QuasidodoJr
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Originally posted at http://xbox.gamexc.com/modules.php?module=reviews&id=177
“Holy blatant Dynasty Warriors rip-off, Batman!” is pretty much what the Boy Wonder himself would proclaim after a gaming session of N3, or Ninety-Nine Nights, for the Xbox 360. In an attempt to capitalize off of the success of KOEI’s Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors franchises in Japan, developers Q-Entertainment and Phantagram decided to almost criminally emulate the aforementioned series’ button-mashing style of mostly melee-driven battlefield combat. While KOEI’s Warriors games are rooted in historical Chinese and Japanese settings, N3 instead takes place in a mythical fantasy realm. In a land filled to the brim with Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Giants and a cast full of other clichéd mystical creatures that always seem to appear in fantasy settings. This may be a refreshing change of pace from the overused historical settings and characters in the KOEI games, but this title, despite its graphical prowess and its ability to produce far more units on-screen, even fails to live up to the rapidly declining standards of its brainchild.
Unfortunately, N3’s stereotypical practices don’t end with Goblins and Orcs - the story’s quite the uninspiring, unoriginal bore, as well. Players will be initially introduced to the game’s vengeance driven cover model, Inphyy, and her righteous, do-gooding stepbrother Aspharr. These two commonplace would-be saviors are chosen by Princess Ectavarr of Varfarrin to lead the Temple Knights and bring an end to a centuries spanning war between the forces of Light and Dark. Sound similar to dozens and dozens of other fantasy tales and video games that came before it? Well, that’s because it’s a cliché-riddled plot we’ve read and heard many times before. To uncover every facet of N3’s insipid storyline, though, you must complete the game with all six of the game’s regular characters and the “secret” unlockable character. On the other hand, the chances of the title’s lackluster gameplay compelling you to do so are slim-to-none.
Let’s face it - N3’s “inspiration”, the Dynasty Warriors games, have been on a steady decline with the release of each almost identical sequel. Walking across rather large, pointless maps mostly tapping on a singular attack button over and over does not necessarily lead to an overabundant amount of joy. Actually, most people if given the choice would probably rather watch old reruns of The Facts of Life, just because the “token black character” Tootie and the overweight, but always jovial Jo are so darn cool. Ninety-Nine Nights sadly follows this tired formula to a comical degree. Before you drop into each battle, you get to choose between two different guard units that will follow you around the game’s lifeless environments. As you guide your forces in combat, you’ll rack up a kill count at the bottom of the screen, fight large, identical groups of enemies and search obvious points on the map for “hidden” treasure chests that may contain power-ups or new weapons and stat-buffing items you can equip. Hmmm… where have I seen that before? It seems so uncannily familiar.
Yes, Ninety-Nine Nights is an outright clone, but on a positive note it controls rather smooth. Moving around the map is easy, and directing your attacks in the appropriate direction will never become a problem. N3 does its best to utilize an extensive combo system, and if you actually took the time to memorize some of the lengthy button combinations there are instances where they could be found useful. For the most part, though, the more damage intensive combos seem to execute in slow motion and cause you to take many unnecessary hits. So, you’re more often than not forced to rely on the trusty combo of pressing the X button - a lot.
As you repetitively work your way through each character’s levels and slaughter hordes of enemies on the field of battle, they release red balls of light your character will absorb. These red balls fill up your Orb Attack Gauge, which once filled, will allow you to unleash an attack more powerful than your regular strikes and combos, aptly titled the “Orb Attack!!!” The fun does not stop there, though, children. When you unleash an Orb Attack your fallen foes will begin to give you blue balls (I’ll admit it, pun intended). The blue balls fill up a meter directly below your Orb Attack Gauge. After the meter is complete and begins flashing, you can launch a devastating force known as an Orb Spark. Each of the characters have different Orb Attacks and Orb Sparks, and they’re very theatrical in manner. On the down side, some of the characters’ specials are more useful, and less flashy, than others and will obviously make more of an impact in turning the tide of a losing battle.
