NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams

I had promised myself I’d do this one much earlier; either in the same year where I released my original review of the first NiGHTS game, or perhaps the year after. Oh well, better late than never, as they say.

SEGA has a thing for
free-spirited protagonists.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, I can understand; SEGA promotes the franchises that do well like Sonic, Persona and Yakuza. Still, due to a design that almost fits in Sonic’s world, NiGHTS benefits from having cameoed in the hedgehog's games every now and then, so they’re not completely unknown. The gender-neutral dream jester can only claim two full games to their name, with a third unofficial one that’s an add-on to the first, and has a cult following as a result. I already covered the original game, NiGHTS Into Dreams…, which first came out on the SEGA Saturn in 2006 before seeing a rerelease on Steam in 2012. Then at some point I got the "sequel", a Wii game titled NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, released in North America on December 18th, 2007, more than 11 years after its predecessor.

Semi-sequel, semi-reboot, this game carries over the themes, story and ideas (or should I say Ideya) of the previous entry. Journey of Dreams tries to bring the original idea of NiGHTS’ flight-based gameplay to a modern console. (…well, I say that, but this game has been out for 15 years so, depending on who you ask,  it may count as retro by now.) It’s probably easier to jump right into it so that we can compare and contrast.

Bloons TD 5

Every once in a while I think back to the era of Flash games and go… “wow, I played a lot of tower defense games back then”. They were definitely one of my favorite genres at the time, though I preferred the games that put a twist on the formula. Gemcraft, which I already discussed (and will discuss again), and Cursed Treasure, which I haven’t (yet), are two examples. The weirder one, though, might be the Bloons franchise.

Bloons is about the never-ending struggle between monkeys and balloons, all with different skill sets and power levels. At the core of the conflict, the Monkeys try to stop Bloons from traveling all the way across a path on the screen. Why? Who the Hell cares! Do we even need a reason? The Monkeys specialize in various types of weaponry, some of which toy with every possible facet of tower defense gameplay. The Bloons, meanwhile, just get stronger and stronger, occasionally gaining resistances to certain forms of attack or just taking more hits to go down.

I was planning to cover Bloons TD6 this year, but I felt the need to cover TD5 first, seeing as I had already played it before. I don’t plan to go over the entire history of the franchise, not that there’s a ton to be said about Bloons TD 1 to 4. The most notable difference between Bloons TD 5, released by Ninja Kiwi on November 19th, 2014, and previous installments, is the inclusion of classic free-to-play and return bonus elements.

Super Mario 3D Land

I haven't put that hat on in a while...

I promised myself that I would review more games I own for the Nintendo 3DS this year, so let’s start with a simple one. Mario platformers are simple, right? …it depends really. The 2D games are fairly simple. The big 3D games (64/Sunshine/Galaxy/Odyssey) are more complex. But this one is a weird beast trying to be somewhere between both.

That suit of fur sure is a lot more limber than
those in real life.

Super Mario 3D Land was released in North America in November 13th, 2011, in the first year of the 3D-enhancing portable console. Shigeru Miyamoto describes it as “a 3D Mario that plays like a 2D Mario game”. And it shows; this is unlike any other 2D Mario game, but in a weird way it’s also rather unlike any other 3D Mario game.

It’s somewhere in limbo between the two, in a way that's more complex than just 2.5D.

Let’s jump in – here we go!

Tails grow on trees??

Then again, if the tree ALSO has a tail...

The game opens on a massive windstorm over the Mushroom Kingdom. The wind is so powerful, it knocks away all of the leaves from a tree with a striped tail. The Tanooki leaves have flown away, scattered over the land. …Remember those? It was Mario’s flight power-up in Super Mario Bros. 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Man, talk about a blast from the past. Mario and several Toads run to the tree after the storm to find it bare. A flying letter comes to them and they open it, getting a picture showing that Bowser has yet again kidnapped Princess Peach. For added points, he got his hands on several leaves and has used them to improve several of his minions (as well as himself). Mario must therefore rescue the chronically-kidnapped damsel from the scheming turtle-dragon. Must be a day that ends in Y.

Bowser needs better pastimes.