Nighty Night Night Demo on Marketplace

Haven' t finished downloading it yet, but I' m hoping it' s fun. My connection' s too slow for these 500mb+ d/ls, so maybe someone can say whether it' s any good...

Been playing the Table Tennis and DOA demos too much heh.

FU*KING KICKASS!!!

The demo is only on level but it' s huge and filled with about 6000 enemies alltogether.

You play as Aspharr...



...who' s one of 6 playable characters in the retail version and the demo is set during level 3 which looks to be a Mordor inspired valley complete with golblins and trolls.

The first thing to note about the demo is that the title screen and opening CG are both stunning. The title screen is a greenish pool of water that ripples realistically and just looks cool. The opening CG is gorgeous and very well animated although it' s not quite up there with Advent Children and the western voice acting is pretty tacky.

The demo moves from the CG into a realtime cutscene via a very quick load where the controls are displayed onscreen. The realtime cutscene is almost as nice as the CG with awesome lighting and amazingly detailed characters. The camera pans out slightly and all of a sudden your in control. I hadn' t even realised the game had switched from the cutscene to gameplay as the level of detail on the main characters (which is near CG quality) doesn' t change.

The character handles perfectly with ' A' for jump, ' X' for quick attack, ' Y' for heavy attack, ' B' for orb spark (special badass move that allows you to kill 100' s of enemies at a time), ' LT' for block, ' RT' for special moves and both the D-pad and bumber buttons controlling your NPC soldiers.

When enemies die they leave orbs which automatically float to your character and become absorbed building up your orb gauge. When the gauge is full you can trigger an orb spark which changes your roster of moves into much more powerful and spectacular variants. Levelling up is done automatically and you seem to level up several times in the demo with your orb gauge expanding, gaining new moves and abilities, faster attacks etc.

Throughtout the level there are items that can be picked up which include new weapons that have different powers and most importantly something called Angels Wings which gives your character translucent (AWESOME) looking wings that allow for devastating air attacks. Theye were by far the coolest thing i' ve found so far.

I racked up a 1864 hit combo (although the combo system is fairly lax) and killed about 5500 enemies myself (with the rest being killed by my soldiers and Imphy (one of the other characters playable in the retail version).

The art direction is awesome and the main characters armour is badass. The game feels like it could have been a Lord of the Rings hack & slash game because the environment and enemies in the demo mirror that style. The retail version looks like it has lots of different locations but i' m only commenting on the demo. The environment is moody and dark but has much nicer textures than i had previously thought and the level has a very cinematic feel to it thanks to the Soul Calibur-esque music.

Character animations are great, as is the framerate (60fps) and what might seem initially as very repetative moves opens up as you level up throughout the demo where by the end you have a nice selection of death dealing blows to use.

The only things that let the demo down (and likely the retail game) is the lack of any real AI. Enemies charge you without hesitation even if you' ve just destroyed 300 of their friends in a fiery lightning bolt throwing assault. The AI is NUMB for a lack of a better word but since this is a hack & slash em up in much the same vein as Dynasty Warriors then it can mostly be forgiven.

I' ll be buying this upon it' s UK release and i' ll be playing the demo probably as often as i play the Lost Planet demo (at least twice weekly) and i can see why Famitsu gave the game such a high score. It kicks ass!

You guys beat me to it.

It sounds like a Dynasty Warriors game. But a good one.

Iv' e played it for a couple minutes and for the time that I have have to say it was fun ......I didn' t find the master goblin guy yet (cos had to go dinner) but what does everyone think of it so far?.

I' d agree with what Majik said. It' s pretty fun, but quite hard as well. Took me three attempts to get to the end of the level, and then I only got a B rating heh.

I think I played Dynasty Warriors 4 before, and there are similarities but I couldn' t get into DW4 whereas N3 is pretty ' accessible' .

The intro and prologue CG were veery pretty, and while the in-game cutscenes and gameplay visuals are pretty average in comparison, theres a lot of detail and stuff going on at silky smooth frames. There' s only the occasional slow-down when you cast a big spell in the middle of a whole screen of enemies, but that only happened once or twice.

I liked the music a lot, which matches the overall japanese/medi-evil theme that comes across.

And theres a good variety of combos, special moves and power ups, with a spectacular uber move that can only be done when you' re fully charged up. It can be easy to lose your imagination after a while though and just resort to mashing the X button.

Voice acting is very tacky, and Inphyy didn' t really neeed special armour that wraps around her breasts, but I guess that brings in the sales.