In fact, a losing battle is not so uncommon in Ninety-Nine Nights as it’s quite easy to be overwhelmed by the game’s imbalanced difficulty. You’re awarded experience points based on your kill count and how well you string attacks together that level up your character and improve his/her stats. On some occasions, though, the difficulty will progress faster than your character’s level and you’ll have to resort to repeating stages you’ve already finished. Otherwise, you’ll just keep wasting your time, since you lose any experience or items gained on the current level of play whenever you die. You’re also given a rank at the end of each level, ranging from E (worst) to S (best). Reaching the highest rank on a level usually results in more experience gained and you’ll sometimes be awarded one of the higher-powered weapons or items available to your character. This means you can expect to play through each stage a dozen times, regardless.
I’ve purposely made it no secret that being pushed to replay through the game’s tedious stages can be rather snore-inducing, but the game’s visual presentation is at least good enough to make you wake up and take notice. Each of the playable characters, and their allies and enemies, are modeled expertly, albeit with rather garden variety designs. The character animations are very fluid and nothing to scoff at. Not to mention, the insurmountable amount of units capable of being on-screen without any slowdown is quite remarkable. Yet, despite the rest of the game’s visual manner, the environments, while colorful and brimming with detail, are void of any ambient life. You would expect such massive, vibrant locales to be teeming with life forms besides those attached directly to the in-game combat.
On the audial side of things, the vocal performances are almost unbearable, and it doesn’t help that the script is an absolute mess. The soundtrack is a love it or leave it affair, as the offerings are either sterile techno driven beats, or fluffy “epic” orchestral pieces. Although, you can look on the bright side of things - you can rip your favorite music CDs onto your console’s HDD and substitute the music selection. Now, we just need the option to eliminate the voice-overs and record our own.
N3’s not going to appeal to a massive audience. I would even go as far as to say this game will have an extremely hard time finding a fanbase in the North American market. It doesn’t help matters that Q-Entertainment and Phantagram opted not to include any form of multiplayer, whether it be on a single console or over Xbox Live. That feature alone could’ve increased this title’s importance. If you’re a die-hard KOEI fan, and need a button-mashing fix with a fantasy flavor, N3 may be just right for you. Otherwise, the average player will probably only find merit in the 500 easily attainable achievement points you collect for completing the game with each character. File this one under rental only.
Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 8.5
Audio: 6
Worth: 4
Overall: 5.5
+ Some nice visuals and effects
+ The control isn’t painful
- Most of the game is
- Earplugs, anyone?
? Where’s the multiplayer at?
“Holy blatant Dynasty Warriors rip-off, Batman!” is pretty much what the Boy Wonder himself would proclaim after a gaming session of N3, or Ninety-Nine Nights, for the Xbox 360. In an attempt to capitalize off of the success of KOEI’s Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors franchises in Japan, developers Q-Entertainment and Phantagram decided to almost criminally emulate the aforementioned series’ button-mashing style of mostly melee-driven battlefield combat. While KOEI’s Warriors games are rooted in historical Chinese and Japanese settings, N3 instead takes place in a mythical fantasy realm. In a land filled to the brim with Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Giants and a cast full of other clichéd mystical creatures that always seem to appear in fantasy settings. This may be a refreshing change of pace from the overused historical settings and characters in the KOEI games, but this title, despite its graphical prowess and its ability to produce far more units on-screen, even fails to live up to the rapidly declining standards of its brainchild.
Unfortunately, N3’s stereotypical practices don’t end with Goblins and Orcs - the story’s quite the uninspiring, unoriginal bore, as well. Players will be initially introduced to the game’s vengeance driven cover model, Inphyy, and her righteous, do-gooding stepbrother Aspharr. These two commonplace would-be saviors are chosen by Princess Ectavarr of Varfarrin to lead the Temple Knights and bring an end to a centuries spanning war between the forces of Light and Dark. Sound similar to dozens and dozens of other fantasy tales and video games that came before it? Well, that’s because it’s a cliché-riddled plot we’ve read and heard many times before. To uncover every facet of N3’s insipid storyline, though, you must complete the game with all six of the game’s regular characters and the “secret” unlockable character. On the other hand, the chances of the title’s lackluster gameplay compelling you to do so are slim-to-none.
