Review :: NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams - Wii

[HEXUS]

The purple-suited genderless flying jester is back once more in the colourful platformer, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. But has Sega done enough to appease fans of the original Sega Saturn title? Let's take a look...

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[G4Z]

Well, I am sat at work right now having just read this review with a copy of the game in my hand. I loved the Saturn version so I didn't even bother to look up a review, it was £20 so I picked it up. After reading that I am a bit disappointed, I was hoping that they would take the opportunity to do something great with the wiimote but sadly it seems they are cashing in by re-hashing an old but popular game without adding anything new. That's pretty dire considering the opportunity the wii gave them, hopefully the action will be nostalgic enough so I get some fun out of it.

[Steven W]

Well, I am sat at work right now having just read this review with a copy of the game in my hand. I loved the Saturn version so I didn't even bother to look up a review, it was £20 so I picked it up. After reading that I am a bit disappointed, I was hoping that they would take the opportunity to do something great with the wiimote but sadly it seems they are cashing in by re-hashing an old but popular game without adding anything new. That's pretty dire considering the opportunity the wii gave them, hopefully the action will be nostalgic enough so I get some fun out of it.

You'll still get some fun out of it for sure, some missions are good fun.

[G4Z]

Well, I played a bit last night and I had a couple of thoughts. The controls with the wiimote worked better than I thought they would, however its nothing like what I imagined it could be like and using the pointer just seems like a bit of a cop out from Sega. It didn't work very well at first, but when I shifted back from the TV a bit it improved a lot and for the first bit in the garden I was able to fly around quite well, once things started getting a bit more tricky with more demands on reaction time I had to switch to nunchuck control which was better but still felt a bit twitchy and not really as natural as I remember the original on the big space station Saturn pad.

Your right about the cutscenes though, they are very nicely rendered and for me that made the game seem graphically quite naff once you get past the cutscene.

Still, it is decent enough NiGHTS gameplay so I will probably persevere.

[Pyrii]

Been playing it while working to break up the mundane scripting work. Anyways, I'm just about to read your review, before I point out what I think so far.

Hmmm, I do have to agree, athough I am starting to get fed up with this "old ideas" argument always pushed, we commend old games for thier mechanics, yet condone new games that try to use or match them for not being original. The fact of the matter is, if it works, even if it's an mechanic we've seen before, it can still be fun. While some of the minigames you could pull straight out of other games, it's clear some thought has been put into them to make them worth playing still.

Anyways, I think the main thing that lets it down, is the controller, and I don't mean the wiimote, I mean the actual nunchuck analogue stick, every time I try to shift my direction, it's jarring because of the shape of the hole. While I see this as handy in some games, it's restrictive in NiGHTS' where you need full 360 degrees of freedom, and this isn't NiGHTS' fault. It's just a shame this might not appear on other systems, because the control scheme is there and the 360 doesn't suffer from the notches inthe analogue stick holes. And who knows, they could up the ante on the graphics. NiGHTS in HD? YES PLEASE!

I'm also glad I'm not the only one that thinks of NiGHTS as female...