Ninety-Nine Nights
A demo was released over the Xbox Live Marketplace and offered a brief glimpse of what to expect from the game. Let's just say that things weren't looking too good. That similarity to Dynasty Warriors was a little too omnipresent and the fact that the game essentially held your hand while you button mashed didn't do the demo any favors. Even still, I never try to let a poor demo experience ruin what has the potential to be an entertaining game. Unfortunately the final product doesn't fair much better.
The game focuses on a group of individuals who are fighting in a war with a race of goblins and other fantasy-like things such as trolls. Either way you slice it the story is not very interesting or groundbreaking (think LOTR but without the interesting bits). More to the point the plot gets lost along the way and feels like a mere device to take you from one battle to the next. There are several characters to play as and each has their own segment in the watered down story but otherwise this mystical tale is about as blah as you can get.
Gameplay:
If you enjoy hacking and slashing your way through countless bodies then man, are you in for a good time because there's not much else to do here. Button mashing is an art that I thought was lost back in the 90s when the arcades died but Phantagram and Q Entertainment have brought it back tenfold. From beginning to end you're going to do nothing but pound on the attack button and kill everything that moves. There are some combos and special moves to break up the monotony of things but when you're fighting your way through a 30 minute level and killing 2,000 enemies, no amount of technique is going to keep you from getting bored.
On the surface, and initially, there are several things that distract you from the fact that you're just doing the same thing over and over again. For starters you gain levels kind of like an RPG, unlock new maneuvers, power-up statistics, and find items as you kill indiscriminately. You can build each of the characters up to level nine and play through missions again to get better ratings and such, so there's a fair amount of replay value. The only problem with the leveling up system is that you don't really know what you need to do to achieve the next plateau. That leaves you basically killing and killing and killing until the game decides to give you a break.
Another way that the game deceptively adds depth to the game is the inclusion of a legion directly under your command. The only problem is that you can't really command them to do much. You can basically tell them to stand around or attack, but to be fair both orders yield the same end result; nothing.
At first fighting along side of a garrison gives you a sense of comfort in that "at least I'm not alone" sort of way. After a while though you'll realize that apart from the more prominent characters that follow you, everyone else does absolutely nothing. Sure the soldiers surround enemies and yes archers fling arrows like their going out of style, but in the end it's little more than eye candy. They do little to no damage and more often than not distract you from your opponents. Just don't be fooled if you decided to play the game; you are indeed an Army of One.
One thing that really drove me crazy in regards to your armed allies was the fact that every time they attack an enemy it counts as a hit (even though it does not damage). When an enemy is hit by your buddies it means your attack will go right through them. Be prepared for some fights to take a little longer than others thanks to this; especially some boss battles. Luckily many of the boss encounters are a one on one affair but there are a few that include your troupe of rejects. One good thing about this is that later in the game as you unlock other characters you don't have to deal with your guards in quite the same way since the newer characters go at it without the "help".
As you unlock some of the more interesting characters you'll also get to see more of the game. Stages are broken down into areas where stories collide and branch off. In other words instead of crafting a unique experience for each of the heroes you basically get a skewed vision of a single adventure. Needless to say this, accompanied with repetitive gameplay, makes Ninety-Nine Nights get old quickly.
Unfortunately it's not even as if the gameplay isn't without its flaws. Thanks to a lame camera system you're going to have to constantly adjust it as you fight enemies off screen. This becomes more problematic later on when you start using Tyurru (the magic user) though I'm sure many gamers will have probably moved on to another game long before that point (unless you're an achievement junkie). Sadly the biggest flaw in my opinion isn't the camera, it's the lack of a save and/or checkpoint system.
The simple fact that this is an action game and many of the stages can last for over twenty minutes dictates that one should be able to save progress or at least reach a designated spot to continue from. Apparently the developers didn't think that tidbit was necessary because if you bite the dust while mid-mission you're going to have to start over entirely from the beginning. Once again this adds to the repetition of Ninety-Nine Nights and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the gamer who wanted more from this title.
From start to finish you're going to be playing the same stages, killing the same enemies, and hitting the same buttons over and over again. If that sounds like you're idea of fun for the next 15 hours then by all means, get those blisters on your thumbs. For the rest of us though the game offers little. Despite some interesting concepts that N3 brings to the table, a broken camera, button mashing control, hour after hour of the same thing, and an unoriginal (and uninteresting) story are reason enough to not bothering with this game.
Graphics:
Initially I was impressed with Ninety-Nine Nights' visual prowess. The sheen that the covered the game glistened and sparkled with a certain kind of energy. Once I got the glare out of my eyes though I realized that just like the gameplay everything was repetitive. Character animations and environmental textures all leave something to be desired after a short time with the game. The designs in the game are fairly generic as well though some of the more unique characters that you'll use later on are kind of cool.
The biggest problem with N3 has nothing to do with the way the game looks; it's all about how it runs. The framerate drops horrendously at times and even during cut scenes there is a degree of choppiness. Ninety-Nine Nights may look impressive from screenshots but actually experiencing the game equates it to a late generation Xbox 1 title rather than a 360 one.
Audio:
By this point I'm sure you can guess that experiencing this game means that you'll be hearing the same grunts, screams and hitting sounds over and over again. The voiceovers don't do justice to the game either with some poor acting and implementation. Fortunately the soundtrack is pretty good with a great score and several tunes that chime in from time to time. Mostly the music is atmospheric but when it needs to pick up the tempo it does so to match the action.
Conclusion:
The beauty of the Xbox Live Marketplace is that you can actually download demos and try games out before wasting money renting or buying them. If you have checked out the offering for this game and found yourself bored then don't bother playing any more than the demo. Ninety-Nine Nights is a game that suffers from repetition at every corner. From the mind-numbingly simplistic combat to being forced to play through the same stages again and again, this game excels at being dull.
Some highlight such as the leveling system and equipment help things a bit but not nearly enough to save the experience. A mediocre design, poor framerate, and blah voice acting do little to help things out either. In the end you're better off saving your money and playing the demo repetitively. After all that's what this game is going to basically make you do anyway.