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!!

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