[rokbox title=”Ninety Nine Nights Review” thumb=”http://www.geeksofgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/N3IIcoverNTSC.jpg” size=”854 505″ ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s-9piuNr3c&hd=1&autoplay=1[/rokbox]
The original Ninety Nine Nights, was a vibrant take on the stagnant Dynasty Warriors formula. The graphics were a force to be reckoned with for a game of its type, it’s just too bad that the game was held back by graphical slowdown and never deviated from the formula of the genre. So can Ninety Nine Nights II surpass the original and finally start the series on a legendary path?
Things open up with the main character Galen screaming in anger as he holds onto a deceased comrade. He immediately jumps headlong onto the battlefield against the forces of “The Lord of the Night”. Galen decimates his enemies and earns himself an audience with the Elven Princess herself. She entrusts Galen to fight along with her in this war against “The Lord of the Night”, but Galen only seeks vengeance and his long and bloody path to justice begins.
But Galen is not the only playable character, as you complete missions you will unlock various companions. Each unlocked character comes with their own storyline pathway, so players can switch freely between each of them for a different taste of the war. The first being the Elf Princess Sephia, the second being a tattooed Warrior named Zazi, the third is a goblin assassin named Levv, and last but not least the demonic criminal Maggni.
The story isn’t really that interesting however, it’s actually a fairly simple “Banding together to defeat an evil foe” type of romp. It doesn’t help that the voice over is incredibly boring and stilted, most of the characters come off as cheesy. Especially Maggni… he comes off as over the top during most of his lines and his delivery falls flat each and every time. Luckily, you can switch the language tracks to Japanese if the English voices are too much to take.
You’ll see a good amount of the story by way of the cinematics before and after completing a level. While there are some story elements told in-game, you won’t exactly see much of things beyond the now common voiceover during combat. The story is also a lot less active on the ground, so you’ll receive a snippet of dialogue here and there but that’s about it.
Once you get into the thick of the fight, you’ll find things to be very simple to get into. Especially if you’ve had any experience with the Dynasty Warriors series. It’s pretty much the same kind of button mashing madness involved in Ninety Nine Nights 2. The only difference is that players will be able to use a wide assortment of special abilities at anytime. You can activate these by holding LB and pressing a corresponding face button. So you can pretty much make up your own dangerous combos as you earn more special abilities. This adds up to some insane on-screen madness especially if you include each characters finishing move.
The best thing about this game is how fast paced it is, and that it can keep a steady frame-rate with all the chaos going on. Sadly, this is also where one of the most glaring issues arises… the camera system. Players have to manually move the camera wherever they go, and most of the time this is impossible while you’re trying to string together a combo. Which leads to you being constantly blindsided by various enemies. Even the last far camera view can’t really save you from being bombarded by something outside of the screen.
Things only get worse when you get next to a wall, the camera will shift into transparency and most of the time you’ll have no idea what is going on around you. This can be one of the most frustrating issues in the game, especially since a good majority of levels will have you running down a corridor. So you’ll usually be blindsided and thrown up against a wall and pummeled before you can get back to your senses. It’s very jarring at first, but once you get used to evading regularly you’ll see this less and less.
N3 II also tries to mix it up a bit by adding in platforming and puzzle elements into the game. The jumping in-game isn’t the most precise I’ve played, but there are no make it or break it points for missing a platform so all is forgiven. The puzzles don’t exactly innovate either, but they do give you something else to think about while hacking and slashing your way through areas. There are also a few ailments that can be inflicted on players by enemies to make your job tougher. From typical things like stunning and knockdown ailments, to something more deadly like locking out your special abilities for a time.
You can also find various mini-bosses sprinkled throughout levels who have special abilities that you can add to your arsenal.
Just don’t expect these guys to be pushovers, most of the abilities they use are extremely powerful and can wipe you out in a few hits. This also goes for the boss battles, actually it is worse with a lot of the bosses in the game. Most of them will come off as cheap and will require a lot of evading and using your special abilities at the right time. Since a good majority of the bosses will utterly annihilate you in just a few swings. After you’ve completed a level, you’ll receive a grade on how you’ve done. So there is a bit of incentive to come back and try to get a triple A rating. You also receive points that can be used to upgrade your characters health, abilities, weapons, and accessories. It’s a simple system that doesn’t require much thought, since leveling up a character is as easy as confirming that you want to spend the points.
There are also a couple of online Co-Op modes that the players can get involved in. Unfortunately there isn’t exactly a mode to play through the story, but instead you get three different mode types. The first mode would be that of survival, which requires you to defeat waves of enemies until the mission ends. The second would be the most interesting of the modes, which is simply called Maze. In this mode you and your partner have to hit switches to free each other from rooms filled with monsters. While the last mode is a race to be the first to reach a certain amount of kills before the other player.
Each of these missions grants rewards for completing the different stages, and you can play through it multiple times to earn orbs to level up your character and items. These modes add a bit of variety and fun, but there aren’t many different levels, so hopefully some kind of DLC will come out to extend the stages.
Now on the graphical side of things the game can come off as impressive for the genre. The character models won’t exactly win any awards, there is a bit of pop in, and a lot of the environment textures can come off as muddy at best. Yet it’s all about the sheer amount of destruction and enemies that you’ll see on screen. This is most apparent when you’re using the special abilities, and slashing bits and pieces off of your opponents. It’s good to see that the combat speed can hold up well, while all sorts of special effects are on screen.
So what do I truly think of Ninety Nine Nights 2? It’s hard not to enjoy this game in honesty, and seeing that it is so much more of a fast paced game in comparison to the rest of the genre. I’ll have to recommend it to anyone that loves hacking and slashing enemies without thinking. Especially seeing as stages can take up to an hour to complete per character. The only real problems are the camera and the fact that all of the characters are really the same person with a different skin. Sure they have different attack animations, but they all share the same special abilities and overall combat damage. But I can see why things were done like this, seeing as to truly complete the story you have to play as each character.
So my final ruling on this game will have to be a B-, simply because this game spices things up for the genre. Add the fact that you can go online with two-players co-op to destroy the Lord of the Nights forces in unison, and you have a pretty solid deal on your hands. Now if they make it so that in the next Ninety Nine Nights you can block cancel during attacks, and spread the camera out a bit more.. then it can truly be a game changer for Dynasty Warrior fans.
