NiGHTS into Dreams...
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| NiGHTS Into Dreams... | |
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| Developer(s) | Sonic Team |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Designer(s) | Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka |
| Release date(s) |  July 5, 1996 August 31, 1996 September 1996 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A (Kids to Adults) ELSPA: 3+ USK: 3 |
| Platform(s) | Sega Saturn |
| Media | 1 x CD-ROM |
| Input | 3D Control Pad |
NiGHTS into Dreams..., commonly referred to as NiGHTS or NiD, is a video game developed by Sonic Team for the Sega Saturn video game system. There was also a handheld version released by Tiger Electronics.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
Players take the role of either Claris Sinclair or Elliot Edwards, two teenaged children living in the city of Twin Seeds, which according to the comic series was founded a century ago. In their dreams, they enter the dream world of Nightopia, where all human dreams are played out. An evil creature known as Wizeman is gathering power to take control of the dream world. The children attempt to save Nightopia by teaming up with NiGHTS, a Nightmaren (nightmare-dweller) who rebelled against Wizeman.
In Nightopia, distinct aspects of characters' personalities are represented by glowing coloured spheres known as "Ideya." However, at the start of each level, Wizeman's minions steal all the player's Ideya except the rare red type representing courage. The goal of each level is to recover the stolen Ideya by collecting 20 blue chips and delivering them to the Ideya capture, which will overload and release the orb it holds. After playing through four routes ("Mares"), NiGHTS is transported to the nightmare realm for a boss fight against one of Wizeman's Nightmaren.
The unique features of this game centre on NiGHTS' flying sequences. Movement is natural and fluid; multiple moves can be freeformly played and linked together using a simple control system. Most copies of the game came bundled with an analogue joypad, one of the first on any home console.
Aside from the immediate game mission, the game contains the complex and involving artificial life ("A-Life") beings called Nightopians (dream-dwellers, sometimes referred to simply as "pians") and their genetically modified counterparts, the Mepians. The game features an evolving music engine, allowing tempo, pitch, and melody to alter depending on the moods of these creatures. Although if judged only by the main adventure it is a rather short title, significant long-term appeal comes from experimenting with the A-Life features, as well as from the game's refined high score system (similar to those of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Crazy Taxi franchises, in that it relies on fast movement and long chains of "combos" in order to build up points).
[edit] Characters
[edit] Claris Sinclair
Age: 14 (United States) / 15 (Japan)
Official U.S bio: Today is Claris' chance to show her family she has stage talent. The stagelight flares on, and her heart starts racing. The directors are out there, watching. Claris approaches the microphone, but something's not right. A small voice inside tells her that everyone will laugh. A few seconds pass, and the voice grows louder. No longer able to bear it, Claris runs off the stage.
Official Japanese bio: A 15-year-old girl who lives in the suburb of Twin Seeds city. Since Claris was born and grew up in an artist's home, being creatively gifted was something expected of her. Continuously looking up at her dream of standing on a stage in a musical, it has always been her childhood ambition. However, Claris always stood in the shadows of other spoiled children, far too shy to prove herself on stage. Although one day her big chance to fulfil her dream became more than a dream...
~ Claris of the real world, and the beginning of an adventure ~
Claris auditioned for the first general invitation of the headlining musical made for Twin Seeds centennial commemoration celebrations. She had passed a brilliant primary examination. The second audition came that day. Claris was completely spun by the width of the stage and the force of the hot spotlight in which she stood for the first time. Her knees began to wobble, her throat became dry, her voice becoming husky. In fact the spotlight was so bright it had become impossible to see the very judges watching her-- Although she would have to wait until the evening for the audition results poor Claris had already lost all self belief and hope completely. Feeling that she had lost her dream.