Let’s face it - N3’s “inspiration”, the Dynasty Warriors games, have been on a steady decline with the release of each almost identical sequel. Walking across rather large, pointless maps mostly tapping on a singular attack button over and over does not necessarily lead to an overabundant amount of joy. Actually, most people if given the choice would probably rather watch old reruns of The Facts of Life, just because the “token black character” Tootie and the overweight, but always jovial Jo are so darn cool. Ninety-Nine Nights sadly follows this tired formula to a comical degree. Before you drop into each battle, you get to choose between two different guard units that will follow you around the game’s lifeless environments. As you guide your forces in combat, you’ll rack up a kill count at the bottom of the screen, fight large, identical groups of enemies and search obvious points on the map for “hidden” treasure chests that may contain power-ups or new weapons and stat-buffing items you can equip. Hmmm… where have I seen that before? It seems so uncannily familiar.
Yes, Ninety-Nine Nights is an outright clone, but on a positive note it controls rather smooth. Moving around the map is easy, and directing your attacks in the appropriate direction will never become a problem. N3 does its best to utilize an extensive combo system, and if you actually took the time to memorize some of the lengthy button combinations there are instances where they could be found useful. For the most part, though, the more damage intensive combos seem to execute in slow motion and cause you to take many unnecessary hits. So, you’re more often than not forced to rely on the trusty combo of pressing the X button - a lot.
As you repetitively work your way through each character’s levels and slaughter hordes of enemies on the field of battle, they release red balls of light your character will absorb. These red balls fill up your Orb Attack Gauge, which once filled, will allow you to unleash an attack more powerful than your regular strikes and combos, aptly titled the “Orb Attack!!!” The fun does not stop there, though, children. When you unleash an Orb Attack your fallen foes will begin to give you blue balls (I’ll admit it, pun intended). The blue balls fill up a meter directly below your Orb Attack Gauge. After the meter is complete and begins flashing, you can launch a devastating force known as an Orb Spark. Each of the characters have different Orb Attacks and Orb Sparks, and they’re very theatrical in manner. On the down side, some of the characters’ specials are more useful, and less flashy, than others and will obviously make more of an impact in turning the tide of a losing battle.
In fact, a losing battle is not so uncommon in Ninety-Nine Nights as it’s quite easy to be overwhelmed by the game’s imbalanced difficulty. You’re awarded experience points based on your kill count and how well you string attacks together that level up your character and improve his/her stats. On some occasions, though, the difficulty will progress faster than your character’s level and you’ll have to resort to repeating stages you’ve already finished. Otherwise, you’ll just keep wasting your time, since you lose any experience or items gained on the current level of play whenever you die. You’re also given a rank at the end of each level, ranging from E (worst) to S (best). Reaching the highest rank on a level usually results in more experience gained and you’ll sometimes be awarded one of the higher-powered weapons or items available to your character. This means you can expect to play through each stage a dozen times, regardless.
I’ve purposely made it no secret that being pushed to replay through the game’s tedious stages can be rather snore-inducing, but the game’s visual presentation is at least good enough to make you wake up and take notice. Each of the playable characters, and their allies and enemies, are modeled expertly, albeit with rather garden variety designs. The character animations are very fluid and nothing to scoff at. Not to mention, the insurmountable amount of units capable of being on-screen without any slowdown is quite remarkable. Yet, despite the rest of the game’s visual manner, the environments, while colorful and brimming with detail, are void of any ambient life. You would expect such massive, vibrant locales to be teeming with life forms besides those attached directly to the in-game combat.
On the audial side of things, the vocal performances are almost unbearable, and it doesn’t help that the script is an absolute mess. The soundtrack is a love it or leave it affair, as the offerings are either sterile techno driven beats, or fluffy “epic” orchestral pieces. Although, you can look on the bright side of things - you can rip your favorite music CDs onto your console’s HDD and substitute the music selection. Now, we just need the option to eliminate the voice-overs and record our own.
N3’s not going to appeal to a massive audience. I would even go as far as to say this game will have an extremely hard time finding a fanbase in the North American market. It doesn’t help matters that Q-Entertainment and Phantagram opted not to include any form of multiplayer, whether it be on a single console or over Xbox Live. That feature alone could’ve increased this title’s importance. If you’re a die-hard KOEI fan, and need a button-mashing fix with a fantasy flavor, N3 may be just right for you. Otherwise, the average player will probably only find merit in the 500 easily attainable achievement points you collect for completing the game with each character. File this one under rental only.
Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 8.5
Audio: 6
Worth: 4
Overall: 5.5
+ Some nice visuals and effects
+ The control isn’t painful
- Most of the game is
- Earplugs, anyone?
? Where’s the multiplayer at?
