There it is finally! Ninety Nine Nights is most certainly the game I've talked about the most in here. Does this game live up the hype? Unfortunately the answer is not a straight yes, but it's not a resounding no either. I'll go into more details tomorrow morning when I put online the 720p parts of the first video, but you can already feast your eyes on the "low resolution" version, running at 60 fps of course.
If this video is popular, much more will follow. Hopefully one per day.
Update : 720p parts online.
Update 2: My quick impressions are now online.
Ninety Nine Nights is definitely not a bad game, but it's far from being a perfect game too. I'll just describe everything point by point:
The graphics are for the most part really good, with an incredible number of detailed character displayed on screen at the same time. But there is also a lot of clipping and objects tend to appear late or disappear too soon. It even happens during the cutscenes...
The animation is also quite good. The framerate is most of the time at a smooth 60 fps, and only slows down during really heavy fights. Some cutscenes for some reason have some very jerky camera movement and the motion captured animation sometimes seems to be too fast. The lipsync is also downright bad.
The sound is nothing to talk about, it does the job. The music aren't as awesome as the one from the demo, but they are still quite good. There even is some classical music used during some fights, and it's really nice.
Finally the gameplay, and it's of course the most important part. During the usual fights against lots of enemies, the gameplay is really good. There is a lot of different combos, different levels and different enemy units so it doesn't get too boring to mindlessly kill and kill and kill. That's the biggest part of the game, and it just works. But the one on one fights are another story. These boss fights can be really annoying, if not incredibly frustrating. First because some boss fights start after 30 minutes, and if you die because this boss touched you twice (yes, twice), you are back to square one. Annoying to say the least. The engine is simply not able to give a good one on one experience, and it seems that Phantagram knew it and added invicible sidekicks you'll have to use to distract the boss. It's too bad the boss patterns seem to be random, there is no way to know who he will attack, and dodging attacks is difficult, to say the least.
Personally I'm still enjoying Ninety Nine Nights a lot, the good points being much more important to me than the bad ones. Your experience might vary though. I really hope Phantagram will use the months left for the US/PAL release to at least add a simple checkpoint system. That's my only real problem with the game. I simply hate having to play again 30 minutes of a level simply because a boss fight is badly implemented.
All comments (43)
Blim I cant wait for more!!!!!
And thanks for the video blim.
ps! still no sign or comment about EU release ;(
This game is my obsession.
This game is my obsession.
I try to show all the interesting stuff in the 720p version, don't worry.
I try to show all the interesting stuff in the 720p version, don't worry.
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/3109/789_...
and if it's gonna be awhile...where can i import this? (will it work on my canadian 360?)
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/3109/789_...
http://www.bytesector.com/reviews/id-636/pic2.jpg
http://www.bytesector.com/reviews/id-636/pic5.jpg
http://www.bytesector.com/reviews/id-636/pic2.jpg
http://www.bytesector.com/reviews/id-636/pic5.jpg
and if it's gonna be awhile...where can i import this? (will it work on my canadian 360?)
The western world will be getting this around Holidays 2006 while we in Asia will be facing a release on May 2006. Afterall this game was made for the specific Asian market who will not whine about it being like Dynasty Warriors or being the killer app.
1up is suggesting that the story isn't all that impressive, but again I'll judge for myself when i buy it. Definetly a dynasty warriors killer as far as i'm concerned.