"It's not for me, something just wasn't there..." She murmurs into a deep sleep from the tiredness of daytime. Trying to forget the importance of what she had wanted so much. However, it became obvious it mattered a lot in her subconscious and soon her fears were being played out at the hands of the evil spirits of Nightmare, pouncing mercilessly full of sin on even the good heart of Claris. The intense spotlight burned down strongly making her suddenly aware of all her physical flaws and her inexperience. Claris devoid of any hope in her voice, runs from the stage trying to find an escape from her tormentors. Finding a wonderful shrine she soon discovers the creature NiGHTS who is being held captive within.
[edit] Elliot Edwards
Age: 14 (United States) / 15 (Japan)
Official U.S bio: Elliot is playing basketball with his classmates. Some of the older kids from school show up and challenge Elliot and his friends to a game. A teammate passes long to Elliot, who is just feet from the net, but the star player on the other team steals the ball. A long pass downcourt and a slam dunk finishes the day. Elliot walks back home, alone.
Official Japanese bio: A 15-year-old boy who lives in the central square of Twin Seeds. Very intelligent and faultless in all that he does, especially at school. He always tries his hardest and comes out the cool kid. Especially so in his favourite sport of Basketball. There are the guys who gain respect amongst classmates and are the objects of everyone's adoration, Elliot is one of them. However, that sort of reputation and admiration can be quickly replaced by another person. He is a well known member of a very cool City group. But it is this very style that finds him involved in an incident ...
~ Elliot of the real world, and the beginning of an adventure ~
That night in his sleep, Elliot's dreams are a repeat of an incident that happened the same afternoon. Elliot was out as usual enjoying a basketball game with his friends. Then suddenly, a High School student's group intrudes, stealing their ball with the greatest of ease. The loud slam dunk putting an end to the day and his respect. The ball is thrown into Elliot and the court seems to melt away. Elliot all at once remembers the anger of his humiliation over and over again. But he is playing against someone he can never hope to beat, his pride keeping him from acting awkward. Hiding his shame behind a poker face he stands alone in silence.
And then faces the creatures of Nightmare as his dream replays the days entire humiliation. Elliot runs around blindly trying to escape from the horrible fear- when suddenly the world shines, spreading, and he runs into the world of Nightopia. Elliot stands on edge for a while, afraid that his pursuers will return, looking around the area slowly. Then finding NiGHTS, looking at the wonderful shrine and the amazing being he had never seen before. Looking at the Maren trying to smile...
[edit] Story
[edit] U.S.
"Nightopia in Peril"
That night Elliot and Claris return home, thinking themselves failures, not realizing that the real challenge is about to begin. In the world of Nightopia where our dreams are played out, an evil being is gaining tremendous power. He is Wizeman the Wicked, and through his creations the Nightmaren, he captures precious dream energy from humans. If he is not stopped, he will rise from the subconscious and enter our world. No power on Earth will be able to stop him.
As Wizeman's Nightmaren start fulfilling his horrible plan, a Nightopian escapes from the dream world and begs the sleeping Elliot and Claris to save the world from the evil being. Just a few moments ago they felt like total failures. But now that the world needs their help, Elliot and Claris feel, for the first time in their lives, a courage growing within them. They accept the Nightopian's desperate request.
The creature explains to them that they need to recover four types of dream energy from Wizeman's Ideya Capture, a group of large machine-like beings. the four energies are White (representing purity), Green (wisdom), Yellow (hope), and Blue (intelligence).
Wizeman will attempt to steal Elliot and Claris' dream energy and try to confuse them by placing them in strange dream worlds. These worlds are places developed from the depths of their minds. The fifth and rarest of the dream energies, bravery (Red in color), is the only type of energy Wizeman and his henchmen can not steal. It is said that the only one not yet under Wizeman's power is NiGHTS, who appears as an aerial acrobat and is attracted to red dream energy. The Nightopian believes that Elliot and Claris possess this rare energy, and thus NiGHTS will come to their aid.
The Nightopian warns that sooner or later Wizeman will send the most powerful of his Nightmaren, his henchmen, after Claris and Elliot. The two children will need the help of NiGHTS every step of the way to thwart Wizeman's plans if they are to restore peace to Nightopia.
[edit] Japan
(It takes true courage, NiGHTS, for you, yourself, to fly in the sky.)
