t the case with lag spoiling any momentum and timing you may have going. It’s a big shame nothing was tweaked in the game as the FMV sequences are beautiful and almost comparable to some of Square Enix’s work.

When it comes to controls, Nights is like a pimp offering anything your mind could possibly want, unless it wants good controls - you may want to go somewhere else for those. The game offers Wiimote, Wiimote/Nunchuck, Classic Controller and Gamecube Controller as its 4 options of play. Unfortunately all of them are poor with the Classic Controller being just about passable. Of course the camera plays a huge part in the problem with the controls as a badly locked camera will stop you from seeing ahead and makes it difficult to shift Nights in the right position.

One of the best things Nights has going for it is the online features built in. Not only can you battle and race friends and random people online, you can also have your own small area known as My Dream. My Dream is similar to the idea in Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast and Gamecube where you had your own private area in which you could visit any time and look after Chao’s. In Nights, My Dream uses the Weather Channel and changes the weather depending on your area, which is an awesome idea and one I think more games should take advantage of; the area is then updated and built up of events happening in the game as long with items found in missions. You can then visit other peoples dream areas and see what they have in theirs, it’s not an amazing part of the game overall but a clever and welcome addition.

Closing Comments
Overall I’m disappointed with Nights. It has potential to be a fantastic game but is too flawed in almost every area to reach the plateau of greatness. While I like what Sega have tries to do with Nights, it just feels, to some degree, poorly put together. The story is functional at best, VO work is pretty abysmal, and worst of all controlling both the kids and Nights feels unresponsive and frustrating. 2P Multiplayer is a nice extra, especially the online, but I don’t see many people feeling the need to actually play it. The original Nights is a classic Saturn game and many gamers wanted to see the series continue, but I doubt they envisioned this. Recommended only for the hardest of hardcore Sega fans.

Score 6.0

+ ‘My Dream’ area.
+ Online play.
+ Many control options..

- .. Shame none of them work perfectly.
- Tries to copy the original formula and fails.
- Noticeable outbursts of Lag.