Xbox 360 impressions: Ninety-Nine Nights (N3)
How disappointing. Since Tetsuya Mizuguchi has been responsible for so many great games, including Sega Rally, Space Channel 5 and Lumines, we've decided to forgive him for his involvement in the Phantagram developed Ninety-Nine Nights. It's not that the game is incredibly bad, only that it's overly chaotic and suffers from an awkward camera system. Taking control of the outrageously bossy Inphyy, it didn't take long before we charged right into the midst of a horde of trolls, swinging our sword wildly in the hopes of killing everything in our path. There's really very little skill required to succeed, and even the most basic of combos is effective at taking out the fairly inept enemies.
Though the game boasts some beautiful graphics and an insane number of on-screen characters, it requires almost no mental input whatsoever--it's like your brain goes into a button mashing autopilot, taking care to press Y every now and then to unleash a slightly different looking move. We don't need to tell you that this game plays similarly to Dynasty Warriors, but we do need to mention that the game quickly starts feeling repetitive and even a little boring. The camera does a terrible job of keeping up with the action and, given the number of times we had to correct the angle in order to find Inphyy in the mass of polygons, I have a feeling that it simply gives up at some point. We did too.