When a person begins to sleep, they leave for a different dimension of space called the 'Night Dimension.' And it is there, where two worlds exist.
In one, the World of Dreams, "Nightopia", in which pleasant thoughts are projected into the consciousness. The other, the World of Darkness and fearful dreams, "Nightmare". Even though we visit either of these two worlds every night, we only take the illusion for granted with after thoughts of either, "I had a good dream" or "It was a nightmare." However, the World of Dreams are actually a reality.
Nightopia is seen because the caller (Visitor) of the dream projects their consciousness into a light called 'Ideya.' This Ideya, the visitor's consciousness, exists in Nightopia as a sphere formed in the surrounding area. The White Ideya showing purity, the Green Ideya showing growth, the Blue Ideya showing wisdom, the Yellow Ideya showing hope, and the Red Ideya which is said to only dwell within a courageous person... Although there are five kinds of Ideya in all, the people who have the Ideya of Courage are almost scarce, and a Visitor with all of the Ideya was something even newer.
Both Elliot and Claris, are one of the Visitors who enjoy Nightopia by means of the Ideya. However, though they have not yet noticed, these two people who carry the Ideya of Courage are about to bear witness, and be caught up in an incredibly large incident...
At the time, a serious accident had arisen in the World of Dreams. The ruler of Nightmare — Wizeman, a Visitor deprived of any Ideya, had begun advancing to try and extinguish Nightopia! "If all Ideya are lost, Nightopia will disappear... And my Nightmare will rule over all!" To execute a plan of this scale, Wizeman created many Nightmaren, and sent each one into Nightopia. Included, were two very special evil spirit people, called 'First Level.'
Nightopia was in an uproar. They had not noticed the invasion of Nightmaren, visitors and Nightopians alike were confused, and they were unable to do anything. Instantly, after an Ideya was stolen, Nightopia began disappearing bit by bit.
Inadvertently Elliot and Claris, were now each involved in this important affair within Nightopia. All of the Nightmaren, had now altogether taken 4 types of Ideya. However, Nightopia did not disappear completely. But why? Two people were fighting off all the Nightmaren who had tried to attack, to save Nightopia and even though they fought with fear, they fought with courage. It was then, that the Red Ideya of Courage appeared over their heads!!
NiGHTS was looking outside watching from within a Shrine at the girl with an Ideya of Courage It had met last night-remembering her name to be Claris, and the boy with an Ideya of Courage It also found. NiGHTS smiled at Elliot instantly, then cried out to the boy, "Hey, you! Get me out of here immediately!" Even though NiGHTS was one of the Evil Spirit People from Wizeman's plan, It often freely helped oppose him. Therefore, Wizeman's imperial wrath was enforced, and a spell was woven so that It could never leave the shrine located within the centre of the Dream, to keep It quiet.
"The one with an Ideya of Courage, you can release me from here! With the power of the 5 Ideya, both you and I can take down that Wizeman!"
Following NiGHTS' cry, Elliot went inside of the Shrine, and with the light of the Red Ideya, the Shrine disappeared. "Soon you will witness my power!" Released from the Shrine, NiGHTS became able to freely move again, and took Elliot's hand, taking him high off the ground dancing and whirling through the sky. Then Elliot, absorbed into NiGHTS' form in an instant, could now freely fly about on his own will. The Shrine you were in is already the size of a speck. "This is cool, NiGHTS!! If this is all it takes, Wizeman will be easy to defeat!!"
"...There was a girl who was also surprised last night said the same thing. Surely that was Claris." Even though NiGHTS tried to tell Elliot he had the same experience, Elliot's expression was blank, as if he hadn't heard It. "Okay, first off we will go collect the four Ideya that were stolen!! With the Five Ideya, we can quickly fly to Nightmare, where Wizeman is!!"
In order to defeat the Old Enemy Wizeman, it takes true courage even if you're afraid, NiGHTS, Elliot and Claris, the adventure of these three through the endless "Dreams" and "Courage", is just beginning!
