NiGHTS Into Dreams...

When it comes to Nintendo mascots, I can name several – a dozen or two, possibly. But when it comes to SEGA, the company that used to be their greatest rival, I can hardly name anyone outside of the characters introduced in the Sonic series. It doesn’t help that SEGA seems to be doing little to no effort in promoting any of their other characters, at least for franchises that do have notable characters.

One exception may be NiGHTS, the genderless jester-like creature known as a Nightmaren. They had exactly two games of their own. The first is the game I’ll talk about today, NiGHTS Into Dreams… Yes, the title usually includes the ellipsis. It was released in August 23rd, 1996 in North America, originally for the Sega Saturn. That one also had a sample/demo version. It was also ported several times to newer consoles and digital platforms, including a release to Steam on December 17th, 2012. The actual sequel, titled Journey of Dreams, was released for the Wii in 2007. And I happen to own both, meaning I actually own everything from their series. Which is weird since I never played a NiGHTS game before. They may be one of the better-known Sega mascots in part due to their repeated cameo appearances in the Sonic series. Ever wondered what was that jester thing that appeared during the cutscene in that purple Casinopolis pinball board? Well, it was this game’s protagonist.

And to get that out right away, NiGHTS is a gender-neutral entity, designed as such by their creator, Takashi Iizuka. Creatures of their dimension don’t feel the need for genders, due to existing in dreams and trying to appeal to as many people as possible; they can be interpreted as either. Regionalized versions of the games, in languages that do not have a handy gender-neutral pronoun for singular entities (such as French), tend to attribute a gender, but even then it’s meant to represent how they’re perceived by the characters they interact with.

Shall we start?

Already, from the start, we can see that there are two versions of the game in this package: The original Sega Saturn Dreams, and a remastered version called Brand New Dreams. The controls can be changed before starting the game, but the original ones are this:

Characters move with WASD - this includes NiGHTS' flight and walking around as Elliot and Claris. The rest, however, isn't on keys I'm normally using for games: O/P to brake. J/U to jump, or in mid-air, dash (which is NiGHTS’ main form of attack). It was weird to play with those controls, even if it's not the first game to use the right-side letter keys for actions.

Wizeman looks just a bit weird.
I've seen way worse as far as villains go.

Each kid has three levels, and then the
final one must be played and finished
with both.

The story is that a villainous dream entity known as Wizeman the Wicked, who happens to be the creator of the Nightmaren, is attempting to capture the dream energy (also called Ideya) of children of the world. If he gains enough power, he might break into the real world, where he cannot be defeated. NiGHTS is a rogue Nightmaren rebelling against their creator. They directly contact two kids, Elliot and Claris, and ask for their help. They have to gather spheres of four colors, each representing a form of positive emotional energy (purity, wisdom, hope and intelligence), which will then allow them to retrieve the stronger emotions of bravery from the children, as it is the only form of energy that enemy Nightmaren cannot capture. Using those emotions, the jester-like being can destroy the machines Wizeman uses in his scheme. However, NiGHTS has been captured, and can only escape to save the world by “dualizing” (read: merging) with a kid that walks into them.

Wheeee!

And they do it by flying around and collecting blue orbs (called Chips). Then, NiGHTS uses those to destroy Wizeman’s dream energy-collecting machines. Each level has four loops, and in each loop you must collect 20 Chips, the required amount to destroy the machines. At times,NiGHTS can fly in a circle around chips and leave a trace, and will then collect all of the chips within that circle. Destroyed the machine? Return to the goal, move on to the next loop. One loop for each positive emotion. If you can’t break a loop's nightmare machine in 120 seconds, however, the dualization ends and NiGHTS reappears in the prison, which the child must run back to in order to play as the jester again (or end that loop and move on to the next, if they already got the Ideya). When the child is in control, they can get caught by the Egg Alarm, which wakes them up, ends the dream, and ends the level in failure.

"You leave my friends' dreams alone!"

A dragon? I'm in a dream, I can call myself
a Dragonborn if I want to.

If you do manage to collect all of the Ideyas and beat the level in time? You move on to a boss fight. Props to the game, although NiGHTS only has one real way to attack, the fights still try to be varied. In one, you have to toss a spherical woman-like Nightmaren into breakable walls; in another, you punch a dragon’s head and it loses some of its tail, which indicates how much HP it has left. What’s annoying here is that each boss has to be beaten with a different strategy, and there’s a 120-second timer again, so if you can’t figure out what to do or beat the boss in time, you lose and must restart the entire level from scratch. That said, it only happened to me once or twice.

If I told you this was from a NiGHTS game,
you might instead think it's from a Sonic
racing game or something.

Another detail that bugs me with the game is that our genderless protagonist is actually doing on-rail flight. You don’t have control of where NiGHTS goes, they are directed by a camera – no free-flying here! You do have control over the speed or altitude at which they fly, but it limits the options greatly. It also means you’re a hostage to the twists and turns of that loop, and you must adapt to those as they happen. The camera follows NiGHTS around, of course, but it can be dizzying and confusing at times. Controlling the children is a little blander since they can’t do much, but they can roam freely (although, since the Alarm Egg starts chasing them quickly, all they can really do is head back to the Nightmaren’s prison so that the main gameplay continues).

