While not as good as the original, Nights journey of Dreams is a solid game thats worth playing.
In 1996, Nights into Dreams was released for the Sega Saturn, it gave gamers an excellent perspective of 3-D flying, excellent music and terrific graphics in its time. The original was a true classic. Now 11 years later we finally have a follow up and it just had to be on the Wii, will have the magic of the original? Or will it be another recent flop from sonic team?
STORY
The story revolves around two kids. Will, a talented footballer who's devastated about his Dad moving work places and training with him less. You also have Helen, a Talented violin player who has regrets about leaving her Mum behind during practice to go shopping with her friends. After having nightmares about their problems, they end escaping to a place called Nightopia and meet a cheerful jester character called Nights and helps them overcome their problems during the story. But all is not well in Nightopia. The evil Wizeman wants Nightopia destroyed with the help of the servant and nightmarian king, Reala. So its up to Nights with the aid of Will and Helen to stop them. Its a nice light hearted story that will mostly appeal to kids.
GRAPHICS AND PRESENTATION
When the game starts you get some very impressive CG cut scenes. But then you get to in-game and they are very unimpressive, it looks like an early PS2 game. Yes we all know that the Wii is no PS3 or XBOX 360 in the graphics department, but after playing games like Mario galaxy and Metriod prime 3, the Wii is no doubt capable of better. On a positive note, Journey of Dreams is a very colorful game with a good Art style, its just a shame that SONIC TEAM did not push the Wii at all.
In the sound department. Journey of dreams really has some really terrific music, its fast paced sometimes weird but enjoyable. While its not quite as good as the original, its not far off. You got some remixed tunes as well as new ones. Most of the games sound effects have been taken from the original witch is no bad thing becasue it will probably give fans of the original some nostalgia.
Now to the somewhat bad part in the sound department, voice acting. Its no surprise that we have another SEGA game with cheesy voice acting. Nights now talks with a girls accent! Nights can sound ok in parts but in other parts it can be pretty bad. The thing is i don't think Nights should talk, yes voice acting can give someone more character but somthing like Nights could have been more cooler and more mysterious without speech. Will like everyone else has a British accent, but when listening to Will, some parts can sound British but then he sounds American in other parts, the voice actor was clearly an American. Helen British is a bit better but she sounds completely lifeless. Owl sounds alright but nothing more. The only characters that sound very good are Reala and Wizeman, they sound just right.
GAMEPLAY
There are FOUR different control methods for playing Journey of Dreams. First is the Wii remote on its own witch is absolutely rubbish, you have a pointer called the mindsight and you hold the A button and point the direction you want Nights to go, its easy flying through the rings but doing the complex moves are almost impossible, all i can say is DO NOT play this game with the Wii remote on its own, they are BROKEN. Its not the end of the world as every Wii comes with a nun-chuck. With this method you control Nights with the nun-chuck and dash with the A button on the remote, it works very well but my only gripe about this method is that to do flips and loops, you you need to shake the Wii-remote but the problem with that is that it barely responds when shaking. The best way to play Journey of Dreams is either with the Classic controller or the Gamecube controller, using the anolougue stick and doing the acrobatic moves with the right shoulder button works great, using the nun-chuck is good but using the controllers are much better.
The game has 7 worlds, 3 for Will, 3 for Helen and both sharing the last world. The first 6 worlds consist of 5 missions. The first is a chase mission where you have to chase a bird and grab its key and then go and unlock the cage, you do this three times and then go in to a boss fight, the chase missions are great and easily the best thing about the game. The other missions include saving Nightopions from danger, these include para looping them to safety, turning into a train and stopping them from crashing, turning into a boat and collecting them from the ocean and destroying the mines so they won't hit them, most of them are pretty fun but a couple of the can be frustrating. There are parts of the game where you chase this thing called an octopaw, in these missions you have to links by going through rings and collecting blue chips, you have 5 attempts to beat the target of 30, these are alright but nothing great, just feels a bit pointless. There are other missions witch include, making a bubble big and hitting the notes for the tune dreams dreams, while they are pointless, they are pretty enjoyable. The worst part of the game is where you play as Will or Helen in a platforming stage, you have to find your way out of an area and throwing blue chips at enemy's, these are very dull and should not have been in the game. Nights also has other forms like a dolphin for going underwater, A rocket for going faster and a snake. These are a nice addition to the game and feel well balanced.
Nights Journey of Dreams is pretty easy and very short, but the game has got some pretty decent replay value. You will want to go back anyway for the chase missions becasue they are very fun, but to get the last idya, you need to get at least a C ranking in every mission. Also if you collect all the dream drops witch are scattered throughout the worlds, you will get a nice little surprise. You also have a place called MY DREAM witch is an updated version of A-LIFE and is very similar to the Chao garden in sonic adventure 1 & 2, its pretty much a nightopion version of cyberpets. MY-DREAM also takes advantage of the Wii forecast channel, for example if its raining in your area, it will be raining in your MY DREAM, quite a nice feature indeed. The game also takes advantage of the Nintendo WI-FI connection, you can upload your scores, visit your friends MY DREAM, and have online races where you race against Reala, split screen includes race and a battle mode, battle modes are not included for WI-FI witch is a real shame.
OVERALL
Journey of dreams is a very good game in most parts but bad in some, if you can overlook its faults you get a worthy follow up to a true classic. Any fan of the original should play it but anyone who has never played Nights should be cautious.