So I' ll probably pick this up if the story and the power ups turn out to be good. Otherwise I can see the game being pretty samey after a while.

ORIGINAL: dasher232

Iv' e played it for a couple minutes and for the time that I have have to say it was fun ......I didn' t find the master goblin guy yet (cos had to go dinner) but what does everyone think of it so far?.

FU*KING KICKASS!!!

It sounds like a Dynasty Warriors game. But a good one.

It is in a manner of speaking. There' s less emphasis on tactics and commanding soldiers than in the Dynasty Warriors games. This is like Kingdom Under Fire meets Final Fantasy meets Devil May Cry meets Dynasty Warriors...

The characters are very Kingdom Under Fire/Final Fantasy while the gameplay is like Dynasty Warriors only it feels more like Devil May Cry...

It' s fucking awesome!

The characters are so detailed and the combat is INSANE. It' d be easy to write it off as a mindless button mashing game but it' s not. The combo' s are complex and there are an impressive move list that gradually increases as you go along.

I mentioned the Angels Wings before that allow for killer air attacks, ....well once you' ve levelled up your orb gauge and filled it again you can unleash a massive light blast that you target manually that literally burns hundreds of enemies into oblivion.

I' ll see if i can find my camera and take some photos of the demo.

I' m so surprised that some of my friends that said before when I told them I might get it are now mailing me saying the found it really fun. And I really enjoyed learning the combos and stuff so makes it easier when I play the real game. Hvae to say some of the dialogue is just laughable though. But yea i' m glad I ordered it now, I was kinda worried but I feel confident i' ll like it now.

Yeah I' ve been interested in this game. Does anyone know if you can choose what character to be as well as the level in the retail game like DW or is it completely linear where you have to use a certain character for each level?

I' ve never heard of this game before. I shall download the demo now.

@Evil Man: Be aware it' s actually called Ninety-Nine Nights! I was just having fun (by myself) with the title of the thread...

oh man....i have awaited so long for this game but i still don´t have a 360

DOWNLOADING NOW!!

Terry Bogard - currently the most Unhelpful member of the Kikizo forums.

Let' s see....

Pros:

- Nice intro movie


Cons:

Graphics are really bad. It looks like an Xbox 1 game in Hi-Def.
Gameplay is crappy, its like dynasty warriors, I guess its cool if you like that... I think those kinds of games are stupid.
Like all of Microsoft' s " wannabe" Japanese games the characters are generic and the voices dont fit them well. It just screams " American game trying too hard to be japanese" I propose they buy some japanese companies and let them make the games, watching this is like watching japanese games that try to be american (like MGS) - it just doesn' t work. Let the americans make american games, let the japanese make the japanese games.

But yeah I didn' t expect to like a dynasty warriors type of game, BUT this game REALLY looks bad, I' m playing it on HDTV at 1080i and it looks very blurry, or rather washed out, reminded me of the washed out textures of some old PS2 games. I might try it at 480p and 720p to see if theres any difference in the washed out graphics. Maybe its not optimized for 1080i =/

Tetsuya Mizuguchi, amoungst others hardly sound american to me mate.

I' ve got it on download so I' ll post up what I think, but I think I' ve missed something....

- could you give me a list of Microsoft' s " wannabe" (implying inferior from your tone) Japanese titles are - this sounds a little like you are pre-judging titles which have not been released yet?

I' m going to give them a chance, and Im still hoping for something from N3, which I have heard of before.

Yeah well nevermind tried 480p and 720p, even hooked it up to a monitor with the VGA cable... still looks like complete shit.

The game does something to the draw distance so that enemies, backgrounds, objects, etc. from a distance are blurred out and look really crappy. There is also pop up, the game is not very detailed at all to begin with so theres no excuse for blades of grass to just appear and dissapear when you get a few feet away/towards them.

Ever played Sudeki? It' s the king of wannabe japanese trash titles MS shoots from its ass. That stuff is such a waste of time, it won' t sell for shit in japan, it wont sell for shit in europe or the US. There' s no point to it. Just let the devs make games they want instead of forcing them to make fake japanese games.

you cannot put sudeki in the same boat as N3, that is insane....

Space Channel 5, Rez and Lumines and a Korean development studio (Phantagram) have all had great response.

not only that but famitsu gave it 37/40.... some japanese really like it......

besides, the Japanese copied the classic British sports cars of the 1960s in every way.

