Ninety-Nine Nights

"A mixed bag"

Disclaimer: In my reviews, your average score is, in fact, 5. 9s are only for great games, 8s are for games good enough for their quality to be rare. I'm by no means calling a game 'bad' by giving it a 4.

Ninety-nine Nights is very short, but good for what it is. Epic battles with enough variety to keep the fights entertaining, and characters who get more and more enjoyable depending on how late they're unlocked. It's odd for a game of such minute length to require patience, but it does. Still, the patient are rewarded quite well for what's left of the game.

Story: 6 (Pretty Good)
The basic premise, tells a tale of two civilizations, the Humans and the Goblins, at war. Each believe the other is responsible for breaking an ancient relic of great power, and the Humans have consigned the goblins to the outlands while they themselves prosper. When the game begins, the goblins are starting an uprising in hopes of reclaiming their dues. This is told from the perspective of seven relatively shallow characters, and each have a different set of missions to choose from. Similar to the end of Dynasty Warriors musou modes, only throughout the entire game. These rarely differ from winning a battle you would have otherwise lost, however. For a game of this type, there's plenty here, but none of it is done terribly well. There are also a cast of supporting characters who have unique movesets in battle, but none of these are nearly large or fleshed-out enough to be made options for the player to use, which is a pity. If all the supporting characters had a half-sized story mode, the game would be almost twice as long, aside from the background it brings. However, the plot advances very slowly, (As slow as it can for a game of this length) and not much actually makes sense until you've beaten the game with all of the seven characters. The game does include an encyclopedia, but this doesn't really answer a lot of the questions until you already know the answer and every entry must be bought with 'points', which is a real pain.

Gameplay: 4 (Needs work, but can be good at the core)

How fun the basic comat is very much depends on who you play as. In the beginning you'll feel as if you're fighting on ice and not dealing nearly enough damage, but that feeling only lasts one character. There are two other 'brawlers', each varrying somewhat, and four total departures from past combat styles. The more unique characters tend to be more enjoyable when wreaking havoc on the battlefield.

Speaking of battlefields, they don't vary much. Everyone goes through a few of the same (About eight) stages, with one character following the first one's progression almost exactly. The situation on each battlefield is always different from the others, (with the exception of the aforementioned one character) so the layout doesn't get too tiresome. Still, they all have the same basic feel. Since allied units (Aside from your expendable two squads) are rare, you basically end up slowly ploughing through an entire stage head on until you reach a certain point. There, you kill a boss. Sometimes there are bosses strewn out the rest of the stages, but they really don't shake things up much as the bosses are not at all fun to fight.

The guard AI is very, very poor. Usually your allies only comprise of two squads that can be ordered to follow you, wait, attack or defend, and all of these work well. (Though there isn't much difference between Attack and Defend) The problem is how they fight. The idea is they will stand and cheer, raising their weapons in the air, after defeating all the enemies. Instead, they will literally cheer as they're in battle or having arrows rained down on them, so you end up doing a lot more work then you should. The rare times you get armies you don't directly control, they do what they need to, though that's normally pretty simplistic. Any 'unique' allies also do what they need to, usually follow you around or stand and fight in a certain area. Still, you don't really need much more.

You can find various items strewn about in chests or dropped on the battlefield, and these make a pretty good impact, whether consumable or equipment. However, the 'guard bonus' items are basically a waste of an item as your guards are so irrelevant. Still, that's a minor complaint. Your equipment matters just the right amount, though none of it is terribly inventive. You can also get items by achieving a certain rank, which is gagued by how effectively you slaughter foes, how long you take, and how well you and your bodyguards hold up. (If you're going for a high rank, consider ordering your guards to 'wait' at the beginning of the stage.) Also any additional objectives.

Some of the missions can get pretty long, and dying means you start from the beginning, which makes bossess much more frustrating. They're basically like you, only with much, much more HP and attack power. All of the characters don't make very much sense when being hit in mid-combo is concerned, (Many times an attack with pass through them depending on the nature of the combo.) and all characters can and will block attacks coming from behind them. As a result, boss fights get pretty tedious, and whether you win or lose really depends on how you work the system.

Replay Value: 2 Very little

The game gets repetitive very fast without new characters. (Which are necessary enough to practically make them part of one game, which is why they don't really count towards replay value) Though they learn techniques as they level up, most of these are uninteresting combo extensions. Also, you can almost max out a character's level in one story mode (Four to seven missions, usually). In addition, it's usually not a very good idea to have a game that A: Doesn't get good for a while and B: Is very short. A lot of the characters have interesting movesets, but that's always because they're so original. By the end of their story mode, you're probably starting to get tired of them alreay. In addition, the only mode that can be found beside 'story' mode is the tutorial, so no more time can be gleaned there.

Graphics: 8 Average for a 360 game

The models are quite detailed despite the large number of enemies, everything is unrealistically shiny, (Why they always overdo the shading, I'll never know) and the framerate is jumpy during some of the fancier attacks. The draw distance is also great, as are the special effects. That's... About it.

Sound: 4 So-so

The voice-acting on the main characters is quite good, (though only the cutscenes have them) though some supporting characters can get somewhat grating and generic. The 'effect' sounds can get sort of weird, and on some characters annoying snippets of dialogue are used too often.

All-in-all, the game isn't bad, though not good. I would strongly advise against buying it at any rate, if only due to the length. As a rental, it's fine, but flawed.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/06