Ninety-Nine Nights N3II Info

Ninety-Nine Nights N3II

N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights may be only the second game in this hack-and-slash series, but it's model so blatantly on the Dynasty Warriors permission that it feels like something we've seen a dozen times before. It also feels hastily put together, with a rotten story that is stained by technical problems, shallow combat, and maddening design choices--and there is no attempt to build on the concepts that it apes from the Dynasty Warriors games. All of this makes N3II a tired, imitative, soul-crushingly deadly experience.

The fancy kingdom of Orphea is in the middle of dark times. The Lord of the Night appeared 92 days ago, and his armies of evil are dispersion across the land. Regrettably, most of Orphea's soldiers are essentially useless, so it falls upon five brave heroes to do the mass of the work, slashing the forces of darkness to bits by the thousands in battles across the land. The story is all archetypal fantasy stuff, and the characters are as unconscious as the plot is unoriginal. It’s a by-the-numbers tale that’s made inferior by the fact that some cut scenes suffer from strict lip-syncing problems.

Initially, the sheer scope of the battles in N3II can be exhilarating. In the first mission, you face enemy soldiers by the hundreds in the quad of a castle while huge flaming stones soar through the sky above. It's a breathtaking fantasy scene until you realize that most of those enemy soldiers aren't fighting for their lives in a powerful battle but are tolerantly milling around just waiting to be cleave in two by a few swings of your blade. They civilly gather around you so that the huge sweeping arcs of your attacks can conveniently mow them to bits, and they're usually fast replaced by many more soldiers. As the warrior Galen, you can string together your attack buttons to perform stylish and impressive combos, and the sight of Galen twirling gracefully around his twin blades slicing through enemies effortlessly--is impressive at first. But it quickly becomes clear that this is all just monotonous buttons mashing, and with some levels that can drag on for the better part of an hour, the biggest challenge is to avoid getting lulled into a trance by the excruciatingly dull action. As you progress, you encounter other characters that subsequently become available until you have five consistent stories to play through. While these characters feel quite different from one another, the combat is as rhythmic and irritating with one of them as it is with any other, so although the sheer brute strength of the hulking Maggni is a nice change from Galen's more graceful technique at first, it rapidly becomes every bit as tedious.

The ostentation and boredom of the combat doesn't mean the game is easy, but the involvedness here isn't the sort that spurs you on to offer a sense of coup when you finally succeed. Rather, the game play and difficulty conspire to beat you into giving in. You'll face off against enemies in such large numbers that your health will get slowly chipped away, and the game is often diabolically stingy with healing items. Some enemy attacks thud you down instantly, and you might get up only to be instantly knock down again, which is a cheap and maddening substitute for actual challenge. There are checkpoints in each level, but they're so spread out that death often means repeating a long draw out of action that wasn't even fun the first time. And you might make it all the way to the end of a level only to find that you need to level up your character before having a fighting chance of defeating the outrageously powerful boss monster. This leaves you with no choice but to quit the level, replay past levels for experience, and then fight your way all the way back to the boss again. Oh, and be warn: The Colosseum level that you can access at any time, which seems designed accurately for fighting enemies and leveling up your characters.

N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights' visuals are most likely its strongest benefit, though that's not saying much. Your characters are thorough and their attacks are striking. The blood of your legions of fallen foes spatters the screen, and the special orb spark techniques you can give a free rein to from time to time be accompanied by some stunning effects. And there are many embellishments to the environments the swirling snowstorms surrounding a castle on a peak, for case that lends the battles a intellect of drama. On the other hand, the fact that the thousands of rank-and-file enemy soldiers you'll slice your way through on each level all look equal saps the sense of awe from these colossal conflicts. There's some exciting orchestral music, though it's often drowned out by the racket of battle. The clash and clang of metal on metal and the other sounds of conflict all suit the action well.

In addition to the single-player story mode, you can team up with a partner and play through a multiplicity of online scenario in which you must survive brandish after wave of spawning foe, fight your way through a confusion, and race to see who can disembowel the most enemies. But the combat is no more capable of provided that an enjoyable multiplayer experience than it is an upright single-player one. The concept of tossing you into massive battles against thousands of enemies is definitely one with the potential to deliver eye-popping display and thrilling action, but N3II fail to make good on this perception.