Now Japan make some of the best British style sports cars in the world, probably because people gave them a chance!!!

too quick to write it all off imho! oh god its 2:30am....

You' re comparing cars to games?

Space Channel 5 created its own fantasy 60s/70s/space era setting, it didnt try to be american or japanese style, it was unique thats why it was good. And Rez has a universal style. You don' t see big muscle guys in it, or anime looking blue-haired girls with giant eyes in it. Never played Lumines.

Well anybody who is interested in the points raised about the demo in this thread can check out the quick video of the demo being played.

LINK

Er-herm.... Is this thing on?? Ok..

Let me just say that.... this game has exceeded my expectations for it!

Firstly, I get home at quarter to 3, download the demo, which gets done a lot
quicker than usual...

Then I fire up the N3 demo... 2 things I am loving right now.. The art direction
and the music. Also, for a hack n' slash, the story seems very deep.

After getting a nice taste of what to expect in the full version, I get to the title
screen, I stop and close my eyes, listening to the music, and doing that stupid
motion that musicians do with their hand when they can feel the music.

I press start.

Cut scene!! Woohoo!!! (One of the single reasons I actually like MGS, the only
reason to be exact!)

Using the in-game engine to render, I wasn' t expecting a " Squeenix" budget
CGI, but it was enough to definitely help the story along.. First thing I notice
is the bad lip syncing..

The game loads quite quickly, (blu-ray pfft) and I finally get to play my first
REAL japanese moving around game (I say moving around because DOA was the
first jap 360 game I played.lol) I spend five minutes getting used to the controls,
it handles nicely so I start moving around; my first batch of goblins didn' t stand
a chance.

Now me being me, I decide to button mash randomnly (but strategically) to see
what combos I can pull out, and I also tested what everyone has been saying
about the game - a hack n' slash with substance. I find that I can pull off a fair
amount of nice combos, but I would really like to know what I am doing.. So
I pause and check the command list, there' s a nice melton mix of combos, but
too many button presses to actually remember, so I remember 3 and then I
realise how much I want to play as Inphyy.

Now I am ready to roll, but first my kryptonite kicked in: default camera controls.

Now, if you' re one of those people where FPS are helicopters to you (?), then
you' ll find that inverted suits your hands better and shock horror, the bast@rd
demo doesn' t have the option to change camera controls!!!

Fine!

So I press on, now came about the time when I realised that you can actually
dash with the " R" trigger (In case you were wondering, yes, I am one of
those people that does not read the loading screen when it tells you the controls).

This nifty feature helps to navigate the battlefield with more guile. At this point I
wanted to just do one of those big screen clearer moves, and after conversating
and familiarising myself with the power/health gauges at the bottom-left of the
screen, I began to realise that I am WAY away from doing my BIG kahuna move.

Difficulty:

Here is when my brother asked me " What would you give this game so far?"
I replied " About a 7 out of 10, it' s kinda repetitive" how quickly that changed
when I had my first real encounter with hostile A.I. Now I didn' t really expect the
A.I in this to do my taxes, and pay my bills, but it was decent enough in the
sense that, if the right moves aren' t pulled off at the right time, you WILL find
yourself on the ground mostly!

ARCHERS are a b!tch...

I was feeling a bit brave, so I told my men to hold position. No come back!!!

Yes, I needed them. I was thinking back to Otogi days, where the protagonist
could just jump in and clear a room as if he announced he was carrying a bomb
in his trousers. But Lord! I find that the characters powers are superior but
not cosmic! So I jump straight in the heat of my first " horde after horde"
battle. I was in one of those moments where my health was low and I could' ve
sworn I uttered the words... " Is this really the end?"

.....and Hell no it wasn' t!

This game has a levelling up system, and just when one courageous goblin thought
he had laid me to waste... I levelled up!!! And what' s this? A new move?? Why
thank you.... and oh? My health replenished fully????

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!

The level up could not have come at a better time!!!

Now, the big hitter and the main reason I played this demo finally came!

When it did... OMG!!!

The enemies flew into the sky!!! SO high! So High!!!

Then came down..

I had to do it again!

Overall, the demo is seriously amazing, most of the time the framerate is pretty
solid. Asphaar has enough moves to satisfy an honest pirate, it caught me off
guard this one. The more I watched people playing the more I was like..

That will get soooo repetitive....

Then I realised they were crap and were only using one combo... Who the
f$ck does that????!!!!

There are enough combos to kepp you playing, and rewards for levelling up.