[edit] Christmas NiGHTS
Christmas NiGHTS was a two level stand-alone expansion pack of NiGHTS that was released in December 1996. In Japan, it was part of a Christmas Saturn bundle. It was elsewhere given away with the purchase of select Saturn games such as Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition, and was bundled in with issues of Sega Saturn Magazine and Next Generation Magazine. The CD-ROMs given away on the front cover of Sega Saturn Magazine were missing the card slip case in which to keep the disc, and were instead supplied with a transparent plastic one. The game was also available for rent at Blockbuster Video locations in America. In the UK, Christmas NiGHTS was not included with the official Sega Saturn Magazine until December 1997.
The Christmas NiGHTS disc contained a playable demo of the game's Spring Valley level - the Claris level from the original game, and a completely new version for Elliot, with the same visual themes, but a different layout of items. The game used the Saturn's internal clock to change elements of the game according to the date, adjusting it for Christmas and New Year periods with different graphics and music. When the internal clock reached December 1, the normally lush greenery of the environment would be completely covered in white snow. The general motif of the level's design would also adopt a Christmas theme, with item boxes becoming Christmas presents, Nightopians dressing in Santa's elf costumes, the Ideya captures becoming Christmas trees, and so on. There were several other unlockable extras, allowing the player to experiment with the game's music mixer or its A-Life system, time attack one of the game's Mares, or even to play the demo stage as Sega's mascot Sonic the Hedgehog In this "Sonic the Hedgehog: Into Dreams" game, Sonic assumed both the children's and NiGHTS' roles and only travelled the stage on foot. In addion to this, Sonic faced a "bouncy ball" version of Doctor Eggman, a reskinned Puffy, the music being a slightly remixed version of "Final Fever", the final boss battle music from Sonic CD (Japanese Version). This was Sonic's first ever 3D appearance.
Lastly, if Christmas NiGHTS was played on April Fool's Day (April 1), players could play as NiGHTS' evil counterpart, Reala.
[edit] Reaction
At the time of its release, NiGHTS Into Dreams topped Saturn sales charts but failed to find the mass commercial appeal of Super Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot, both of which were launched around the same time. Most reviews in dedicated Saturn magazines praised the game, but those of some multi-platform websites and magazines were more critical.
However, the game is now commonly regarded as a classic, and due to its quality and availability it is one of the titles most commonly recommended to players starting collections of Saturn games. NiGHTS consistently appears in greatest games ever lists. In a January 2000 poll of readers of Computer and Video Games magazine, it appeared in 15th place in a list of the "100 greatest games" (directly behind Super Mario 64). Edge gave it a score of 8/10 in their original 1996 review of the game [1], and in their October 2003 issue the magazine's staff placed NiGHTS in their list of the ten greatest platform games. EGM, in their The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time list, ranked the game 160th.
[edit] NiGHTS's future
Demand for a sequel to NiGHTS Into Dreams has been strong for many years. A game with the working title "Air NiGHTS" was intended to use a tilt sensor in the Saturn analogue pad, and development later moved to the Sega Dreamcast for a time, but eventually the project was discontinued. However, it has been suggested that the motion-sensing technology for Air NiGHTS might have been similar to that of Sonic Team's Samba De Amigo, and it may even have been an extremely early version of that game.
It is said that Yuji Naka refuses to release a sequel because he cannot improve the game any further other than a graphical update. In the December 2000 issue of the Official UK Dreamcast magazine he explained:
"I know a lot of people love it and want us to make a sequel, but for us it's a really important game. Like the way Spielberg likes E.T. so much he won't remake it, I don't want to make another NiGHTS."
In an interview in the November 2003 edition of Edge, he was asked whether he would like to develop another NiGHTS game:
"I see NiGHTS as a licence. When dealing with such a licence from the past it is quite a lot of work, but I would like to use NiGHTS to reinforce Sega's identity, yes."