Free flight would have been cool, but it would
also probably have been a Hell and a half to
code into a Sega Saturn game.

On top of that, the game is actually quite short – only six main levels and a seventh, final level. However, there is something that lengthens the experience… You know how Sonic Team are obsessed with grades for finishing levels quickly or with high scores? This was transposed to NiGHTS. You get a letter rating from A to F at the end of each loop, and the score at the end is an average of those ratings. You also get letter ratings when beating bosses. In order to unlock the final level, you need a grade of C or higher on the other six levels. Not impossible; it’s actually rather easy once you know the layout of every level/loop and how to gather the Chips quickly, as well as the strategy to beat each boss.

I mentioned earlier that this game contained the Sega Saturn original as well as a remaster of that game with improved graphics for newer consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in October 2012). Playing the game with improved graphics is nice, and as a bonus, your progress is kept between both versions (meaning that if you reach a score in the original, low-poly game, you don’t have to obtain it again in the remaster, and vice versa; and levels remain unlocked in both).

Loopings!
Yeah, NiGHTS, come back when you can
actually make actual pictures in the sky.

I also didn’t bring it up, but there’s a little detail to this game that could be considered a precursor to Sonic Adventure’s Chao Gardens. In the levels, there are Nightopians (normal inhabitants of Nightopia, the dream world) and Nightmarens flying around. While NiGHTS flies, they can interact with either of those and change their mood (as an example, make them angry by bumping into them). There’s a short list of possible interactions, although the most interesting one may be the creation of hybrid creatures, result of a combination of a Nightopian and a Nightmaren enemy. The system can do much more than that, but I was too busy learning the basics of the game to focus on the intricacies. Needless to say, I was caught by surprise by the Steam achievement unlocked by creating one such hybrid, which I did by sheer accident.

There are other options in the main menu, which are unlocked only after some conditions are met. One is Christmas NiGHTS (yes, the demo version!), unlocked by beating the game with both human characters (Elliot and Claris), and getting a rating of C or above in the final level, called Twin Seeds, again with both characters. The last one is a list of Nightopians, unlocked by beating Christmas NiGHTS. Finally, a Presents section includes a gallery of bonus content, a movie theater for cutscenes, and a sound test.

Oh right, I tend to forget that there are
humans among the playable characters
in there too.

This game is fine. I can’t say I was impressed or wowed by it, but as a new character’s first outing in an era where plot was hardly the focus, this is fine. The story doesn’t really matter all that much in the end. There are some nice, novel ideas here. An entire game focusing more on flying around is nice, it feels quite a bit more relaxing than the usual battle-heavy type of game this could have been. It’s a pretty fun idea to have human characters who “merge” with the protagonist in order to free them and let them save the world of dreams. The game combines free exploration by children on the ground level (although if you get there, you’re not doing too well in a level) and NiGHTS flying around on a twisting 2D plane (which is disappointing, as it means you can’t just fly freely, but it’s still fun to make loops and acrobatics around).

Some worlds are so colorful, it can be
a bit difficult to figure out what's going on.

The game’s biggest issue, though, may be its very short length; again, not uncommon for this type of game back in the 1990s. That said, if you want to see everything (and defeat Wizeman the Wicked), you still need to gain some level of mastery and get nice ratings in the first six levels. You also might have to beat the seventh and final level three times in order to see all of the endings. It does lengthen the experience, but if you’re not the type of gamer who likes to replay past levels to get higher grades, it may be repetitive. Although, it is pretty cool that we get two versions of the game (the original and a remaster) for the product on Steam, alongside the unlockable “Christmas NiGHTS” demo unlocked on, you guessed it, Christmas.

And yes, to be fair, some of the loops within
levels get creative - in this one, you
scale a tower.

I also do appreciate the little intricacies that were included in this game, like the system involving Nightopians and Nightmarens – although, admittedly, in my hurry to complete a first playthrough, I didn’t get to pay much attention to that. It’s merely a detail after all, and you’re supposed to hurry in gathering the Ideyas (since you have only 120 seconds per loop). It’s integrated to the gameplay, and not its own section where you could focus on that aspect alone. The Sonic Adventure games, which took this concept and expanded on it, did the smart thing of putting the pet-raising mini-game separate from the main game (and it worked out well for them; some people ditch the actual adventure of Sonic Adventure in favor of the Chao Gardens).

There's even a meaner NiGHTS in a black and
red color palette?
Proto-Shadow, is that you?

In spite of my criticism, I find it unfortunate that NiGHTS has so few games to call their own – Sega seems to enjoy the character and the ideas around them, but seems to relegate them to cameos in Sonic games or as a playable character in spin-offs. There’s potential there, definitely, and while I can’t be sure they have the potential to be a Sega flagship series, they seem to have a pretty dedicated following. I will eventually review the sequel released for the Wii.

To NiGHTS, who knows what awaits in your future, new games or new ideas (or Ideyas) perhaps; but I have only one request.

Never make that face again.