There is an obligatory ice level, but aside from that, the player would be forgiven for mistaking one level for the next. Gone are the open fields and bright palette of its ancestor – here to stay are shadows and mud. This may come as a shock to those who played the first game in the series, but this outing is set almost entirely in dark, grey fortresses. When a distinction is made between a regular troop and a more highly-powered one, this is often signified by the exact same character model simply having a different colour trim around his armour, for instance. All of these are fleshed out in grey hues, with similar textures and skins.
There are only four or five common variations of enemy. However, the design certainly does not impress. When Galen is battling hundreds of minions, and he pulls off a flash attack which wipes out 50 in one blow, it is remarkable how well the system handles it. The huge number of enemies who appear on-screen at any one point in time is very impressive and the action continues to run smoothly throughout, with no frame rate loss. GRAPHICS: The graphics are good, without ever excelling really. Much of the game involves discovering allies you have never met, fighting against enemies you have never heard of, for unclear reasons. This succeeds in adding depth to the tale and tries to flesh out the character, but too little time is spent in making the individuals likeable – so we don’t care enough about what happens to them.
As you progress through the game and encounter new allies, they become playable characters and have their own story missions which help to fill in gaps and expand the plot. The storyline does little to captivate the interest of the player and most of the characters are very one-dimensional. This may all sound fairly predictable for a swords and sorcery title, and it is. Galen agrees to help Princess Sephia to protect Orphea and defeat the evil threatening their world. In the process, he heads to the last bastion of hope, Orphea Castle, home of the Orb of Light. He has nothing left to lose, so has set out to exact revenge and to stop the Lord of Darkness at all costs. Galen (our hero) has seen his world go to war, his homeland destroyed, his wife and daughter killed. The Lord of Night has been brought back to life using the Orb of Darkness and in order to stay alive he must steal the Orb of Light before 99 nights have passed. Instead, the plot from the first game is more or less re-used. STORY: Strangely, N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights 2, does not continue on from the end of the previous game.
Could this game capture the imaginations of the public more than its predecessor? Read on for the full review. So it comes as a bit of a surprise four years on, that developer Q Entertainment has produced a sequel.
However, when it was released across Europe and America three months later, the reception was much more mixed, and the game failed to sell in numbers. The game did quite well, achieving a score of 31/40 in Japanese gaming bible Famitsu. Released by Konami in Japan only months after the launch of the Xbox 360 in the East, it was an obvious stab at catering to the taste of the Asian market, in an attempt to win over buyers who are notoriously sceptical of American produce. Ninety-Nine Nights was one that fell into the latter category. Others may seem bland and run-of-the-mill, and sink into relative obscurity.
Some of them, due to strong characters or unique art design for example, do well and carve out a niche such as the Devil May Cry series or Bayonetta. Gamers in the west have never accepted “hack and slash” games with quite the wild abandon that their Japanese counterparts do, yet these games continue to be released time and time again.