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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  Gaming  |  But is it Fun?  |  Topic: Ninety-Nine Nights - Phantagram / Q Entertainment - 360 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Ninety-Nine Nights - Phantagram / Q Entertainment - 360  (Read 4128 times)
schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345


WWW
on: January 22, 2008, 08:08:12 AM

Like a lot of other people, I enjoy a bit of Dynasty/Samurai Warriors now and then. It seems also, that, well, at least someone at one of the two studios listed above does as well. So much so, that they decided to do it better than Koei.

Instead of a bewildering array of Han Dynasty-Era Chinese characters arms with all kinds of crazy weapons, N3 gives you an initial choice of One character. The chick on the boxcover with Wings built into her armour - Inphyy. As well as the somewhat cool wings on her armor, she also has made a stylistic choice in her armor, in that the center of her chest is exposed, the better to see some titties with. No matter about her unprotected heart, lung or other internals. The character designers decided that titties take precedence over vaguely realistic armor.

As for the other selectable characters, well, initially, there aren't any. Later on, you can apparently open up 6 other characters, but initially, you play through Inphyy's story.

The gameplay is much the same as the Warriors' series. In that you mash the ever-loving hell out of one or two buttons, to beat off endless waves of enemies. The game does render a mightily impressive number of enemies on-screen at once, but they're mostly identical, ripped off from Peter Jackson's take of Moria Goblins. Later they vary a little, but you're still fighting 2 or 3 different mob models in units of 40 identical guys.

Unlike the traditional Koei method of having to make choices about which way you go through the map, and which of your allies you help, the missions here (so far, I'm up to about the 4th one) simply require you to button mash your way through endless waves of enemies in a linear path. There are pickups as you go along, which don't seem to do much, and I've leveled a couple of times, which also doesn't seem to do much (or anything). Like the Warriors games, you also get to have a couple of units of troops, who acts as your useless helpers and mostly stand around doing nothing while you slaughter your enemies (who also mostly stand around doing nothing). In this, the games are much the same. In DW you get to choose your men's weapons, here you get to choose unit types.

Lacking the choice of characters (I know they're pretty much identical in DW, but you at least get to choose an interesting character model). This game is also only 1-player, so it also lacks the 2-player beat-em-up factor that's one of the Koei games' saving graces. The soundtrack is okay I guess. Generic operatic fantasy-film music.

Basically, it's a poor man's Dynasty/Samurai Warriors. If you want a button-mashing fix, choose one from Koei's endless series of the same game.
(Now, how much can I get for this thing as a trade-in?)

--

Don't Waste your time.

Sent in by Azazel.
Phildo
Contributor
Posts: 5872


Reply #1 on: January 22, 2008, 08:27:57 AM

I enjoyed this game a great deal.  The game's difficulty ramps up significantly after the first character, and the new characters you unlock are diverse and awesome.  Also, it's beautiful.

I would have said Rent It.
Special J
Terracotta Army
Posts: 536


Reply #2 on: January 22, 2008, 08:40:08 AM

The demo bored me.  I couldn't finish it.  My assessment was the same: button mash to mow down wave on wave of bad guys.

Even with the bouncing boobie close-up in the intro movie it couldn't keep me.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2008, 08:42:03 AM by Special J »
Yegolev
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Posts: 24440

2/10 WOULD NOT INGEST


WWW
Reply #3 on: January 22, 2008, 08:44:27 AM

I agree about the demo.

Why am I homeless?  Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question.
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Azazel
Contributor
Posts: 7735


Reply #4 on: January 22, 2008, 05:55:37 PM

I ended up keeping it and not trading it in because EB only offered me $15 for it.

It is indeed very pretty. Well, except for the fact that your troops are all identical. And each seperate formation of your enemies are also made of identical troops. Well, the backgrounds are nice, but really, they're not that nice. I guess it's kind of pretty. Assassin's Creed. That was a beautiful looking game. This one is an okay looking game.

After the initial "is that all this fucking is?" the game actually becomes fun for a little while, as you pull off spectacular-looking combos and shit like that. Then it becomes tedious.
The story is kind of interesting, well, except to see it you really need to level up your character a bit to get through some of the later stages, since the bosses are so fucking incredibly cheap. So you need to level. Which means you need to GRIND previously-completed levels. In a fucking beat-em-up. I guess that's the replay value. There's that tedious I spoke about.

Some missions can take close to an hour. No save points, no reset points, cheap bosses that 4-shot you. Oh, you can't hit enemies who are either hitting someone else or being hit by someone else. Which means you're better off leaving your (useless anyway) troops behind at the start of each level since they make it hard to spot the goblins, since they all use the same somewhat muddy palette, and because your troops will then bork up the boss fights even more.

I picked it up new/sealed from eBay for AU$40 (less than half retail) and I still feel ripped off. Since EB aren't offering much, though, I'll probably try and grind through it to completion, a level at a time, here and there.

« Last Edit: January 22, 2008, 05:57:26 PM by Azazel »

http://azazelx.wordpress.com/ - My Miniatures and Hobby Blog.
Phildo
Contributor
Posts: 5872


Reply #5 on: January 22, 2008, 06:12:59 PM

Once you get to level 10 it's fun to go back and absolutely thrash the easy levels.  Well, I thought it was fun anyway.  There's only one character I never maxed out because of the aforementioned grind sucking.  But it was the only character I didn't enjoy playing out of all of them.  There are 8 in total, or something like that, and they all have reasonably unique skill sets despite the button mashing.

Point taken on the graphics.  I amend my earlier statement to say that the game looks "nice".  And you can still see more enemies on screen than in Dynasty Warriors, even if they are all muddy and same-looking.
Azazel
Contributor
Posts: 7735


Reply #6 on: January 22, 2008, 08:49:29 PM

Other shitty things about this game:

When you kill trolls, they often drop loot. Often the loot they drop you can't pick up because the loot is under their corpses, and the game's collision detection won't let you walk through their corpses.

Similarly, when you kill a mob that's on a hill rise, or below you on a hill, or your attack knocks them up or down there and they drop loot.. guess what? You can't get up/down there! Even when it's 4 feet away on a rise you or I could get to in real life.

Killed a boss and trying to pick up the item? You have about two seconds if you're lucky, because the level is ending on you!

In the middle of a kickass multi-hundred-point combo? Oops! There's a cut-scene, so it's broken. Not only that, when you get back from el cut sceno you'll be standing around in a field full of mobs attacking with your dick in your hand. You just got F'ed in the A.


http://azazelx.wordpress.com/ - My Miniatures and Hobby Blog.
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