Ninety-Nine Nights

"N3: A game full of hits and misses."

I waited to review this game until I played and won with all playable characters and levels. Why because I really wanted to enjoy this game to the fullest, and give a balance review for others. This review will not talk about each playable character, and all the cool special moves they can do, that is left for the player to find out about and enjoy.

First off if you are a fan of hack and slash game play, such as found in the Dynasty Warriors series or the Samurai Warriors series of games, then read on, but if you dislike that style of game play look elsewhere.

N3 attempts to improve on the DW/SW game style. The question is does it? Well, the answer is both yes and no. Let's start with five things that were done right.

1. Graphics, the game is loaded with beutiful rendered troops, backgrounds, scenes and colorful and over the top combat action. The battlefield has features that can be destroyed or use to help destroy the enemy. The enemies and allies scale well and even at a distance the player can see formations of troops moving toward battle. Once up close and personal, the battle becomes chaotic and full of detail. The cut scenes add great story and action to the game.To date the best graphic depiction of mass combat on a video game machine.

2. The playable characters are each unique with their own set of moves, just as the nonplayer enemies leader/bosses. The selection of moves each character has is varied and many. The rulebook just hints at the number of cool move the player can unleash, and to really get the best out of your characters, the player needs to pause the game and go to the combo selection, to learn and practice each move. Trust me, it can really improve your gameplay, and is very important for some of the characters. There is nothing like pulling off a cool 2,341 combo, my best to date.

3. The troops AI while not overly smart, do attempt to surround the player's character, and can become deadly if the player attempts to just flail away at them. Learning when to dodge and block can make the difference between defeat and victory, when dealing with bosses and enemy captains and elite troops. Enemy archers can also damage a player and his or hers troops if not dealt with quickly. As mentioned the bosses each have their own set of moves and going toe to toe with them and just swinging away, will end up with defeated player.

4. The missions are different to a degree for each character, and the game encourages players to play the level more than once, since there are treasure chest scattered round the large battlefield. Some of these chest hold artifacts such as better weapons, other hold more simple items to fill the gauges or power up the character during the mission. The number of different artifacts and type are many and can really make life easier for the player. It is best to switch to the right type of artifact for the right situation to get the best out of them.

5. The clever use of the gages in N3. Unlike most games of this kind N3 has two different gages that can be filled to unleash deadly special attacks. The first gage fills by killing enemy troops, stealing their globes/energy to fill the meter. Once filled you can unleash a much more powerful set of moves that destroy enemies much easier. In turn enemies killed in this fashion release blue globes or energy that is collected to fill the second gage. Unleashing this meter causes a single powerful attack that can kill all enemy minions around the player, and cause heavy damage to champions, evil wizards, and minor bosses. The graphics for these attack are powerful and fun to watch.

Now for five areas that I consider a miss. N3 really dropped the ball on some things which should have been obvious. It made me think the game was rushed before finished.

1. The number of playable characters is SIX, that's right just six. When other games give the player 20+ characters to play, N3 gives only six.

2. I could forgive the lack of characters if there are many missions and paths the character can follow, but sadly the number of missions are few. As a matter of fact the number of missions for each player character is from 6 to only 2!! There is a bonus mission for the main character which gives 7, but still that is not near enough. Each mission plays between 45 and 10 minutes depending on the mission. Another problem with the missions is there are NO secondary paths for the player to take except for one character and only different mission for that character if he take the secondary path, and NO interim save during a mission. You either complete it or not. A real pity. Also the battlefield which having good graphics and terrain that can be destroyed or used, lacks from height levels. In other words, a character can not climb on top of a boulder or leap over a wall, something that really could have added a new dimension of game play.

3. Sound, while good, is lacking is variety. The game drones on with the same soundtrack over and over again, after awhile the player will turn the volume down on the soundtrack. But the thing that is unforgivable to me is when the character's talk to one another on the battlefield, THERE IS NO SOUND, only text!! Difficult to read while defending yourself in a mass combat. All I can say is this had to be pure laziness, or a rush job by the company to get the game on the shelves.

4. Cut scenes are great and really add to the games story, but in N3 it falls flat on it's face. During the battle when a cut scene come up, if you are in a middle of a combo or a power move-set, the cut scene disrupts the combo and nullifies the power move. That can really such when you unleash a huge attack on your enemies with your special attack and your stuck with your gage unfilled and the attack cancelled.

5. The lack of direction the rulebook and game gives to the player. Some missions are too easy to get a decent score on, while a few are just frustrating to get a result greater than a B. The player should strive to get A or S rating because he or she will receive special items by doing so. Also I found some special items are found only by doing something special, such as killing dragons during certain missions, nothing is mentioned about this, and certain missions seem counter intuitive. Also the X-box is about achievements, but this game has only 12, and most are easy to obtain, this also seem to be tacked on.

This game should have been a 9 or better, but because of what I believe was laziness by the developers, it fall far short. Let's hope if the developer attempts a second effort at this style of game, they will heed my warnings on the shortcoming of this title. Pity, I really wanted to like this game more...........

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06