I haven' t completed the demo yet because I am tired and can' t concentrate.
As soon as this comes out in the UK, I will be soOooOo happy to hand over money
for it. Then play it!

Yes, as good as the demo is, I do have a few niggles about it...

- The strangling camera: The camera needs to pan out much farther in order
to be able to see a lot of the action, it feels too strangled.

- Voice acting: Whilst being as about generic as an apple trying to stand out
in a fruit section, I hope they include an option for japanese voices.

- Save points: I died after playing the demo for about 20 mins, and
shot straight to the beginning of the level... WHAT? There need to be
frequent save points..

Finally - Archers: There needs to be a move that can physically
burn them from the game.

Otherwise that is it! If you haven' t downloaded the demo.... DO IT!!!

Last note: On thing I loved about the demo was when Inphyy ran ahead to kill
and I could see her red blade flashing up everywhere amongs a sea of smelly
goblins.. I just watched as they were all thrown helplessly into the air, and I swear
I heard one of them say " Goddamn!!!"

Done!! For those of you that read this... COngratulations, you' re crazy..

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

I played it a little more and the graphics do seem OK-ish if you just keep the camera looking down and dont raise it to the semi-3rd person view, because when you do thats when you see the nasty blurs on environments and enemies across the view distance.

I completely disagree with Evil Man (he' s a nub).

The game is awesome and the graphics are awesome. I' m playing on my new ViewSonic VX922 19" 2ms LCD in high definition.

Things that are out of focus are blurry (just like in real life). All of the artwork is first class.

The opening CG movie is stunningly high quality.
Gameplay is quite fun and there are a ton of differnet moves you keep learning new ones as you progress.

The only thing I don' t like about it is the voice overs, they aren' t horrible but they aren' t great either. I would rather have the original with subtitles. The demo doesn' t let you pick any options. I don' t know if the full version lets you or not.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

What happens in N3 is like if I was driving in my car and saw people and cars two blocks down the road and they appeared blurry, it' s unrealistic.

I don' t think I' m crazy and just imagining bad graphics, it really looks bad, I mean compare it to DOA4 or Oblivion in hi-def, and it looks about half as good IMO.

Ya lets not forget that DOA has on avg. 2 entities on screen whereas N3 has fuckall 100' s! And they arnt even full blown idiots either. Hell caught a few of them get to a good spot behind me and charge up an attack. And did you think that you can' t notice the excess detail simply because the game is moving at a consistant freakish rate?

I willadmit tho that the enviroments are a bit barren but fuck with that many characters wouldnt that shit slow down and put a damper on these crazy battles?

About the blurring whether its there to keep the game at 60fps or artistic reasons I don' t know, however it shoulndt really hinder the game much as you really should be focusing on the people trying to put a sword up your ass. What te fuck are you doing during the fights? Wondering which of the goblins is the most fuckable or somthing?

Like all of Microsoft' s " wannabe" Japanese games the characters are generic and the voices dont fit them well. It just screams " American game trying too hard to be japanese" I propose they buy some japanese companies and let them make the games, watching this is like watching japanese games that try to be american (like MGS) - it just doesn' t work. Let the americans make american games, let the japanese make the japanese games.

WTF?! Wasnt this game developed by a Korean and Japanese studio?! Microsoft is just publishing it. That quote there practicall shows you dont know one damn thing you' re talking about. Sure we' re all entitle to an opinion but please ooooh please make them a fucking educate opinion you ignorant bastard.

Why do you get all defensive because the game sucks? It' s not like I made it. Blame microsoft. The environments arent just barren, theyre straight out of a ps2 game, they look awful. I admit when you' re fighting 200 goblins at the same time and they all fill up your screen it looks nice, but that just make it even worse to go from the coolness of fighting 200+ entities on the screen to the lameass environments.

As far as why I' m looking at the environments, uh, if you actually played the demo and stopped talking out of your ass, you' d know everytime you beat a batch of enemies or a battalion, whatever you wanna call them you have to walk a bit to get to areas with more enemies, this takes 1 minute or so of running forward around the area and you need to put on the high 3rd person view to see ahead, and when you do its like you' re playing a PS2 game, except with a detailed main character and army.

So yes, when the screen swarms up with enemies it looks pretty cool, but it isn' t always 100% of the time full of people, you have to walk around the barren areas too.

ORIGINAL: Tiz
I was feeling a bit brave, so I told my men to hold position. No come back!!!

