The reason why you had to own a Sega Saturn
Nights centers around a boy (Elliot Edwards) and a girl (Claris Sinclair). Both of them have low self esteem. Elliot is having trouble playing basketball against some older kids and Claris’s faith in entering an audition for ‘Twin Dreams’ play is dwindling! Nightopia is the name of the dreamland we visit when we sleep. Most dreamers don't realize that Nightopia is ruled by the evil Wizeman the Wicked, a despot who is trying to escape the world of dreams and break into ours. To accomplish this nefarious task, Wizeman must steal dream energy from sleeping children. One night, Wizeman turns his evil mind to two innocent children - Claris and Elliot. And one Nightopian, named Nights, decides to protect the children and foil the evil ruler's plans.
The game came packed with a controller for 3D games.The 3D landscape as well as the characters are very well done and animated, with the landscape being huge and detailed to walk on. NiGHTS lets you explore many things, from trains, mountains, bouncy things, even waterfalls. But this isn't even the beginning, when transformed into NiGHT, you fly around an absolutely stunning level of the greatest mix of 2D artwork and 3D backgrounds. The colors used in this game and mind-blowing, far exceeding anything ever done, as individual patterns on NiGHT's clothing are very well detailed, as well as every "baddie" or neutral enemy roaming around the 2.5D world. Flying around, in addition to being able to see the detail of the landscape, you're treated to even more detail in the sky, such as falling leaves and snow. And this is just the first level, as you move onto other levels, you don't see the famous "Change the colors and call it a new level" technique. Instead, each level is detailed in the finest display of colors and animation you'll find, ever, as far as the "32 bit era" goes. And the bonus level at the end, even incredible would be too faint and an absolute disgrace to describe the graphics of.
The game starts with you having access to just two dreams, Claris’ first dream (Spring Valley) and Elliot’s first (Splash Garden). Now it’s time to fight back and recover the dream energy. After you make your way to the Ideya Palace found in the centre of each dream world, NiGHTS meets you and begins the recovery of the energy.
Whilst you have total freedom to explore each world as the child, when you reach NiGHTS the game takes on a side-on 2.5D form. You must fly through each of the four courses, recovering the dream energy in each. To do so you must collect 20 blue chips, found on each course, and use them to overload the Ideya Capture, releasing the dream energy back to the palace. For each course there is a specific time limit, in which you must free the dream energy and return to the palace. However, the quicker you release the dream energy the more points you get and the longer you’ll have to fly around the course to rack up as many points as possible. When you finish a course by returning to the Ideya Palace, you’re given a grade based on your final score. If you run out of time before returning to the Palace, then you become Elliot or Claris again and must finish overloading the ideya without NiGHT’s help. there are some dodgy camera angles and there is no training mode. There was a demo disc Sega gave out called Christmas Nights, where the consoles internal lclock changed the enviroments and such, you could play as Sonic.
NiGHTS also features what I consider to be the coolest bonus scoring system ever -- something called ‘links’. By flying through rings successively and collecting items quickly a link count appears
Nights has some fantastic dreamy music, some of the tunes evoke things like happiness when you were a child. Its also strange but I think depending on the mood of the Nightopians, the music in the game mutate so it sounds remixed!!!
In conclusion, this is a reason why someone would want to get a Saturn today, or keep the old console in you possesion. Im glad i still own this gem.
Graphics
+ Beautifull scenery, each being unique and different
+ The Saturn handles the game pretty well, frame rate keeps up with the fast flying
+/- The FMV are nice, but the quality is very bad and it looks blocky
- there are some noticable clipping and the annoying Saturn transparency
Sound:
+ The soundtrack is amazing, symphonic and fits each scene in the game.
+The voices and sound effects are clear.
Game Play:
+ Unique gameplay never seen before, making this game a classic
+ 2 main characters to choose from, both with their own unique stages and boss fights.
+ You can fly in different paths in certain levels.
+ The game offers some challenge, you can unlock a hidden 2 Player mode.
Replay Value:
+ Offers a ranking system, for you to perfect your score
- game is very short
-There wont be a sequel