In a February 2005 interview he stated that a NiGHTS sequel would have to be of perfect quality, so it would take a long time to, in his words, "get it right."[citation needed]
In April 2006 the Japanese game magazine Famitsu published a rumor saying that a game creator who recently went independent is creating a game featuring a flying clown for the upcoming Wii system. Many people were led to believe that the developer is Yuji Naka and the game will be a NiGHTS sequel. However, according to IGN the rumor story goes on to hint that this has something to do with a recent conversation the writers had with someone who created a famous bearded character and this description doesn't fit Yuji Naka. However, Naka has stated that the Wii is the "perfect console" for a NiGHTS sequel, if such a game was ever developed. [2]
Although there have been no new NiGHTS games, the character can be seen in cameo appearances in Sonic Team titles such as Sonic Adventure 2, in which NiGHTS features on numerous posters, and a building incorporating the character's head is prominent in one level. References to the game's locations and characters were also made in Burning Rangers. NiGHTS-themed pinball levels appeared in both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Pinball Party. ChuChu Rocket! allows players to replace the default mice characters with Nightopians. In Sonic Shuffle, once all characters are unlocked, you can replace the main guide, Lumina Flowlight, with NiGHTS or Reala by changing the Dreamcast's internal clock to December 24 and April 1, respectively. Characters from NiGHTS Into Dreams also featured as collectible figurines in Sega's Dreamcast RPG Shenmue. There is also a bonus game called NiGHTS Score Attack within the Nintendo GameCube version of Phantasy Star Online and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg that can be downloaded to the Game Boy Advance. Also in Phantasy Star Online, your MAG can evolve into "Pian" which looks like a Nightopian. In Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, NiGHTS can be hatched from a Sonic Team egg as a pet. In Sonic Battle NiGHTS makes a cameo appearance at the end of the "Speed Demon" Mini-Game when a player crosses the finish line. NiGHTS also made a cameo appearance in the form of a minigame in the PlayStation 2 game Sega Superstars, which makes use of that console's Eye Toy peripheral. NiGHTS then made a cameo in Shadow the Hedgehog in the form of a billboard advertisement. NiGHTS's latest cameo is in Sonic Riders as a hidden playable character. Two secret tracks in Sonic Riders, both separated into sections based on various Sega games, include elements from NiGHTS Into Dreams. A flying purple figure appears in the background of dream scenes in the film The Science of Sleep that many assume is a reference to NiGHTS.
[edit] Comics
Archie Comics adapted NiGHTS into a three-issue comic book miniseries. A second three-issue miniseries was later published, and despite popular demand by both the fans and the staff, NiGHTS was discontinued due to lack of sales.[citation needed]
[edit] Controller
NiGHTS was also introduced with its own special controller. The controller had an unusual analog pad, foreshadowing the Dreamcast controller.[3]
[edit] Packaging Art
[edit] PC Port
Although a Windows port of NiGHTS was rumoured,[citation needed] it never materialized. The PC version was to partially address the criticism of the game's length and include two extra stages, one of which was called "Sparkle Attic", a journey through an attic filled with forgotten toys.
[edit] Sources
- [4] Tiger Electronics Handheld version
[edit] External links
- NIGHTS into dreams dot com An unofficial NiD site.
- Scoreattack.net NiD High score website and gameplay message boards.
- The NiGHTS Into Dreams page of The Green Hill Zone, a general Sonic Team fan site.
- The Christmas NiGHTS page of The Green Hill Zone.
- A NiGHTS Into Dreams fan page., made by Shanie Chatfield.
- The Unofficial NiGHTS Into Dreams website.
- NiGHTS Museum, a NiGHTS into Dreams gallery.
- NiGHTS Into Dreams..., a fan site and message board.
- The NiGHTS section of GameFAQs
- Reala's Nightmare, An at-one-point fairly active NiGHTS community. Large collections of media and sites, including rare Nightopian variations of songs ingame based on player's actions.
Unofficial remixes of the games' soundtracks:
- NiGHTS Into Dreams remixes at OverClocked ReMix
- Christmas NiGHTS remixes at OverClocked ReMix
- NiGHTS into Dreams remixes at VGMix