Yes, I needed them. I was thinking back to Otogi days, where the protagonist
could just jump in and clear a room as if he announced he was carrying a bomb
in his trousers. But Lord! I find that the characters powers are superior but
not cosmic! So I jump straight in the heat of my first " horde after horde"
battle. I was in one of those moments where my health was low and I could' ve
sworn I uttered the words... " Is this really the end?"

.....and Hell no it wasn' t!

All my soldiers except for 1 (the one with the nice armor) were dead halfway through the demo, they are pansies and you have to protect them or they die, I think they should be protecting ME. Anyway I let them all get slaughtered when I was down to 2 men I had no problem taking on the rest of the leveling including the final fight with that big ass troll, I deffinetely didn' t need my army.

ORIGINAL: Evil Man

Like all of Microsoft' s " wannabe" Japanese games the characters are generic and the voices dont fit them well. It just screams " American game trying too hard to be japanese" I propose they buy some japanese companies and let them make the games, watching this is like watching japanese games that try to be american (like MGS) - it just doesn' t work. Let the americans make american games, let the japanese make the japanese games.

ORIGINAL: Evil Man

Why do you get all defensive because the game sucks? It' s not like I made it. Blame microsoft.

...if you actually played the demo and stopped talking out of your ass,

It' s fine for you to have an opinion but you need to take your own advice and stop talking out your ass. Do you know the difference between a publisher and developer?

Microsoft had nothing to do with the development of N3. Microsoft didn' t make N3. Phantagram and Q Entertainment co developed the game together. If you read up about them you' ll know that they' re not western developers.

Just another ingorant person jumping on the bandwagon....

So you' re saying you agree the game sucks and have nothing to say other than ramble on about publishers and developers? Gotcha.

What happens in N3 is like if I was driving in my car and saw people and cars two blocks down the road and they appeared blurry, it' s unrealistic.

You know when things are out of focus in the background.... That' s what N3
is doing, when you have a spare moment, hold your finger in front of your eye
and concentrate on it.... You' ll notice that you can' t really make out anything
in the background, or if you can, just about...

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

I dont notice the camera focusing on anything, when I play, say, Halo, I see my gun near me and I can see a long distance away, the gun is not blurred out, nor is the distance. The character in the game is like the gun, immediately infront of me, well almost anyway, yet the distance is all blurred out.

Evil Man, just to clear something up. The " blurry" thing is actually newer texturing technology that you will actually see in most Next-Gen games (Black on XBox and PS2 " faked" the technology). Play any recent sports game and you will see what is being done.

It may in fact be just to keep the framerate up, but I think it adds to the graphics rather than detracts from them. Actually, I played it for my friends, and they all shouted about how cool the background blur was. If the screen was too clear I think it would actually take away from the artistry - you' re at war here, son.

To each his own I guess, but I for one found the demo to be quite enthralling, and am definitely considering this for purchase!!

Oh, and Tiz, I noticed you complaining about the camera. Forgive me if you' ve tried already, but if you click the Right Thumbstick the camera pans out a little. I found that to be my camera view of choice! Forgive me if you' ve already tried it.

*High 5' s Tim Strickland*

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

i knew it wasn' t just me..

*tries to barge in for a group high 5.. gets a slap instead*

It isn' t just the loss of focus. If you put your finger infront of your eyes whats beyond your finger looks out of focus, NOT blurred. There is a difference.

Blurr example = if you wear glasses, smudge your fingers against the lenses, and put them back on and try to see, THAT is a blur. And that is what N3 has, a washed out blur effect accross the far distance.

ORIGINAL: Evil Man

It isn' t just the loss of focus. If you put your finger infront of your eyes whats beyond your finger looks out of focus, NOT blurred. There is a difference.

Blurr example = if you wear glasses, smudge your fingers against the lenses, and put them back on and try to see, THAT is a blur. And that is what N3 has, a washed out blur effect accross the far distance.

Are you still talking?........

Seriously, Evil Man, what ruffled your feathers?

If you want to complain about over-use of blur, find a few " in-game" Motorstorm
demos.

If you do look at your finger up close, the background is even more blurry
than the N3 demo!

If you can' t see that, then you my friend are genetically enhanced and a threat to
society, and rest assured George Bush knows all about you.

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

It' s called " depth of field" , and a lot of next gen games (including DOA4) use it.

Is that idiot still talking complete rubbish?!

Resort to insults when you are getting destroyed in an argument - typical.